E100: You Are Not What Happened: You Are Who Experienced It

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. I feel it makes spirituality, not just spirituality, all life way, way more complicated than it is or needs to be. For example, what you look at is what you see. If I stare at a car and I’m fixated, I like the psychological words, I’m fixated on the car and that car is a major part of my life. Why? Because I fixated on it. Is it a major part of my life? Of course not. It’s no different than any other car. A car is a car. But if I take my consciousness, my awareness of being and I fixated on something, then that’s what my life is. My life isn’t what I’m not aware of. My life is what I’m aware of. It’s so logical. It’s silly to even talk about only that which your consciousness is aware of has anything to do with your life.

How much is your consciousness aware of? I know you think you’re a very aware being. The truth of the matter is you’re aware of nothing at any given moment. Your conscious is aware. If you’re lucky you’re not staring at a car or a person, maybe you can see a field or a broader view of something because you’re not caught, which very rare and I’m just talking about outside, talking about you’re caught inside your thoughts, your emotions pretty narrow field, isn’t it? But you don’t really think so. You say yes, but you don’t pay attention. So what you’re seeing, I teach this all the time and I know nobody gets it, but I keep teaching it. Anyways. What you are experiencing at any given moment, including this moment, any moment in your life, you’re experiencing what you’re conscious of, let’s just limit it for a moment to what’s coming through your senses.

What percentage of what is going on in the universe is that now that to say the universe, how about Gainesville? What percentage of what is literally going on in Gainesville? Every house, every word, every single thing that’s going on, every single place in Gainesville is what you’re experiencing. Point oh one. We just hit your life. Your whole life is about what you’re conscious of, so you’re conscious of nothing. You can’t only know what you’ve experienced and what you’re busy paying attention to is what you’ve experienced. You’re not paying any attention to what you’re not experiencing, and it is 700 billion trillion times every moment. You are missing everything, but you think you know something, don’t you? Come on, be honest. Now you tell me how much you know absolutely nothing. Take a breath. Well, why would I want to think like that? Course it’s the truth. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

That’s the truth that sets you free. The willingness to understand, okay, nothing I do about it right now, but the reality is I’m experiencing what’s in front of me and it’s nothing. And then the next moment ready, I’m experiencing what’s in front of me and it’s nothing. What’s it? Zero times, zero times, zero times zero times zero, zero. That’s how much you and I know nothing. What good is that? It’s a lot of good because what’s the alternative? The alternative, and this is what happens to a human being. They take what they’ve experienced. That’s all they have, and they put it together in their mind. Why? In their mind. Because the moment in front of you goes away. When instantly the next moment’s already there. Okay? So you can’t know anything you don’t know. Anyways, you take the nothing that you experienced and you store it inside this thing called your mind.

Do you not do that? So now you’ve taken nothing and you really made something really big out of it. Now, did you store? Come on slowly. Did you store everything you experienced? Which of course is nothing. I’m sorry, I’m going to keep going back to that, but at least that’s what you experienced. Did you store everything that you experienced in that moment inside your mind? Not even close. You throw the white lines, store the clouds, throw the trees, store the people you don’t know. So the car’s driving by. Not a chance, you store the car driving by that you thought you might once like you showed the car driving by that you once owned and your first time you kissed somebody was in that car. At least it looks somewhat like that car. You store the stuff you decide to store. So now not only do you have nothing in there, you have fractions, tiny fractions of the nothing.

If you’ve followed me so far, you’re learning everything there is to learn. This is all of spirituality, this is all of enlightenment. This is all of everything that nobody pay attention to. There’s people talking, they store all that. No, but if the person says something that sounded like they were talking about you, you store that. Now understand this thing’s 3D chest, 10 D chest. What do you mean? I’ve only talked to you about what you experienced outside. Are you having thoughts inside? Do you store your thoughts from inside? If you have a thought, can it go to the next moment? Of course it does. Hold onto it. You store thoughts about what happened, then you store them. Then you make up thoughts inside your head. Well, the next thing’s happening about what happened two years ago. So this is 27 degree chess, and do you pay attention to those things you stored?

