E35: Transcending the Ego with Awareness and Compassion

UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: The following transcript may contain typographical errors or other mistakes due to inconsistencies in audio quality, background noise, or other factors. We cannot guarantee its precision or completeness. We encourage you to use this as a supplement to your own notes and recollection of the session.

Tami Simon: Welcome to The Michael Singer Podcast, presented by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information about Michael Singer’s work, access to all prior episodes, and information about upcoming releases, we invite you to join us at MichaelSingerPodcast.com

Michael Singer: Jai Guru Dev, Jai Masters. If you work on yourself, which basically means letting go of yourself says at the personal level, you start to realize there’s something very great inside of you. Very beautiful, very creative, very inspired, very loving, very selfless. You don’t have to try and be those things. People try to make their ego be that that’s their joke. The ego cannot be that. It is not that. The ego is the opposite of that. Ego is about itself. It is always about itself. That’s all it can think about is itself. It was created out of the fear of losing, of being alone, of getting hurt. And then you built, built this ego. You built this thing in your mind that said, this is how I protect myself. This is how I defend myself. This is what I want. This is what I don’t want the word I is branded onto the ego.

It cannot exist. It does not exist otherwise. So to try and make your ego be that way, be the loving, open, selfless, you’re wasting your time. It’s about letting go of the ego, not changing it into something it’s not. Eventually you just accept that, yes, I have an ego. I have an ego. It thinks about me. It wants what it wants. It doesn’t want what it doesn’t want, and it’s serious about it. It’s serious about what it wants and it’s serious about what it doesn’t want. And if left to its own, that’s what you guys are getting. That’s who you’re getting. You’re getting the thing in here that’s trying to get you to be the way it wants out there and you just be honest about it. You don’t try to make it not look that way or change it. You don’t have to dish it out to people, but you’re aware of it.

That’s witness consciousness. You’re aware. I’ve spent so much time defining where ego comes from, what it is. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a thing in the universe. It got created because we were not able to handle the realities that came in, and so you pushed some away and you kept some made building blocks out of the experiences you had, but nobody said they all line up and nobody said they’re easy to live with. And how do you get what you want again and how do you avoid what you don’t want again? And so you built this mental construct called the ego, which says, this is what I am. This is what I want. This is what I believe. This is who I love. This is who I don’t like. These are my friends. These are my not friends, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It’s just a talking head. I see it. There’s a program running inside of the computer mind. It’s not the mind. Your mind can do all kinds of things. You can envision Mars, it can think of God. You can do all kinds of stuff. It doesn’t have to think about itself, but ego does. Ego has to think about itself. That’s what it’s made out of. That’s its roots. That’s why it exists. So don’t sit there and try to make it be something it’s not. You’ll just struggle and you won’t end up with reality. So what do you do about ego? You let it go. What does that mean? You’re in here. I want you to be aware. There’s nothing wrong with ego. It’s not who we are, right? There’s nothing wrong with a car. It’s just not you. Okay? And ego is just a thing that is built in the mind.

You built it. The consciousness is built it, but you built a structure in your mind and it’s very defensive. Have you noticed it’s defensive. If anybody says something against it, it defends itself. Even if you think that somebody might say something against it, it defends itself. Do you ever notice that you’re having conversations in there inside your head that are not happening? The outside? What you’re going to tell somebody? What you’re not going to tell somebody? What should you tell somebody? That’s ego. It’s about you. What do I need to do in order to get what I want? How about if I ask you that question? How often if I get down to the root of the whole thing, is it saying what do I need to get and half happens so I’m okay, and what do I need to avoid happening so I’m not, okay? Have you noticed it does that? Because I’m telling you, that’s all it does. That’s all it does. Okay? And when you change your mind, you didn’t change from ego. You just decided, oh, I think this way will work better to get what I want. I’ll wear these clothes. I’ll drive this car. I’ll get this look, I’ll behave this way. How can I get what I want and how can I avoid what I don’t want? Anybody can relate. No, if you can’t relate, you’re in the wrong room.

But the net result is you’re going to see that’s how it is. That’s when you start to get clear witness consciousness. You notice there is this thing inside your mind that behaves that way. I mean mine, that’s what it talks about. Everything. I don’t always think about myself. I think about my child. They were mine. I think about my husband. I think about mine. I want to serve my community. This is mine. That’s just the ego deciding how to be so it can be accepted, so it can be appreciated, so it can feel good about itself, et cetera, et cetera. The whole thing is ego except the consciousness that’s listening to me now and noticing the whole thing’s. Ego. You do notice that goes on in there, yes or no? What happens if something happens you don’t like? Does it get upset? Does that something to say about it?

