TAMI SIMON: Welcome to the Michael Singer Podcast. Michael Singer is the author of two widely influential New York Times bestsellers, The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment, both considered modern classics on the spiritual journey. Michael Singer lives and teaches at the Temple of the Universe, the yoga and meditation center he founded in 1975, near Gainesville, Florida. Produced in partnership with Shanti Publications, the Michael Singer Podcast brings you select recordings from Michael Singer’s teachings at the Temple of the Universe. This episode is on Doing the Real Work to Free Yourself.
Sounds True would also like you to know about an extraordinary eight-part video course we’ve created with Michael Singer. It’s called Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action, an online course many people report to be utterly life-changing. You can find out more at michaelsingerpodcast.com. That’s michaelsingerpodcast.com and you can save 15% off any Michael Singer program available through Sounds True when you use the code Singer15 at checkout. Again, that’s Singer, one, five. And now, Doing the Real Work to Free Yourself, with Michael Singer.
MICHAEL SINGER: Jai Guru Dev. Jai masters. As you become clearer in life, you realize that spiritual growth and personal growth are exactly the same thing. They’re just looking at two sides of the same coin. Why is that? Spiritual growth is supposed to be about God and personal growth is supposed to be making something good of yourself, cleaning out yourself, raising yourself. I would prefer that nobody knew anything about God, that they only knew about cleansing themselves. Because if you’re not there yet, God’s just going to be a concept to you, a belief, which is of no use, nothing. If you work with yourself to raise yourself, you will come into a state where you will understand what they meant by the word God. You don’t have to use the word God, use any word you want. It’s just describing a state of being.
So, what does it mean to grow personally? It means to notice that you have issues inside yourself. You think of issues outside? No, you have issues inside. There are fears, insecurities, desires, needs, wants, self-consciousness, embarrassment, guilt. These are all words that describe things going on inside ourselves. Guilt is not something outside, it’s something inside. Need is not something outside, it’s something inside. Yes, you’re guilty about something, yes you need something, or you think you do, but the actual experience is inside of you. Those experiences, these terrible things I just talked about, that’s how you go to God. Those are your pathway. You cannot ignore those, you cannot run away from those. They are literally the roadmap of achieving spiritual states.
But people don’t want to do that. They want to say, “Well, those things are not spiritual, guilt is not spiritual, insecurity is not spiritual, embarrassment is not spiritual. So how in the world, can they be the roadmap to spirituality?” Because they are what is in the way of spirituality. And since they are what is in the way, there what you must deal with, there are the obstacles you must remove. “Well, if I remove the obstacles, how do I become spiritual?” Wrong. If you move the obstacles, you are spiritual. There’s nothing else to do, period. Nothing. All right? If you have a river or stream in which there’s rapids and there’s spray and there’s currents and eddies and you look at it carefully and you say, “Well, upstream it’s calm, flowing nicely, but here, oh my God, it’s a complete mess, rapids and eddies and sprays and all kinds of things.” If you look, what you’re going to see is that there are rocks. There are obstacles, blockages in that stream that when this waterflow is coming down, they’re hitting those things and they are then creating currents, creating disturbance.
So, if you asked me, what should I do if I wanted to get rid of the disturbance and I tell you, “Take the rocks out,” and you say to me, “Well, I understand I can take the rocks out, but then what do I do to get rid of the disturbance?” That’s what I just told you. You take that stuff out of there. There’s nothing else to do, period. You take those rocks out, it becomes absolutely still and beautiful and a beautiful flow. There is nothing else to do on your spiritual path, except remove the obstacles to spirituality. Once you do that and to whatever degree you do that, it just is the natural state of things. Spirituality is the natural state of things. It is not something you achieve, not something that you strive for, it’s not something you do something. There are no techniques to achieve God. There are no techniques to achieve God. There are techniques to remove the obstacles that you put in the way of God, right? But there are no techniques to achieve God. You see the difference? All right. So that’s where everybody goes wrong.
So, the Gita says, “Of men who seek me, there are some who reach very high states, they’re very reverend, they’re great. One, per chance, comes to know me as I am.” Whoa, that’s scary. Right? That’s because of what I just told you. You do all the Tapasya and renunciations and everything you want to do and all you did was become somebody who people respect because you did all of these fire ceremonies and Tapasyaism, did mantras for 67 years and sat without breathing, everything, anything you want, all right? It is the removal of the blockages then the natural state. Really, the knowledge I gave you, of removing those rocks from the water. You can see that, once those rocks are gone, there is… You don’t have to get an iron and iron out the current. You don’t have to do anything to make it right. It was the obstacles that were keeping the experience from being its natural state. It’s exactly the same inside of you. That’s why these disturbed forces inside of you are the roadmap to spirituality. They are the rocks, period, all right? Those things I described, all those dirty little words, embarrassment, self-consciousness, guilt. It’s just beautiful.
So, what do I do with those? Now, the first is to recognize, “Yes, I’m a mess,” like AA. “My name is Joe and I’m an alcoholic.” My name is Mickey, I’m a flaming mess. Right? You just sit there and look in there and be honest about what you see. I don’t care about what you want to see, that’s the biggest trap in the world. That’s spiritual ego. That’s like sitting here on the side of the stream, I’m going to keep you here, I’m going to wear that analogy out, sitting on the side of the stream, the rapids and all the currents are going and you’re sitting there saying, “I visualize calm. I’m visualizing calm. I don’t see calm. Something wrong, am I doing it right? I visualize calm.” What’s the matter with you, man?
Remove the rocks. But in order to remove the rocks, you better be honest about what you’re looking at, all right? Remember Shakespeare? “This above all– to thine own self be true. And it shall follow, as the night the day, thou shall not be false to any man.” Right? This is the truth. You have to be willing to look and see what you see. Do not try to put nice white lights around your garbage and sit there and say, “I’m pure.” All right? That’s not the right… That is spiritual ego. That is, “I want to be there, I’m not there so I’ll use affirmation, I’ll use this, I’ll tell people I am, I’ll behave in a way, I’ll dress accordingly, I’ll do every single thing that a spiritual person would do then I’m spiritual.” No, you’re not. It’s nothing. It’s a biggest trap that could possibly exist.
There was only one way out and that is to do the work of removing these obstacles that are in the way of the state of absolute beauty and ecstasy of divinity. So, OK, first you recognize. Don’t be afraid to recognize. There’s nothing wrong with seeing the rocks. If you don’t… I’m going to use this analogy. If you don’t like seeing the rocks, you will never get them out, right or wrong? If I sit there and somebody told me, “There are rocks in the water and they’re causing all the currents, I’m so afraid of them because I don’t like the currents, I don’t want to see rocks. Do you? No. I don’t like rocks. They cause trouble. They must be of the devil or something. All right? So, I don’t want to see these rocks.” Well, you’re never going to see them. You’re never going to deal with them. You’re never going to do anything, because you’re afraid of them. You understand that? That’s denial, psychology, denial, fear, et cetera.