Yes. That is what the ego is. That is what your mind, we say mind. Mind is a beautiful thing. Just like the world is an amazing place. It’s a bunch of quantum vibrations creating this. Oh my god, unbelievable. Your mind is this phenomenal cray computer. I guess nowadays it’s Nvidia. You have this tremendous power inside. It’s unlimited. Think of a galaxy far, far away. See it. Think of an ant. See it? It can do anything. That’s your mind. You go anywhere as you want. It can go anywhere as you want. See a boat, a bigger boat, queen Mary, a battleship. Your mind can do anything you want, but what you’ve done is you’ve stored this stuff from the past and again, I’ll repeat, there’s nothing It is so nothing. Come on, look at me. You started this tiny little part of the moment that you experienced inside this giant computer. So that’s the data it has no matter how powerful the computer is, it can’t be any better than its data, even ai. Now, one of the things that makes AI so powerful, they program it with everything that was ever known. They spend years and years and anything across the web. What I like, if you pay attention to a chappy tier or anything else, I don’t know if you notice it on the bottom there’s this tiny print. You cannot trust what I said. I lie.

Louis says I can be wrong. And so anyways, you have so much less data than that. It’s ridiculous. You just have the data of what you experienced in that moment, but you can keep repeating. It’s nothing. No, I got married and we had a fight. At the moment you were having that fight. What else was going on in the universe? What other words were coming out? What other situations were taking place in every single household all over the earth, but your little thing that you took in gets the weight of a hundred percent and everything else in the universe gets a zero. There’s black holes eating galaxies at the moment. Somebody said something you couldn’t less. That’s what you’ve stored inside your mind. You stored what you in there held onto and it wasn’t much First it wasn’t much to start with and then you didn’t hold onto very much.

There are people that could say one word to you in time and space and you’ll never forget it. For the rest of your life, you hold it against them or for them there is nothing. They’re 8.3. I try to do this and no one listen to me. There’s 8.3 billion people on the planet earth. Are they talking usually? So one person out of one mouth, out of 8.3 billion, in one moment some noise came out and you’ll never forget it. I’ll never forgive you for saying that. Can you see why I’m teaching you this? How ridiculous is that? So you take that nothing and you store it inside your mind, this beautiful mind that can think anything. Now it’s thinking that it’s not even happening anymore. It was five years ago. Don’t do it, but go back to your high school reunion. You wait and see what goes on inside your mind.

30 year reunion, 2030 year reunion. Every person you see your mind will think about what they were like 20 to 30 years ago. Oh no, I don’t like her at all. She snob. No, no, no. He stole my girlfriend. What are you doing? What happened in between? It’s so big, but I’m trying to teach you that you’re not willing to listen. So I’m telling you what is going on inside of your mind is nothing. This stuff this personal stuff, intellectual mind is beautiful. Think about ruck ships. Think about air conditioning, think about medicine, things that have nothing to do with you. The mind is capable of computing. It’s capable of doing great things, but that’s not what it’s doing. What it’s doing is holding on to the part of the nothing you experience that you decided you want to make something out of the part of the nothing you experience that you want to make a big deal out of you held inside your mind.

That’s what your ego is that use the word ego. I’ve had these experiences. I’m sorry to tell you, they were very small in relation to everything that’s going on. You missed everything. Okay, fine. You had these experiences I wish you could understand they’re meaningless. What every single experience you ever had in relationship to what else was going on, you missed. I like people to say I don’t want to miss anything in my life. You’re missing everything, but yet you think like that. This is just a misuse of mind. So it holds on to the experience it had. At least part of it doesn’t hold on. All of it holds onto the part that made it really happy and it sure as heck holds onto the part it didn’t like that hurt it, that felt bad. Okay, so now you hold that in there and each one you hold in your mind, your mind is Buddhists say mind is empty.

Mind it is. Does that mean it’s stupid? The computer before it’s programmed has all this potential. It’s not gone. It’s just not prejudice yet it hasn’t been told this more important than that. So at some point you’ll wake up and realize that every single moment in the universe is same as every other moment in the universe. It’s a moment in the universe now it’s happening to Mars, happening on earth, happening to you, happening to somebody else. It’s a moment that’s happening in the universe. It’s been going on for how long? 13.8 billion years. Every moment there’s been a moment everywhere. That’s a lot of moments, isn’t it? What did you hold onto? And so you hold onto that moment that was in front of you which is meaningless and you only hold onto the part of the moment in front of you that you either liked or bothered you and you start building inside this brilliant mind, this collection of very selective thoughts that develop your self-concept.

I’m the person that had this experience. I’m the person that went to Niagara Falls with my mother. I’m the person that my father died when I was young. I’m the person that got married and then got divorced. Those are experiences that you had. That’s not who you are. What if you didn’t have that experience? Would you exist? It’s just that one of the experiences that happen in front of you. There are teachings out there which are fine, all teachings are fine and it helps you. I love it that teach you, you built this concept of yourself. Have you noticed that when things happen outside that match the concept of yourself, you’re pretty happy. Have you noticed when they don’t, you’re not happy When you notice, when they match what you don’t want, you’re really screwed up. Therefore, the most of the teaching in this world are how to get what you want, how to pick the person that will make you happy. How to get the job that would passionate you like it, how to look the way you want to look, how to age the way you want to age, how to get everybody to behave the way you want them to behave, how to get everyone to treat you the way you want to be treated. In other words, I did this thing of taking a moment out of the moment that was nothing and stored it inside my head. You stored inside of yourself every single thing ever. Didn’t like yes or no.

Okay? Real quiet. How smart was that? Why don’t you, every time you eat food and it makes you sick, take a little bit home in a doggy bag and every day taste a little bit so you never forget how sick it made you. Would you do that? Then why do you do that with experiences? Why is that intelligent? To have had a moment. I told you the moment is nothing. First I keep going back to that big deal. Somebody said something, big deal, something happened, didn’t happen, whatever big deal, let it go. It’s meaningless. Don’t worry. There’ll be another moment. I guarantee you like with somebody saying don’t listen. No. What’d you say? What did you say? You do not talk to me like that. I will never forget. Oh, that’s really good. Take that which bothered you the and stored inside of yourself and then you wonder why you’re not okay and like I said, most of which is fine, most of the teachings are about this is what you built in there, that collection of stuff.

If you get what matches it, it fills it pretty good. If you don’t get what matched, you’re disappointed. If you get what doesn’t match it, you’re screwed up tremendously. And if you don’t have to get what doesn’t match it, oh boy, I dodged a bullets. I have relief. There are no bullets. There’s just moments in creation unfolding all over the place that have nothing to do with you. You didn’t make this place, it was here before you showed up. How long you been here? 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 years. How long has it been here? 4.5 billion on the planet earth. You’re not going to be here very long. How in the world cannot handle what’s going on in front of you? That’s spirituality. It is not trying to make what’s going on in front of you. Mac the junk you stored inside your head. Is that not what we’re doing every day, every single day?

Plotting, planning, manipulating, controlling, conjuring, buying, stealing, lying to do what? Make it be the way I can handle, make it be the way I like and what happens if it doesn’t happen? So you have to decide once and for all and that’s why I talk like this. I’m sorry. Do you honestly believe that that garbage going on the side of your head, which are just moments of the moments of the nothing that you picked up during your life and decided things need to be this way? Why? If you hadn’t had that experience, you wouldn’t say that. So you just made up this stuff inside your head and guess what? You’re not even staring at the moments of unfolding in front of you. You’re never, you’re staring at the mind interpreting the moments and unfolding in front of you. It’s like a veil that you look through.

So every thing that you look at, do I like it or don’t like it? There’s nothing I like or not like. It’s a bunch of atoms and now we know it’s not even atoms or electron neutrons or protons. What’s out there? Is it not? No, it’s agitations In a quantum wave field there’s nothing to like or not like. There’s just what is? That’s zen. Flowers are red, waters are blue, grass is green. But no, because what you did is the moment folded in front of you, you stored parts of it, not very much like I keep coming back. It’s ridiculous that you stored parts of it when it’s nothing. Anyways, okay, the driver in front of you, anybody get aggravated with the driver in front of them? Anybody not? No. Okay. How big is that moment in the realm of things? You have a driver driving too slow in front of you, not using their blinker, keep stepping on their brakes, whatever.