You have to be willing to sit there and say, “I have now progressed spiritually to the point of understanding that I am blocking the flow of God, the flow of Shakti, the flow of spirit from inside of me. I am doing it, I am doing it.” There, that’s your first point. Nobody is making you drink. Go to AA, right? Nobody is making you drink. “Oh no, she drives me to drinking.” No, no, nope, nope. My job right now… No, no. Go, come back when you’re ready. Right? You’re the one who’s drinking. You’re the one who picks the glass up and pours stuff in it and puts it in your mouth and swallows, right or wrong? Nobody else is doing it. It’s the same thing here. You have put these blockages inside yourself, and you are holding these blockages inside of yourself. So, if you’re not willing to look at them, nothing good is going to happen. Do you understand that? All right.
So, you start with what we call witness consciousness. Krishnamurti called it “the seed of objective observation.” But you will not be willing to look at yourself objectively while you’re judging yourself. Do you understand? And what that means is, I don’t want to see what I’m looking at. That’s what judging does. You have to be excited. I remember when I first got to the point that instead of thinking that stuff inside of me that was causing all this trouble, was what I don’t want, it’s terrible, it’s keeping me from God. I try to meditate above it and do anything I can to get rid of it and then I realized, no, this is what’s keeping me from God. Therefore, if I see something it’s exciting. You have to change your entire attitude about yourself. The worst it is inside, the better. The more trouble it causes, “Oh my God, I got myself a big fish.” All right? You have to feel that I am willing to deal with this stuff. I am willing to look at this stuff. Not get in it. Well, that’s the whole thing. Psychology goes the wrong way. They get you started. But we’re going to see the difference between spirituality and psychology as we go through this.
First you have to be awake. If you are not awake… What does that mean I’m not awake? We talk about it spiritually. Right? They’re awake. Not enlightened, just awake. What does it mean? It means that, normally, the stuff that’s going on inside is so overwhelming, it is so strong, not only do you not want to look at it and you can’t deal with it, but you are lost in it. You’re in the rapids drowning. Well you can’t very well be outside looking at the rocks, you’re trying to survive. You’re trying to keep your head above the water, aren’t you? You’re trying to take a breath like everyone, and not go down three times. That’s where a normal human being is. Is they are in the fear of drowning. So, they’re not looking at what’s causing it. They’re just trying to stay up, keep their head above the water. Can you relate to that? All right. At worst our times are the more we’re like that.
You have to be able to get out of the water, which is again, witness consciousness. Your consciousness has extricated itself from being in it. It didn’t get rid of it yet, but it can watch it. It can see it. And how do you do that? Meditation. Meditation is great. Mantra’s great. See, all of a sudden there’s techniques, but the techniques are not about going to God. The techniques are about first, getting out of the water. Well, why would meditation work? Because the noise that’s going on inside of you is creating disturbance.
When you sit down to meditate, what you’re sitting there saying, I don’t care how you meditate — your business. When you sit down to meditate, you’re saying, for let’s say 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening. That’s what nowadays they see as you guys, fine, all right. You sit down and for this 15 minutes, it’s not about going to God. That’s why people can’t meditate because they just set these standards and then they burn themselves out. It’s not about seeing blue pearls. It’s not about seeing white lights. It’s not about going to God. It’s about, “I have set aside 15 minutes to practice being aware of being aware.” That’s what it is. Don’t come to me and say, “I can’t meditate.” I say, well, there’s no such thing. I don’t understand, why? They say, “Every time I sit down, my mind just goes crazy. It won’t stop, it keeps talking.” I’m going to touch your feet. I’m put my arm to you, bow down, I’ll touch your feet. You’ll have to come back three times when you figure out what I’m doing. All right.
You just told me that for 15 minutes, you were the witness of your mind. “My mind won’t shut up. It keeps talking about this.” Somebody is watching. So, during that 15 minutes, you actually watch that your mind wouldn’t shut up. That’s a very high state. Do you see why people screw up meditation? Because they define meditation as the mind shutting up. No, that’s not. That’s just a state that you can have there, but if your mind doesn’t shut up and you’re aware that your mind doesn’t shut up, if your heart is bothering you and you’re aware that your heart is bothering you, “I was trying to meditate, but then this thing came back up from before that bothered me. I don’t know why, but it happened years ago. My heart started hurting and I just sat there and watched it.” Good. Good. Do you understand that? Right?
At least twice a day, please, for 15 minutes, take the seat of objective observation and notice what is going on inside. Don’t judge what’s going on inside. Don’t decide what’s supposed to be going on inside. You see that? Just notice, that’s your job, just notice. Who’s not capable of doing that. Yes, truth is you have no choice. You’re going to notice what’s going on inside. OK? I’m not saying you can’t use techniques such as, follow your breath. What does that do? All right, “I noticed that if I just leave it alone, it keeps talking.” Very good, at least you’ve noticed that. Believe me, it didn’t start talking when you sat down. Do you understand that? People tell me that, “No, when I try to meditate, my mind gets worse.” That is a lie. That is ridiculous. Right? It’s just, when you sit down to meditate, you notice that your mind is pretty darn bad, right? It didn’t get worse when you sat down. It’s going on the entire time. You’re just noticing it. So yes, notice.
Then, if you have been given techniques such as following your breath, it’s a very nice technique to use, what is the purpose of that? There’s nothing spiritual about following your breath. There is, but I won’t discuss it. There’s nothing spiritual about following your breath. What you’re doing is taking your consciousness off of your mind and putting it onto something else, like the movement of your breath or counting your breath. That’s why these techniques work because you are practicing being aware of what’s going on in there. Then you are practicing what I call extricating your consciousness, freeing your consciousness, liberating your consciousness from having to watch what’s going on in there. You’re not judging it, suppressing it, right? If I’m looking at you and I’m having a problem, I just look over here. Oh, problem gone.
Just move your consciousness. Don’t mess. I don’t have to change you. Right? I just stop looking. When you watch your breath, your consciousness has now taken its awareness off of the noise of your mind. And it is watching your breath or counting. That’s why mantra works. Again, these things have deeper spirituality also, but I’m not talking about that. You do a mantra and what you’ve done is tell your mind, I want you to repeat, “Guru Om, Guru Om, God, God.” Whatever the heck it is, whatever you want to do for a mantra. If I teach my mind to do that, and then my mind starts talking about other things, I now have a choice. I can either pay attention to what my mind is saying on its own. Or I can pay attention to the mantra. That’s all you have to do.