It’s and you store it. You don’t like it. You tell people about it. You should have seen this guy. Oh my god, it’s ridiculous. I wish the power would call the police a moment. What else is going on in that moment that you’re not experiencing? Why are those moments not equally as important as the moment unfolding in front of you? You think that because it’s the moment folding in front of you, it’s different than every other moment. It’s more special. It’s important is it? No. If the coffee took 15 seconds longer to cook today to brew, you’re not going to have that moment. It’s meaningless in the realm of things. It’s meaningless. It’s just a moment that you happen to be experiencing. Like I said, look up, look down, take five seconds away. You’re going to have a different moment then why is that moment worth making a big darn deal out of?

But you do, don’t you? Those moments that unfold in front of you, I’ve never actually gotten right down or talking to you like this, right? You believe that because the moment unfolded in front of you, it has total meaning and the ones that aren’t unfolding in front of you have no meaning. They’re just moments in the universe, moments in Einstein’s time, space, continuum, every single one of ’em and I just talk about earth, 1.3 million earth fit inside the sun and you stop. Don’t just hear that you’re now made an important moment out of the 100 billion zillions that are moment of falling planet earth and 1.3 million earths inside the sun and there are 300 billion suns stars in your galaxy and there are 2 trillion galaxies, all with hundreds of billions of stars. How important was that guy driving in front of you? How can you be okay?

Can you be okay if you do what I just talked to you about where you make the big deal out of this little meaningless moment and then store inside your head to bother you for the rest of your life? How can you be okay? That’s why you’re not okay. You’re not okay because you’re doing that. You’re not not okay. Somebody said you’re not okay because you didn’t get the car you want. You’re not okay because no, no those are you arguing I’m not okay. Things have to be a certain way for me to be okay. I don’t believe that. I believe you the greatest being ever walked the face of the earth. If you didn’t do the thing you’re doing, you’d be an ecstasy all the time. Every single moment would be gr to look. It’s raining. Wow man, that’s neat. Alright, look, it’s not raining.

Wow, that’s neat. Oh look, this person’s yelling at me. Whoa. Is there not a lot of energy when somebody’s yelling, but if it just blew you away and just went up the channels and every chakra opens, you have a choice. Stop doing what we’ve been talking about. Stop making a big deal out of the meaningless moments that are unfolding in front of you, stop making a big deal. Now it doesn’t mean you’re not going to interact with them. I’ll come back to that. It doesn’t mean you don’t interact with life, it’s an interactive sport. There’s a thing called dharma, right action, but that has nothing to do with that garbage you have stored inside your head over the course of the moments that are meaningless. You made a big deal out of. And now I say I’m going to act based on that. That’s what everyone’s doing isn’t it?

Now you live in a world with 8.3 billion people all have done this garbage inside their head with the moments they had, all of which were different. Everybody has different moments and they’ve developed these concepts and views and opinions and hopes and dreams and preferences about what’s supposed to be happening and no one agrees. How can anybody see it the way you see it if they had totally different experiences throughout their life, but you say things like, how could you say that? I would never say that. Well, you didn’t go through the experience I went through. How could you think like that? How could you vote like that? Both sides? Because they had different experiences and they held on to different ones of those experiences. So it’s so complicated. Scott’s idea of chess has complicated stuff which you made inside each human mind and God didn’t have to do it. You did it for yourself. You made it very interesting. So you finally get to the point where you realize you have a choice. Either you straighten up what’s in there and learn to appreciate and enjoy every single moment of your life. Well what if it’s not a nice moment? Your choice is let the moment screw you up or let it be a moment in the universe that I got the enjoyment of not enjoying it.

Any of you women ever have babies? Wasn’t that fun? You go through moments in your life, hear me when you in high school or how you broke your arm and everybody signed your cast. Wasn’t it fun? It’s your choice what you’re doing with the moments that are unfolding in front of you. By the way, it’s not your choice what the moments are. You don’t control this universe. You don’t control the weather, you don’t control other people’s behavior. I know you’d like to. What does psychology say about people? Man is a sum of his learned experiences. What have I said so far? That’s what you stored inside your head. The sum of your learned experiences. All of them? No, just the ones that either bothered you, you liked the other ones just went right through you guys. So quite a collection in there, don’t you? And like I said, the only time you feel good is when the outside moment matches what you want it to be.

Should it match what you want it to be? Of course not. Why should the weather be what you want it to be? And I say it again. Should the moment unfolding in front of you match what you want it to be? Can we take a moment and rationally talk? The moment in front of you is the end result manifestation of everything that ever made it be that way. The person talking to you, they’re not really talking to you, they’re just talking. They’re talking based on the garbage that going on inside their head. If they had bad dinner last night, they’re not talking one way. They’ve had a nice phone call before you met them. They’re talking another way. They’re some of the learned experiences. Nothing has anything to do with you now we’re going way deep. Nothing has anything to do with you. It has to do with itself.

It has to do with the forces and causes that made it be the way it is. Every moment in front of you, psychology says Man is the son of the learned experiences, right? What does the moment in front of you, what does physics say about the moment in front of you? It’s some of its learned experiences called cause and effect. Nice is have to rain on my birthday. It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. It’s raining because of the forces that came together in that moment that caused moisture fall out of the air. And that is true of why a person’s behavior is the way it is has very little to do with you Freud. That’s what mommy did when daddy did and when this happened. Who broke up with him in high school in junior high and did they have siblings and did they get along with it?

And now you’re standing in front of that saying, be the way I want. It’s not going to be the way you want, is it? And there’s a question though, is it supposed to be the way you want? The way they are is a sum of their learned experiences, which is bad enough. You can learn not to be the sum of learned experience. We don’t want to talk about that, but the way they are is a sum of the learned experiences. The way you want is a sum of your learned experiences. Why would they match? Have you noticed? They don’t. Of course they don’t. If somebody tells you, oh my God, you’re my soulmate, you think exactly the way I do everything you want is exactly what I want. We’re meant to be born together. Run.

Is it not true? And it’s embarrassing to talk this way that you can meet somebody and have not a nice first impression. I say first impression is so important. I’m teaching you first impression of the stupidest thing that anybody could ever formulate any opinion on at all. Here’s my first impression. Your father died yesterday. I don’t know you, but your father died and you’re very depressed. He’s depressed. You don’t want to know him. That’s your first impression. You ate something bad. You had a thought before you talked to me that bothered you. It’s meaningless. It’s crazy the way we live. Is it not? We are out there trying to make everybody and everything be the way we want so we can be okay. That is one way of life. I do not highly recommend it. It causes suffering and gnashing of teeth. Do you ever worry?

Do you know what the word worry means? I know what you worry about. I’m psychic. Ready? Ready. You worry that what you want won’t happen. Did I get it? You worry that what you don’t want will happen. It’s all mess that you made in there. Okay? And now you go out there and think that the answer is to manipulate and control the weather, the people, the box that this everyone, every single thing to match in the moment what you want in that moment. By the way, have you ever changed your mind about what you want? How can anything match? You don’t even know what you want. All you know is at that moment, wherever my head’s at my head and heart, if it’s happening out there, I interpret. By the way, you don’t see what’s going on out there or ever want someone to be attracted to you, ever feel they are.

You don’t know squat. You just see their body language. I had a stomach ache. I wasn’t doing this. You’re just trying to read what’s out there through the veil that you created as a sum learned experiences. You don’t stand a chance. Don’t let anybody tell you can do that. So you have a choice. Let’s get some more positive here. You have a choice. One, pay attention. Not just during this, talk about what I’ve taught you, what’s going on inside your head sugar period all the time. Unless you’re doing intellectual abstract thinking, mine’s very good for that. Hear me? Don’t go to a computer. You do it by the way. I say don’t go to the computer and ask who you should marry. You do it. You go to these dating sites, let’s do those. I love them by the way to go to them. Anything I talk to you about, just forget it when you walk out the room.

Alright? How do you do a dating site? I’ve done this with you before, right? You go on. I’ve never done one, but you go on there and it asks you a question. Do you like men or women? Okay, go. Do you like 12 people or short people? Are you open to this? Do you like that sort of thing? What kind of food do you like? Do you like Chinese? Do you like this? Do you like Japanese? What’s your politics? You fill all this stuff out there goes, what kind of furniture do you like? What kind of animals do you like? Do pets, every single thing. All these very rational questions. Well, they’re very rational. If you’re trying to date yourself, it’s asking you questions about this garbage you stored inside yourself and what you’re saying is I want to find me. And guess what you do?