And wait till you see, you’ll change your entire life. You just gave your consciousness an alternate place to go as opposed to sitting… well, OK, my analogy. When you are sitting on the mantra instead of in the mess, you just got out of the water. The mess is still there, but you extricated yourself. You put your consciousness elsewhere. These are the reasons that meditation works. Do you understand that? Is there another spiritual thing that the Guru touched you? Yes, yes, but I’m not interested in that. None, really. All that stuff happens by itself. You don’t have to think about it. Don’t even get involved in it. Do you understand that? If there are deeper layers of things, just like a Guru gave you a mantra and it’s powered with every Rishi that ever said it, that’s what they tell us, right? Probably true.
All right. It says all this stuff, fine. What’s that got to do with you? It’s true anyways. You don’t need to think about it. You understand that? So, if you’re sitting there following your breath and God forbid your breath stops and you go into Samadhi. Oh my God, I hope you’re all right. And you come back, all right. It’s just what happened while you were doing your work? That’s not your work. Don’t you ever try to go into Samadhi. Don’t you ever try to achieve these high spiritual states. Because all that they will do is become part of your ego. Understand that? “I went into Samadhi.” Meher Baba had talked against Samadhi. One of the greatest master of the face of the earth. He literally, he said, “I go to India, I see these people, they’re totally breathless. You can put your finger under their nose. They sit there for days. They don’t breathe. All these people come around and put flowers next to them. They’re bowing down to them. And then they come back and start yelling at everybody. ‘Why are you over there? You’re standing too close. Come here.’ ” Meher Baba said, “I’m not interested.” I’m in trouble all right.
You have work to do. Do you understand that? That’s where the focus should be. So, there are these techniques, you all have different techniques. You all have different personalities. You have different tendencies, fine. Find something that you feel comfortable with, that works with you, and just use it for the purpose I said. First of all, to start, can you achieve a seat of objective observation where you are watching your mind, and you’re watching your heart? Now that people misunderstand even there, because they say, “I’m watching my mind. OK? I’m watching my mind. I’m watching my mind.” No, no, that’s not watching your mind, that’s your mind watching your mind. You understand that you created a layer inside your mind, that thinks it’s supposed to look at the other layer of your mind.
You’re always watching your mind, or you wouldn’t know what you were thinking. Do you understand that? Do you have thoughts? How do you know? Do you have to try to know that you have thoughts? You wish you didn’t know? You are always the witness. You are always there. Does your heart ever hurt, anybody? Anybody have a heart that hurts? How do you know? No, I’m serious, how do you know your heart hurts? Sounds like a stupid question, doesn’t it? That is the witness. The one that knows what’s going on. You don’t have to try. How hard do you have to try to see that your heart hurts? How much… Better meditate for 20 hours, so that you’re conscious enough to know that your heart hurts. No, you’re going to have a problem, your heart hurts, you know your heart hurts. Who knows your heart hurts? So, don’t ever misunderstand what’s meant by objective observation witness consciousness. It is not something you do. It is not an act of will. It is not a place you go. It is the state of being aware of what is going on inside your mind and what is going on inside your heart. Obviously, you know what is going on in your mind, what’s going on your heart, or we wouldn’t be talking about it. The problem is you get sucked in. You get into… you know the waters are tumultuous, but they’re so tumultuous that you delve in and you’re drowning and so on.
The highest analogy I can give you to witness consciousness is as follows. You walk into a room. There’s people, places, things, everything going on, it’s a nice place, big party. Right? And there’s this little TV screen in the corner, a little flat screen, not a big one, not 65-inch, right? Just 22-inch, 23-inch sitting over there. And all of a sudden, you’re walking around and something catches your attention. What does that mean? Your consciousness starts focusing on what’s on the TV screen instead of focusing on what’s in the room. Perfectly normal, correct? But all of a sudden, it’s really interesting. Like something you’ve always wanted to know about your whole life, all of a sudden shows up on the TV screen. You start to really get sucked in. Next thing you know, and you don’t even know how, you’re sitting on a couch and there’s nothing else in this room. There’s no people. There’s no place. There’s no thing. There’s no party. There’s just what’s going on a TV screen. Ever happened to you? Or a book. You can do it, right? You get… We say you got lost in the book. You got lost in the TV program. Why did you get lost? Because it was so interesting to you that your consciousness became fixated on it and was not aware of anything else. All right? So that is the state of being in the rapids. You’re now lost in the object. The subject is lost in the object. Are you sitting there on the couch? Yes. Are you in the party? Yes. But your consciousness is not. You have projected your consciousness, your consciousness has been attracted or distracted, any words you want to use, so that it’s now involved in the object of consciousness, which is the TV screen, what’s going on there, and not paying attention to anything else.
That’s what happens when you get lost in your mind. You’re not in your mind. You’re sitting on the couch of self, watching the mind, just like you sit on the couch and watch the TV, right? You are aware of what the mind is doing, aren’t you? All you have to do is be less interested, and that has to be the essence of it. If you are less interested in what’s going on on that TV, you’re going to find yourself back on the couch and “Oh, it’s boring. A commercial came on. Oh, where was Joey doing… oh, where are the kids? Oh, how much time…” You woke up. That’s what it means to wake up. That’s what it means to come back to the seat of self.
So, if what’s going on in the mind or the heart is so distracting, is so interesting, you’re going to be sucked into it. So that’s not witness consciousness. You’re still conscious. You’re still aware. You’re just too aware. How’s that? You’re fixated. You’re too aware. It’s not that you’re not aware. You got a little bit too close, didn’t you? And the next thing you know, you’re lost and jealousy. You’re lost in fear. You’re lost in insecurity. You’re lost in heart pain and so on. So, you need to find out for yourself how it is that instead of trying to build another layer of mine that you say is be here now, I’m supposed to be here now. “OK, I’m being here. Am I being here now? I think so. No, I wasn’t there a minute ago. Maybe…” That’s tiring, isn’t it? It’s tough, man. I grew up in the ’60s. Something we were all we’re doing, when Ram Dass put out that book, all right? All right. “Oh, are you here now? I don’t know. Am I here now?”
Instead, you realize you’re always there, or you wouldn’t know that you know that you know. You just got to close. So again, it’s not about coming back to the seat of consciousness. It’s about letting go of what you’re paying attention to. It’s always about letting go. Do you understand that? So, when you meditate, or you do any of the practice you’re doing, remember the purpose is that you be there, and you be aware that you’re there, and you’re aware of what’s going on. If you do this and practice this, during your practices in a way, do your practices. If you’ll do this, you’re going to find out all by itself that as terrible as it is, you’re going to be there all day. At some point, you’re just going to be there all day and you’ll hate me for it.
You’re going to notice that your heart goes through… Your heart loves somebody, and your mind says, “Oh my God, they’re my soulmate.” Then they pick their nose and, “Ah, I couldn’t be with someone who ever picked their nose.” And you’re just watching this maniacal thing that’s going on in there. Don’t you? And it’s not nearly as much fun as temporarily getting lost in the TV screen and believing that it’s your life. “Oh my God, we’re going to get a house and it’s going to be so beautiful.” Right. OK. Let me clue you in, while those rapids are going on in there, there’s not a single place you can stick up your head. “Oh, I can breathe now.” Yes, no, don’t worry, it’ll come back over you. You understand that?