That is what you want to find. You want to find someone who exactly matches everything you like and don’t like, et cetera, et cetera. One, it’s impossible and no way in the world. Why? Because they are the sum of the learned experiences and so have you had the same moments? No, not even close across your entire life. Even if you’re married, he goes to work, you go to work, you get the kid every moment you’re having more of these moments, can they affect how you think and what you like? You can watch a movie and come out a different person. Good luck. Not to mention the person who filled out their form lied and so said, why am I teaching you this? You have a choice. Here’s your choice. Continue playing this absurd game. That is a cause of tension, anxiety, fear, worry, and driving you crazy.

It’s saying if you get the outside moments to be the way you want, you’re going to be okay. And the same mind that’s figuring it all out like that. You go to and say, well, how do I get it? That way it doesn’t understand it’s some this learned experiences, nothing else, anything like that. And you’re going back to that mind and saying, what do I need to do to get it the way I want? And then you’re going out there and creating ulcers and stress and problems, trying to manipulate everything to get it the way you want. That is the way you’re taught to live. That’s it. How do I manipulate every moment of my life, the ones that haven’t happened yet and the ones that are happening to be the way I want them to be because I’m serious about getting what I want.

What’s the alternative? Is there an alternative? There is an alternative and I’m telling you it’s easier. It’s way easier than sitting here saying, I have to control all the moments that are going to unfold in front of me to be the way I want. That’s quite a task you took on there. No wonder you’re tense and I can’t help it. I forgot something. You not only want the moments that are unfolding and will unfold in front of you to be the way you want, cover your ears. You want the ones that already happened to have been the way you want, don’t you? That shouldn’t have happened. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t fair. I can’t handle that. Can’t handle what? I can’t handle. What happened? Well then you’re screwed up because it’s not going to not have happened. Do you have things in your life that shouldn’t have happened?

Well, you’re wrong. They will never not have happened, will they? Will they ever not have happened? Then what are you doing to yourself? You’re basically saying, I can’t ever be okay. That’s Freud. I can’t ever be okay. Why? Because I don’t like what happened. Well, it’s not going to not happen. You can’t change it. That’s called suppression. It’s called denial and you can’t be okay If you’re doing that and you are doing that and those are the things by the way that your current likes and dislikes are based on all the garbage you stored inside that you couldn’t handle. What’s the alternative? To look inside and say, wow, I got some work to do in here. Not out there. I have to learn to meditate. There are so many teachings and they’re all wonderful. Anything you’re doing that your intent is to work on your inside, I’m completely in favor of, right?

I don’t teach you how to meditate. I meditate. I don’t teach you how to meditate. I teach you what to do when you’re not meditating. What work on the mess you have stored inside. How do I do that? You start with the simplest things in your life, the driver in front of you, the weather, the people that you think maybe don’t like you. I had this thought that that person I met didn’t like what I said. How do you know that? I just think that way. What should I do? What are you doing? You made yourself miserable because you thought somebody might not like you or I heard that Sally thinks she’s heard Peter say that he didn’t like me bothers you. You got some work to do in there. You’re never going to be okay. You can’t control all that. That’s the silliest thing in the whole world.

So what do you do? You sit there and say, I am going to learn radio in a couple of your years. Here’s your spiritual technique. It’s not so complicated. It’s not in the sandri or anything. It’s not in the Bible. It really is in the Bible actually and the keto, but no reason that way. I am going to learn to honor and respect the moments unfolding in front of me. Why? I have no choice. They’re unfolding in front of me. I didn’t say what will unfold. There are two that you have to accept that which already unfolded and now which is unfolding. What do you mean? If it is unfolding, not it might, but it is unfolding both that which already unfolded and it is unfolding. You better learn to respect, honor its existence. Why? Because the alternative is to make yourself a complete mess inside yourself and you will never be okay.