You got to do the real work. So, I’ve showed you what the real work is. Get out of that stream because you’re not in it, you’re just projecting your consciousness into it. Sit on the side and then notice there are rocks. This whole talk is going to do that. Know there are rocks and then I’m going to teach you how to take the rocks out. And then it’s over. You’ll never have to do anything to relax. You will know, “Now what I need to do to maintain my spiritual state.” That’s ridiculous. You understand that? There will be nothing left, but the highest state that could possibly exist. It will never betray you, nothing, all right? That’s what I want for you.
So, basically, first you need to achieve a state of what’s called witness consciousness– objective observation. But now you understand what it means. You’re already there. You’re already watching the TV. You’re already on the couch. The problem is you have projected your consciousness into the mess so much that you lost your center, what we call your seat of self or your center, but you’re still aware. So, my experience is that the highest way that you can come back to seat of self is not through an act of forceful spiritual will. It is through an act of letting go of what you’re clinging to. So, you’re sitting there and somebody doesn’t say hello to you, when you call out, “Hey Sally, how are you doing?” They don’t say hello, and all of a sudden you feel insecure inside. Is that just me or you know anything about that? Anybody here know what the word insecure means? I’m just making it up… OK.
You started feeling these weird things going on inside. Correct? All right. What you need to be willing to do is notice it got weird and the tendency is going to be, “I don’t want it to be weird.” We still there, right? “I don’t like it. I don’t want it to be weird.” So, no, this is very deep. You’re going to want to do something about it. Do you hear me? You’re not going to want to sit there and weird. You want to do something about it. And your tendency is to go running at either running after Sally, “Sally, didn’t you hear me?” Or to talk to George, “How come Sally? Is something wrong with Sally? Did she not hear me? What do you think?” Or call up later, or make a note or text somebody or you know, you want to do something to try to make the weirdness feel better. Anybody there? This is your spiritual work. This is right where the tires… Where the rubber hits the road. All right? So, you want a tendency to do that.
If you’re not doing that because… That’s if you’re a more assertive, aggressive type person, if you are somebody who’s a little shier, a little more withdrawn, you suppress. You sit there and, “Well, I don’t know why she I didn’t call me. I don’t know. I just, no, I don’t want to think about it…” And you’ll push it away. Ever do that? Ever push away the yickiness? “I don’t want to feel it. I don’t want to feel this. I don’t have time for this.” So, you are either fight or flight. You’re either out there fighting, changing, calling, doing something or coming inside and pushing this away.
Those are the two normal human reactions to yickiness. And you do it all the time. What one does is build up these suppressions inside of you. Believe me, push it away. “She didn’t mean anything. I know she didn’t mean anything.” And push it away. Wait, the next time you see Sally, wait, the next time you hear Sally’s name. Then, what’s going to happen? You can feel the yickiness again. Yes or no? OK. That’s because you kept it inside of you. You stored it inside of you. That is the most ridiculous thing in the world. I don’t like the meal I just ate, it made me sick. Please give me more so I can take it home, taste it every morning to remind myself how sick it made me. That’s what you’re doing when you push yicky stuff inside of you, and you push it away, you’re storing it inside of you. Of course, it’s going to come back up when it gets triggered. Triggered by the name Sally. Triggered by a car that looks like Sally’s car. Triggered by anything. You understand that? You don’t want that stuff in there, all right?
What about if I run after it? I call that being Mr. and Miss Fix It. I’m going to fix it right? I’m going to fix it. Fixer-upper. You go and run after Sally to find out what’s going on. I’m going to write her a note, or text somebody, or ask George, if he talked to… Could he talk to Sally? But don’t mention that I got upset because it could have been nothing, all right? Oh my God. I don’t care how tactful you are, it’s disgusting, all right?
That’s where karma comes from. Listen, you guys use these words and very few people understand it. If you suppress something, you built the karma, if you will inside, yourself, because you set up a spring that you push down with the potential to come back up. So, you’re carrying the past inside of you, triggered. If you go outside because of the yickiness inside, I guarantee you in the end, anything you touch will get yicky. If you run off after Sally, and sit there and say, “Why didn’t you say hello?” You hit Sally’s stuff. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything. You’re the one…” And next thing you know, you get this whole shtick going. You hear me? Ever see that happen? And it escalates up, and it just gets absolutely ridiculous.
You will love her. And you said, “I love you.” And that night, “I love you.” And they said, “Yes, I love you, too.” It’s like, “Oh.” [sounds angry] but you know you’re not going to say anything. Right? So, three days later, all of a sudden you go up to somebody and say, “You know, I don’t feel like you love me like used to.” “Oh, I do. What are you saying? Why are you saying that?” “Well, the other night…” “You’re so insecure. I can’t even deal with you. I didn’t do anything!” and all of a sudden you’re in a fight. Understand that? Anybody? I’m sorry to be so personal, right?
This stuff is terrible. That’s karma. You took the garbage inside of you and you dumped it into your environment. Most of you like to think that your environmentalists, you understand that? That you don’t want people polluting and so on… You’re polluting every second. You’re taking this garbage that came up inside and you’re dumping it out into the world and it will come back. It will pollute. How’s that? Pollution is its own karma, isn’t it? It pollutes, OK? It makes a mess. So, it’s not… You don’t… If you’re in there, you’re not comfortable, you want to do something, you want to… If Mr. Fix It or Miss Fix It is not going to do it, it’s going to make a mess. Miss or Mr. Suppress It is not going to do anything. What are my choices?
That’s what nobody will teach you. There’s another choice. When the yickiness comes up inside and you are conscious of it, you are aware, you’re a witness, and you see that I’m not comfortable with it, let it go. “But I didn’t fix it.” That’s right. “But I didn’t push it away.” That’s right. Let it go. Everything needs its day in the sun. So, this yickiness has come up. You’re conscious. And what you do is you don’t resist it. You don’t go with it and you don’t run away from it. You just relax. That’s what I teach you. Relax when you see it. You are the consciousness. I am watching some many TV. That’s not comfortable. It’s just a damn TV. It’ll come. It’ll go. I don’t need it to throw something at the TV. I don’t have to run out of the house screaming. I can just let the moment pass by and finish its flow through me. That doesn’t feel very natural, does it? Someday it will be the natural thing.
You have to train yourself to realize it is just the stuff that’s inside of you that got hit — the rocks. That’s why it caused the current. If you will relax and release, believe it or not, the water will wash the rocks away. If whatever’s holding the rocks in place is not there, the flow of the stream can cleanse itself. If you will relax inside when this disturbance happens inside of you, just relax, relax, breathe, the mantra, whatever you want, just leave it alone. Which is the hardest thing to do, isn’t it? The hardest thing to do.