You’ll always struggle. You’ll be afraid. You’ll struggle. Your anxiety even not like things. That’s where it comes from. The inability to honor and respect reality. That’s a word I haven’t used yet. That’s a pretty sacred word, isn’t it? What’s reality? Living, untethered. I define reality. Very simple. You write entire treatises on reality. One line reality is that what’s already happened, if it happened, it happened. It’s real, but I don’t like it Too bad. Either you honor and respect it or you suffer. If you can’t handle reality, you’re going to suffer. I don’t like that it rained. I don’t like what you said. I don’t like what happened. I don’t like what my parents got divorced. I don’t like this. Well, then you’re not going to be a very happy camper, so you just wake up and realize this is about that word acceptance. But acceptance doesn’t mean I don’t interact with life.

If something hasn’t happened yet, you’re welcome to work with it. We’ll talk about that later, but I’m telling you, don’t be working with that already happened and don’t be working with that which is happening. You have to start by saying, oh, you said that. How do I know? Well, I heard it. You said it. Can I respect and honor and accept that that got said no? Okay, suffer. There’s no alternative. You either accept it and learn to deal with it. We’ll talk about that or you don’t accept it and suffer. There’s no in-between is there, but no one will talk to you like this. But they’re talked about is how to manipulate it so it never happens. Well, there’s no way. You’ve never done it. No one’s ever done it. Life unfolds. It’s realistic. Life unfolding in front of you is the result of all the causes that made it be the way it is in that moment.

And same thing with your past. It was wrong. Well, yes, morally, justifiably, but not reality. If it happened, there were causes that caused it to happen. It didn’t just happen by itself in a vacuum. It’s the sum of its learned experiences. I like to teach you your insides is some of your learn experiences. The outside realities is some of it’s learned experiences. That’s called physics, chemistry, science. If they weren’t the some learned experiences, there’s nothing to study then to figure out. So what does it mean to wake up spiritually? We’ve talked about it. Wake up spiritually and sit there and say, I better learn to handle reality. How do you handle reality? I teach you this. You’ve never played the piano before. You want to learn to play Beethoven. Do you pick up Beethoven’s music or Mozart’s music and start playing? Of course not. You have to learn to play the piano.

You never played a sport before this particular sport. Never played it before. Do you just go play a professional? No. You practice. You learn. If you want to accept reality, you have to learn. It’s just like learning a sport. It’s just like learning the piano. Just like learning an instrument. You don’t know how to do it. You know how to accept reality. You’re busy fighting with it all the time. Can’t accept your past, can you? Things in your past you don’t accept. Spirituality takes the following. Tact me. That’s a mess in there. I’m afraid of events. I’m scared. I don’t handle what happened before. I have trouble with reality. Have trouble with reality, don’t I? And it’s funny you never thought like that did you? Right? If anything happened in your past that you’re not okay with, you have trouble with reality. Doesn’t matter whether it was just or not just right or wrong or good or bad with you deserving.

It has nothing to do with that. It just happened. And if you can’t handle it, then you can’t handle it. It happened. Okay? And so you do this thing called practice handling reality. Just like you practice the piano exactly the same. Don’t get mad at yourself. You made a note wrong on the scales. You’re supposed to do that. It’s how you’re learning. Just think, learn a sport. You’re not good at it. To start with, I want you to understand this thing called practicing handling. Reality is just like learning those things. You don’t judge yourself. You’re going to mad at yourself. You don’t get down on yourself. You just practice. You can do this. Nobody’s stopping you from doing this. You’re the one. We started the whole talk by saying your life is what you’re fixating on. So you’re fixating on these stupid little things and you’re making yourself miserable.

Instead of having a good old time, I wonder, have to drive in front of you. Driver’s driving really slow in front of you. Maybe it’s your grandma. It’s the last year of her life that she’ll ever get to drive. Why don’t you tailgate her and beep and all of a sudden your whole attitude changes. Wow, I get to give some space for someone. And all of a sudden you’re acting out of love instead of of resentment or problems. You can change called transmuting the energy. You can change the energy going on inside of you, the anger, the frustration, the judgment, everything. By changing how you think. You are the one who decided to think like that. So you start letting go of yourself. You start practicing being okay, right? Be okay with the driver in front of you. Be okay that you get stopped at a stoplight. Oh, I’m in a rush. Let this good to that. Do all the craziest anxiety inside yourself. You can’t handle the reality. Is the light changed?