You’re sitting there with your boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse, and they’re dancing with somebody and you think it’s cute until all of a sudden, this is a little bit too close, little bit too long and this jealousy comes up inside of you. I’m telling you, it’s the same thing as with Sally. If you do anything about it, suppress it, you’re going to… You’ll ruin your relationship. You understand that? You’ll hold you… “Well, I want to give her the space.” You know, you push it down there and you’re never going to love that person again, the way you loved them before, because you just blocked the flow of love with that garbage just shoved inside of you. Do you understand that? So, you thought you were being high. “I don’t want to dump this jealousy on them. I’ve always been jealous but I won’t say anything.” But you pushed it down. When you push it down, you are stopping and blocking your Shakti flow. Or, “I’m going to go out and say something,” that would be cute, right? Or, “I could walk by and accidentally spill my drink on him or something.”
Anything like that… Just the noise that the mind makes about trying to fix it, I’m telling you, let go. What do you mean? “I don’t want this stuff inside of me. Therefore, I’m going to let it go.” If you don’t want something, you let it go. You don’t keep it. All right? So, you relax. And if you will relax, I assure you over time, not once, it takes time, it took time to put all that junk in there, over time you have created a space inside of you by relaxing into the seat of self where this garbage will get pushed up. It has to come up. It’s going to come up. You’re going to feel it. It will go through.
TAMI SIMON: You’re listening to the Michael Singer Podcast produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. Sounds True has also produced with Michael Singer an extraordinary eight-part video course, Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action. You can find out more at michaelsingerpodcast.com and save 15% when you use the code Singer15 at checkout. Now, back to Michael Singer on Doing the Real Work to Free Yourself.
MICHAEL SINGER: It can do what we call transmute. It releases. And when you release the stuff inside of you, first, it loosens up, then little chips start to block off, and next thing you know, in the exact same situation, somebody’s dancing and you don’t feel jealous and you go home and it’s just like, “Hey, I used to feel jealous. I guess I’m growing.” That’s right. That’s growth. You got rid of something inside of you that was causing currents and disturbances. That’s the way to deal with disturbances. The Buddhist call it working at the root. You’re working at the root cause, not the reaction.
Now, are you willing to do that? Ha ha ha. That’s the question of spiritual growth. Notice it doesn’t sound all blue light-y and aura and chakras and fun things, all, right? That sounds like work. All right. That is your spiritual work. That is your spiritual work. That is your personal work. So, what happens? First, maintain your seat of witness consciousness. What does it mean? Things are going to happen, which tend to pull you in. I teach this in An Untethered Soul. You’ll feel a tendency to get pulled in to the disturbance. And that sounds silly. Why would I want to get pulled into the disturbance, OK? Let’s say you’re perfectly healthy, except a wasp bites you on your toe. OK? Guess where your consciousness is going to go? On your toe. I picked on that because I got bit the other day, but right? It’s like, say, you dropped the hammer on your toe. The last place in the world you want to put your mind, your consciousness is on the hurt toe. But that’s where it’s going, isn’t it? Come on. OK. Your consciousness gets drawn to the place of maximum disturbance, whether it’s “Whoa, this is exciting,” OK, consciousness goes there. And next thing you run away from your family with the golf pro or something, all right. Or you’d drop something on your toe and your consciousness, it goes there.
It’s the same thing with your inner disturbances. The tendency is because… I mean, look, let’s say a giant noise all of a sudden happened outside. Would you be listening to me or the noise? Let’s say a bright light shined all of a sudden now from outside, you ain’t coming back here for a while, right? Your consciousness gets drawn to the place of largest distraction. How’s that? Your consciousness… That’s what we mean by getting distracted. My consciousness got drawn off of where it was onto something that was louder, brighter, whatever, it was distracting. That neat? Turns out distraction is a very spiritual word, right? It means your consciousness has got drawn over there. That’s what’s going to happen inside. It’s totally natural. Don’t try to make it not happen. If a disturbance comes up in your heart, and a disturbance comes up in your mind, all of a sudden, your consciousness is going to be drawn to that. Just like it’s drawn to the hurt toe. That feel better? It’s perfectly natural.
The question is what do you do about it? Not, did it happen? So, what’s going to happen, you’re going to start to see there’s a Shakti pull… There’s a pull on your consciousness toward the loudest thing. The most painful thing. The most uncomfortable thing. The thing that’s most distracting. Over time, if you will work with yourself and I’m a way beyond you now, right? This takes time. If you will work with yourself, there will be a moment. Just a moment in which you are aware that that is happening. That something is like I’m sitting here, a noise happened. I was listening to Mickey and right before my consciousness goes out to the noise, I’m aware that my consciousness is about to be drawn out to the noise.
That’s conscious. You’re a conscious being, you understand that? You’re aware, your conscious state, meditation gives you this. It gives you that moment where I’m here, I heard that, in slow motion. I’m here, I heard that and now I’m going to be drawn over there. All right? You understand what I’m saying? That moment they talk about. That’s the most precious moment in creation. Why? Because you now have the right to use free will. And believe it or not, your will, now you listen to me, your will… You know what I mean by your will, your will, you in there, OK? The power you have is stronger than any force that can ever distract you or do anything to you, period. You are the strongest thing in there. Will is the power of self. It is the power of Chi Shakti, of conscious energy.
When an event happens outside and the consciousness starts to get drawn toward it, you have every ability to relax and bring it back. Every one of you do. Don’t tell me, “I don’t have a very strong will.” The fact that you’ve took human birth means that your will and your soul is evolved enough to be transcendent to every single force that can draw on it. Did you know that? That’s why people can do weird things.
People do all kinds of weird things like the Yakuza. I hate to tell you this. You ever see their whole thing. That if they insult their master, they sit there and… It’s Japanese. Why am I telling you this? I don’t know. Because I’m showing you how powerful will is. Right? And they sit before their master and their boss and they say, “I’m so sorry. I’ll show you how sorry I am.” They take a knife, they put their finger down and they cut their finger off. While they’re talking and looking and staring at that, they ceremonially batch up their finger and give it, give the finger in a wrap cloth. This is true. It’s a true statement. In a wrap cloth. They give it to the to their boss, their master, the head the Mafia, that kind of thing. They sit there and say, “That’s how sorry I am. That I didn’t live up to your expectations.” All right? A lot of Yakuza run around with that. They leave their trigger finger last because they’re mafia. All right?
I’m in trouble. All right. But what I’m trying to show you is that’s a lot of will. That’s painful. That’s serious. OK? People do all kinds of things because they want to, they want to enough, to where their will is strong enough that they can apply it. You want out, see you’re Yakuza, but for a different reason, right? You’re a great being. You want liberation? You wonder what it was like to have all the garbage going on inside of you? Are you willing when you get consciousness, awareness, that the moment you see it’s about to get pulled over here or over here, are you willing to relax? Are you willing to just relax? You let it go.
And I always explain it this way: People think you have to be strong to do this. You do not have to be strong to do this. It is not a question of strength. Let’s say you’re doing a tug of war with, I always say the entire football team on one end and you’re on this end, all right? And you want to go home and have lunch, but they’re pulling it the wrong way, all right? And you’re pulling, you’re holding. You learned every technique. You learned how to bend your knees. You learned how to do the karate stuff. You learned how to dig your heels in. You learned to wrap it around your waist. And oh my God, you’ve turned every single tug of war technique that could possibly exist. And you’re going, they’re pulling you, all right? And all of a sudden Yoda shows up. Little Yoda is sitting down there, “Luke, let go.” “You’re kidding, if I let go, they’re going to pull me face first.” “Let go of the rope.”
Whoa, you see, Yoda’s very smart. All right? “What do you mean? I’m trying, I’m pulling.” “See where your hands are. See where your hands are holding the rope?” “Yeah.” “Let go. Relax your hands.” What will happen?” The minute you do, home for lunch. Do you understand that? The minute you do, that’s why relaxation is always the answer.
So, when this distraction, the jealousy, the insecurity, the whatever it is, starts pulling on you and you’re… I just need you have that consciousness for one moment to where, instead of saying the solution is to run after the solution is to suppress it. Is that you’re attracted to somebody, that’s inappropriate. You’re married and all of a sudden you get attracted to somebody. What are you going to do? I’m going to suppress it. I didn’t happen. No, it’s terrible. Oh my God. Yes, and you will suppress it, well, you’re in big trouble. I’m telling you, you’re in big trouble. You just destroyed your life. You destroyed your relationship with your spouse. You destroyed everything. Because you just blocked the flow of your energy with this thing you shoved down there. Suppression is the worst thing you can ever do. Understand that. All right.
Or, “OK, I’m going to sit there and deal with it, express it or do what the heck it is, try to fix it. Right?” No. The right thing to do is if something comes up, to relax and release, and what you’ve done then is allowed the room for the cause to pass through. You’ll now love your spouse more. You love everybody more. Because you release the blockage that caused the reaction. Does anybody understand we’re talking about? OK.
So, this thing about the rope, that’s big. You’re there, you’re conscious, an event takes place that triggers you and all of a sudden, you start to get distracted, it starts to pull. It’s a pull. It’s like a water ski. Ever water skied, the boat pulls you. That’s what this distraction does. It pulls your consciousness toward it. Relax, relax, and release. I call it R&R. You need some R&R. You relax and release. And what will happen is the energy will not pull the consciousness out and you will have transcended and transmuted the power of that energy.
Now you listen to me, right? I’m literally saying the power that that had over you, when you are able to relax your way through it, that power comes back to self every single time. And it builds the power of self. Next time you will be a hundred times stronger than it was this time. Do you understand that? So, you’re either giving your will to what’s pulling on it– if you’re trying to stop drinking every single time you don’t drink, you are more likely to not drink. Do you understand that? Every time… “Oh, but I had a bad day.” You made it through it. You didn’t do it. You built the power of will in the power of self and likewise, every single time you do drink after five years of not drinking, you got all your chips together, go have one drink and tell me how easier the second one is. Does anybody understand? The power of not doing it that you build over five years is almost totally overcome by drinking once. Go ask AA, they’ll tell you. The same thing goes with any of these habits because your neural pathways are carved to do it. If you re-feed them, they flow right back there. So, it’s the same thing here. If you are willing to let go, that’s what I’m talking to you about, the deepest state. I’m in the witness. I see what’s going on. I’ve been given the grace. At first, it’s just a moment, just a moment, but no one can tell me that they do not see what’s going on.
I did 30 years of prison work. Those are not exactly the most self-controlled people. Everyone, on maximum security, murder, rape, everything. There in there for life. OK? And we would talk like this. And every one of them, every one told me that before they did what they did, there was a moment in which they were perfectly aware of what they were about to do. If they started getting angered, and just all of a sudden be there, it starts somewheres. It starts to build up, and then it explodes. You deal with it the moment it shows up, let go, and then you come tell me what’s going to happen to you, because I’ll see it in your eyes.
The power that it had over you gets transmuted to you, to the self. And all of a sudden this tremendously powerful center of being is what exists. And all of a sudden, if you do it with jealousy, the power you built in letting go of jealousy, is there for food, it’s there for this, it’s there for everything. You’re building the power of your being. That’s why he’s talking about personal growth. All right? They talk about… when you work out they talk about core, building the core of your being, this is the core of your being. Now you’re doing core workout. You’re building the center of your being to be strong enough to let go of the pull that these habits and tendencies have over you. Every single time you let go, a piece of those rocks that are causing disturbance are purified. And this is real spiritual growth. And this is yoga. The reason you do all your practices is to learn to sit in the seat and let go. Well, how often do I let go? Every single time.
But aren’t there times I need to deal with something? That’s want you to say, don’t you? “Aren’t there times I need to deal with something.” Of course, there are times you need to deal with something, but you don’t deal with what’s outside until you’ve dealt with what’s inside. If you don’t let go first of your anger, your jealousy, your insecurity, your fear, your need, then everything you’re going to be doing outside is for you. Do you understand that? If I’m attracted to you and I said, “I’ll have to deal with that, I have an attraction,” you’re not dealing with that. You’re dealing with your attraction. It’s going to run your life, it’s going to determine what you say, what you don’t say, right or wrong? Same thing with your fears and insecurities. If you don’t let go inside, the inside will run the outside. Does everybody see that?
I always use a terrible example. Oh, you’ve a kid, 16 years old, you get a call from the principal in the high school, “We found drugs in your kid’s locker. You need to come down here right away. Blah, blah.” OK. Well, that’s not fun, is it? It’s exactly what I’m talking about. So, same thing. All your junk comes up inside. “What did I do? Oh my God. And my husband finds out. He already thought our relationship is bad. He’s going to blame me.” Right or wrong? OK. “What will the neighbors think? Oh my God, if I have to go down there, people will see me. They’ll see me walk into the principal’s office. And I don’t want to have a kid that does drugs and… Oh my God, this is…” Right?
Not a single word that went on inside your head had anything to do with that child. It all had to do with you. Right or wrong? It hits your stuff. OK? “What did I do wrong?” That’s what you say to the kid, “What did I do wrong? Why did you do this to me?” That’ll help a lot. You’re not even trying to help the kid. You’re trying to help yourself. Do you understand that? So, when it hits, it’s going to come up inside, you always let go. Nobody believes me. You always let go. Always. There is never, ever a time that the highest dharmic right thing to do is not let go. All right? OK.