Am I talking to anybody or am I making stuff up here? Okay, you are in charge of the quality of your life. Life is not in charge of the quality of your life. You’re in charge of the quality of your life. Life is science unfolding into reality. The light changed. Who knows if it’s computerized or it’s not computerized? Whatever the heck it is. It changed. Are you okay? No. Then don’t be okay. Are you okay? Yes. Then you’re okay. Look how easy it is. Practice being okay. Practice acceptance. Work with yourself. Understand it is a mess in there. It is. Start practicing. Understanding. The moment in front of you is not personal. It is there because of all the forces and creation that caused it to unfold at that moment, and you just happen to be standing there. I shot you once and I have to stop.

I know I go too far. If you are standing in front of somebody, they’re yelling at you. They are not yelling at you. You just have to be standing at a place in the universe where somebody’s yelling. The question is, can you handle it? Of course I can. There’s 8.3 billion people. God knows how many are yelling. I just don’t have to be standing there. Everything in your life, you need to start rearranging the way you’re looking at it. Go to a restaurant and have a dinner and say, oh my perfect. It’s vegan and this and it was just beautiful. Don’t go back I because it’s not going to be that way next time. Honor and respect. Wow, what a gift. The moment made it this way, right? Whatever it is. Next will be a gift also. Why? Because I said so. If we’re married or we’re in a relationship and we leave in the morning, we’re kiss and huggy, right?

And you come back, you’re in a bad mood. You had a tough time with the boss and you go into a room and close the door, fine. It has nothing to do with me. It doesn’t mean you don’t love me. It doesn’t mean I’m going to wait till you talk to me like that ever again. No. It’s like, fine. What’s the difference? I can handle it. I can handle it. I can handle reality. When you come out of that room, there’s going to be love waiting for you just as if you’d come home. Learn to handle reality. That’s the bottom line of the entire discussion we just had from beginning to end. Reality wins every single time. Reality wins. That which is actually happening, is actually happening. That which actually happened is actually happened. That which will happen will actually happen. You can influence it, but you better be willing to sit there and say, I can handle it.

I want to get this job. I’m out there really looking forward to it. I didn’t get it. Fine. I’ll get another one. You hear me? Okay. That is spirituality, the ability to handle reality. And first you start, I can handle it. Then you say, I honor respect. It’s right to exist. Then you sit there and say, bring it on. It could be quite a journey. I wake up in the morning, I wonder what’s going to happen. Who cares? I’m going to have fun. You still do your best. You do your best to serve the moment in front of you with your whole heart and soul, passionate just as if it’s exactly what you wanted because it is. I don’t make those distinctions. The great way is not difficult for those who are no preferences. Third in patriarch, when the deepest writing’s ever written, the great way is not difficult. Enlightenment for those who have no preferences is not what we just talked about. Learning. Don’t deny your preferences. Don’t suppress. It’s not about right and wrong. It’s about I honor and respect the understanding that the universe is way bigger than me. If I was doing a retreat, I would do ’em. I would make you right now, say it together. It’s not supposed to be the way I want.

I won’t make you say it because you won’t be able to. Your mouth will get dry. It’s not supposed to be the way you want. It’s big, real big, and it’s all tied together. It’s supposed to be. I want to honor and respect the right of reality, and believe it or not, at some point your personal self will drop off and you’ll be in ecstasy all the time and you’ll realize that the universe is God. It always was. It’s being created all the time, every moment, and if you can honor it and respect it and love it and appreciate it and serve it to the best of your ability, you’ve lived the highest lives they could possibly live, and you will change everyone that ever interacts with you, you’ll bring an energy into the moment. That’s so beautiful. Alright, enough. I could go on, but I won’t. Do you understand that the state of your wellbeing, love, joy, appreciation, passion is up to you. 100% has nothing to do with what’s unfolding outside of you. Okay, we’ll do that work and thank you for listening. You change the world when you change yourself. You bring this totally different being of light, of love, respect, compassion into the world. It’s a very great thing. Jai Guru Dev.

 

Tami Simon: You’ve been listening to The Michael Singer Podcast, produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information on Michael’s body of work and all back episodes, please join us at MichaelSingerPodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. Sounds True: waking up the world.

 

© Sounds True Inc. Episodes: © 2025 Michael A. Singer. All Rights Reserved.

 

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