Here it comes. Here’s all the personal garbage. Do the best you can to let go of yourself every single time. Now what? Now that you are clear, clearer anyways, all right? Not perfect. You are not going to be perfect, but at least you didn’t go with the initial reaction, he stayed centered and clear. Now that you are clear, look outside. Is there something to deal with? Not that something to deal with is you, you don’t ever deal with you. The only way to transcend the personal self is to transcend the personal self. There’s nothing to do about it. What do I do about it? Nothing. You let it go. All right? If it’s inside of you, let it go. Let it go. That way you’re using it to go to God.
Every single thing you let go of now, and the bigger it is, the better. And you just keep letting go. Now, if you look outside and it’s still there, now, Sally not saying hello, when you’re done with letting go of your insecurity, Sally’s not there anymore. There is nothing to do. I’m telling you, my experience is 95% of these situations, there’s nothing to do. It’s just that it hits your stuff. All right? And if you let it go, there’s nothing to do. “Well, what if Sally’s mad at me?” You’ll find out later. “What if she didn’t hear me?” No one will find out. It doesn’t matter. It’s completely irrelevant. The only problem was you. How’s that? If the only problem is you, let it go. It’s much easier. It’s great. Not only was it easier and better for Sally and your relationship, but it actually took you to God, because you let go of a piece of the garbage that got hit. It is always the highest thing to do, to let go. Do you understand that? You relax into release.
It’s not easy, is it? That’s stuff that’s getting hit got stored down there, because you didn’t like it when it happened. Remember you pushed it away. If it was stored with pain, I am telling you it is coming back up with pain. Let’s get this straight. There’s no “Can’t I purify it? Can’t the Guru come down and purify it so it’s beautiful? I love the Guru. I worship all the time.” All right. Literally, Meher Baba has actually talked about that. Isn’t that amazing, he was an amazing being. Some disciple, raised a hand and said, “But, Meher Baba, you’re talking about getting rid of all this stuff, the cocoon of karma that’s built inside, the samskaric seeds, why can’t the master just come down with a scissor and cut the cocoon and free the soul?” There you go. Finally, a good idea. All right?
And the answered very sternly and strongly, he said, “First of all, the master can do anything. If it’s truly a master merged with God, he has all the power in the universe. He would never ever do it under any circumstances ever, because then you did not evolve enough, which is the purpose of life. You did not evolve enough to liberate yourself. Therefore, you didn’t come back to God.” You’re not strong enough. You didn’t go… That’s like sitting there saying, “Well, I’m in third grade and I want to go to Harvard and get a law degree, OK. Could they give me the certificate?” Well, they could, but I don’t want to go to you as a lawyer. Like, there’s this thing called learning that’s supposed to happen in between, you understand that? Evolving. That’s the exact same thing with a soul.
So, it’s not about the stuff not hurting. It’s about you weren’t able to handle it when it happened. You couldn’t handle when Sally didn’t say hello, come on, give me a break. There’s seven billion people on the planet earth, they didn’t say hello to you. But you couldn’t handle one of them, all right. That’s I have to look at it. So, there’s not something wrong with Sally that she didn’t say hello. There’s nothing wrong with me that I can’t handle the most simple things in the whole world. Correct? All right. So, you let it go. You use it wisely and you release it. If you will do this, like I said, you will find that you stay centered. What does that mean? I don’t get pulled away by the distraction.
Now you have a definition of what it means to be centered. The consciousness remains in the seat of self, even though a distracting event took place and began to pull on it. It came back to its center. It didn’t go all the way out. It started to go out. It’s like whoop, whoop. That’s what it feels like inside. It’s like whoop, right? It starts to pull out, you relax. You don’t pull it back on. I’m telling you, don’t try to be stronger than the noise that’s distracting you. The key is to relax. If you relax, you stay. Isn’t that neat? It is the relaxation that does it. So, you relax through these disturbances. Every one you relax through makes you stronger for any other one.
And eventually, I shouldn’t tell you this, it’s not that there’s this one moment that something starts to distract you, it all gets into slow motion at a level that’s absolutely ridiculous. It feels like you have 10 hours to decide. “Am I going to go out there? I spent years and years, I’ve invested. Look what I’ve invested.” Sometimes you’ll get to the point where you realize, “I let go of 7,000 things for all these years. Now, something bigger happened. Am I willing to give up the pain, the strength, the work I did of letting go of 7,000 for this one?” Then I would see why I use the analogy of alcoholism of AA. “I got chips, five years with the chips. Now I got this situation. Am I really willing to give all that up that I did when I went through exercising that will because this one thing is stronger?” And you’ll start finding that, you want to build on your investment.
So, it then goes into slow motion and all of a sudden you have all the time you need. And then only a fool, only a fool would consciously say, “Ah, what the hell, I’ll do it anyways.” I’m serious. Your mind will sit there and say, “I don’t want to be a goody-goody. I just sit there and what’s wrong with this? It’s a good opportunity. This opportunity will come back later. Right? I can just go do this and have a drink.” I want you to equate it, the going with the energy, that’s pulling you from your center, I want you to equate it to go and back on heroin after you went through withdrawal and got off. I went, now, bigger than drinking. OK. It’s was like, really? You really want to do that, do you? Because I’m telling you, if you go with that energy, you will have given up. If it takes a 100 to not go with it, once you go with it, it offsets 600.
I’m serious. I’m not exaggerating, ask AA. If you stopped drinking 10 times and then you take one, it totally offsets the 10 times, completely and utterly, doesn’t it? OK. So, you learn to work with your center. I’ve taken you to a beautiful place, which is I’m in here, I am aware that I have crap in here with me. How about you? And it can get hit. That’s stuff you stored from before, it was stored with pain, I wasn’t able to handle it when it happened, it’s going to come back up, am I capable of handling it now? So, Sally went by, now I hear the word, Sally. Obviously, it’s not as big as the first time, but I feel the discomfort, the slightest discomfort. I will not accept any, not a tinge of it. If it moves, I’m letting it go. If it happens in the heart or it happens in the mind, first reaction, relax and release. Then look to see, is there something I’m supposed to deal with? If there is still something out there, then you’re clear enough to deal with what’s out there instead of being distractible what’s going on inside of you.
Does anyone hear me? All right? If you are distracted with what’s going on inside of you, I don’t want to be around when you’re dealing with us outside. Because you’re not dealing with us outside. You’re trying to manipulate the outside to make you feel better inside, aren’t you? OK. So, basically you learn this practice. This is your spiritual practice. What? Letting go. When? Always. Every single second. The driver in front of you is driving too slow, like someone behind you beeped, you were sitting there, the traffic light, you’re looking at your little smartphone and you didn’t go with the traffic light. Beep. Right? I mean, a really obnoxious thing. It was only two seconds of obnoxious beep, all right? Stuff’s going to come up and you’re going to say something to that guy. He don’t hear you. He don’t hear a word. There ain’t nothing going on in there. Let it go. There’s an excellent opportunity. You understand that? You’re driving and you need to deliver something somewhere and it starts pouring and you have no timeframe, you have to get there and it’s raining and there’s nothing you can do, you are going to get wet. Haha. Let it go. Let what go? Getting wet, you wish you could. Let go of the resistance to the reality of the situation that’s in front of you. Do you hear what I’m saying? Why not? Why do you want this garbage? “It always rains when I’ve got to go somewhere. God hates me.” What are you doing? Let it go. It’s not a game. Work with yourself, constantly, relentlessly.
A Yogi works with themselves every single second. You work with everybody else every second. Everybody… It’s a full-time job to get everybody to be the way you want, isn’t it, right? You’re out there manipulating, controlling, doing everything… Instead you work with yourself and you just keep letting go and wait til you see what happens? I’m telling you what will happen. I laid it out, I’ve never talked to you this way before, I’ve laid it out for you. At first, it’s hard, because you want to fix it, either suppress it or fix it, right? No, relax. You’ll learn to do it. You’ll practice. Just like learning a piano or learning to play tennis. Practice, practice. Just practice. Don’t get hard on yourself. Don’t worry if it fails. What if you’re playing the piano, you make a mistake, “I don’t want to play.” Well, that’s ridiculous. Right? It’s good, means you need to learn things.
If you sit there and you’re trying to let go, and all of a sudden you didn’t, you get caught somewhere and you’re like, “Oh my God, I should’ve let that go.” Don’t get guilty. Don’t get this. Just, you were practicing the piano and you made a mistake. Just get back up. Say “Next time, I’ll be a little wiser next time.” All right. And it helps you. And you just keep letting go, your whole life, every single second. And then like I said, what will happen is, you’ll get used to feeling from inside this tendency, for the consciousness to be drawn away from the center toward the distraction. I love that I taught you that. That’s what’s happening. It’s being pulled toward the loudest distraction. Relax, it’ll come back. Relax, it’ll come back. And every time it comes back, the power of the distraction gets invested into the seat of self and all of a sudden, your center, we can’t even talk about it. You become what’s called a being of power. And you feel it. That power you build inside, this is Shakti. You’re building the power of being of yourself back to the center of self. If I start coagulating and consolidating power in one place, it gets powerful, doesn’t it? All right. And that’s where all the power comes from.
Where social healing comes from where Shakti power comes from, where everything comes from is from building that center and not letting pieces of it get drawn away by the distractions. It doesn’t mean you have to go into the Himalayas and not get distracted. I would rather have you work in your everyday life and not get distracted. I’m not impressed if you can go into a sensory deprivation cave and not be distracted. I’m impressed if you can stand in your everyday life and not be distracted by this garbage going on inside of you. And the growth is way better, too. Do you understand that? This is how you use every moment of your life to go to God.
It’s fun, isn’t it? All of a sudden, it’s this exciting journey of transcending yourself, as opposed to getting what your self wants so you don’t have to transcend yourself. It’s happening now. Your needs, your desires, your likes or dislikes are the reflection of where you’re caught. Something bothered you before, so you now want something to happen that doesn’t bother you. You saw somebody had a nicer car than you and the girl or guy went with them in high school. And all of a sudden you get this thing about a nice car. It’s just… You’re just reliving your garbage with your likes and dislikes. Instead you relax and release, relax and release, relax and release, relax and release. All right. Then it will build your center, like we talked about. And it gets stronger and stronger and eventually you will reach a point where the joy, the love, the power is feeding you from inside. And there’s nothing that can come in from outside that’s more beautiful than what’s going on inside.
Every one of you have that center, Yogananda said there was a river of joy flowing inside of you. Find it, go there, get in and drown. That’s yoga. This is how you find it. You ask, “How do I find it?” Don’t go looking for it. Don’t get a map. All right? You can keep… There’s nothing to understand. I want to know, letting go, you see the power of that. The power of relaxing and releasing to allow the chi, the Shakti to build back into your center and then eventually it starts flowing up. That’s what it does. Because you’re not going with the pull down, it changes direction. It literally changes direction and starts flowing up and feeding you. Now, if you’re smart, you realize, “This is more beautiful than I ever experienced. I’m going to hang out with this.”
And now you start really, really building a center inside yourself and you would never let anything take it away from you and then it gets stronger. It just does nothing because stronger all the time. And eventually it gets so strong. What does? The joy, the beauty of the bliss, the ecstasy flowing up inside of you that you can’t stand it. Literally can’t stand in its presence. It starts pulling you into it. You’re not doing anything. It’s not an act of meditation. It’s just pulling you into it, and it’s so beautiful that you want to just melt. You don’t even want to exist. You want to just melt into it. Now you’re being pulled naturally into the higher states. You fall into a breathless state with that going on, now that’s very honorable. You understand that? Because you purified. Those states, don’t come and go. Now you become… That’s what the great masters live. They merged. They just released the personal completely and now you have Christ saying, “My father and I are one.”
So, notice I started with the personal garbage. That’s what I want you to get from this talk. I started with the dirty stuff. Didn’t I? Your laundry. And we ended up in God. But permanently in God, not some experience I had. It’s my state of being because you let go of the rest. So, this is called, I’ve talked you about… Which is, I’ve never really talked to you this way before, that is called the evolution of the soul. That entire process I just talked to you about is the evolution of the soul. It is becoming stronger and stronger and stronger because it’s able to let go of what was pulling it down. It becomes healthier and healthier. And eventually there’s not a single thing in this world, nothing, which in the Atma Gita there’s a line that says, “the man that has tasted the bliss of the self may move amongst objects of sense without fear, his mind never clings to the world’s misery, his heart is with God and his soul is set free.”
How does that sound? Like what we just talked about, right? And it is called Jivanmukta. You’re now a liberated being. So, you all are beautiful, beautiful people, or you wouldn’t be here, right? You turned to yoga, you turned to Eastern teachings, turned to meditation. And it’s really beautiful. Never forget what we just talked about, because that is the evolution of your soul. That’s the reason you took birth on this plane. Earth is a place that souls are sent to evolve. Do you understand that? So, this is what you’re doing. You’re doing your Dharma. People say “Where’s my Dharma?” I just told you. That’s your Dharma. The rest will happen naturally by itself.
Well, thank you. Thank you for being interested in these things have we listening. You change the world when you change yourself. You understand that? Jai Guru Dev. Jai masters.
TAMI SIMON: You’ve been listening to the Michael Singer Podcast produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. Sounds True has also produced with Michael Singer an extraordinary eight-part video course called Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action. You can find out more at michaelsingerpodcast.com and save 15% when you use the code Singer15, that’s number one, five at checkout. The music you heard is the song, Giving It All by Be Still the Earth. Thank you so much for listening. Sounds True, waking up the world.
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