Whether you say it outside or not, I hope you don’t. Okay, that just creates more confusion and disturbance outside. But it is disturbed inside. Is it disturbed inside? Have you ever found this not doing so well in there? And then you just think, what can I do? Really? What you mean is what can everybody else do so that I feel better? Then you go about your business doing it. So that’s called clarity. Clarity. There’s an ego. Fine, there’s an ego. You’ll get to the point in your growth. How? By not going with ego, not getting rid of the ego just by not going with it. If you notice that it’s talking, having a conversation with somebody, you start to be strict but not strict in a sense of discipline. You catch yourself. I’m going to do this. I’m going to tell you, if I had my dry, I would tell you this.

Give you a piece of my mind. I like that. Have you ever thought you wanted give somebody a piece of your mind? What a beautiful way to say it. Your mind’s in there given trouble. I’ll give it to you. You look at it, it’s what I would like you to do. Don’t get mad at yourself. Just notice what I do with him. If he does that, I don’t. Very quiet, simple. Hello in there. Hello, hello, hello. Stop. Are you going to say this thing to these people, to that person? And he says No. Then stop saying it to me. If you’re not going to say it, I don’t need you saying it inside. All you’re doing is trying to release your trouble. You’re having with your heart in your mind. It’s like you’re releasing the energy that’s not doing well inside of you by the mind. Don’t talk to me like that. If you talk about that I’m leaving, are you really going to leave? No, I’m not Leave. Then shut up.

You just get a little bit disciplined with the thing, okay? You don’t have to beat it up, you bring it up, you bring it up. But to be real. So that’s how you work with ego. You accept that it exists. That’s acceptance. You got one, don’t you? Okay? And then you start to work with it by doing what? By not letting it just run wild in there because it can cause ulcers and anxiety and all kinds of stuff, alright? But you don’t yell at it. You don’t beat it up. You’re not embarrassed by it. It’s just what it is, okay? When you get there and you’re working with yours that way, remember what I just said? You got one. You start working with yours with consciousness, with awareness, with the ability to lift things up. You start to notice something. Everybody’s got one and that’s why they’re saying what they said to you and that’s why they’re acting the way they did and that’s why they’re closing and opening and everything that’s going on that you see all the time that you don’t like so much is the same as what’s going inside of you.

Not the same subject I told you. Ego is built out of the experiences you’ve had. You’ve had bad experiences, experiences you didn’t like, experience you did like you kept those two and you made a model a me that likes this and doesn’t like that, that wants this and doesn’t want that, believes in this and doesn’t believe in that. It’s all because of your past experiences. I know you hear me, but I know you don’t really understand. When psychology says man’s a son has learned experiences, it’s not you’re the consciousness watching that part of your mind or the ego, your psyche be the sum of the learned experiences. So what does that mean? It means I really like him. I’ve known him for a while. I think this about him. He once said something to me that was really nice and smart and he’s really smart.

Okay, that’s my learned experience. Is that really what he is? Hell do I know. I just know what I’ve experienced. How can you know what you haven’t experienced? You don’t do you? If all of a sudden somebody come up to me and said something about him really bad, he killed his three wives. Oh, the kind of a friend is that next time you see him, you are not going to have the same relationship as you had before because you are the sum learned experiences. That’s that real. Well, of course, no, of course. So if nobody had said it, you’d still be friends with him. It’s that fickle. Whatever got into last pretty much is what’s playing around with. Don’t say it’s logical. It’s not logical. I’ve given you logical. This is what logical is. At any given moment, you’re experiencing something correct. How much are you not experiencing that’s happening in the universe or even in Florida or Gainesville, 700 billion moments that you’re not experiencing.

Therefore, the moment you’re experiencing is meaningless. I know you hate me to say that The sum of your learned experiences is nothing. It’s statistically insignificant. You miss 700 billion more experiences than you had. Every moment you’re having experience, you’re missing everything else that’s happening. Those things are as real as the one you’re experiencing. Nothing special about what you’re experiencing. It’s just a moment in the universe. You’re just having experiencing that one and it’s the only one. You’re building your whole concepts and beliefs and hopes and dreams and values and ego based on that little experience that you happen to be having that moment. Look to the left. You have another one, look to the right, another one. Then that becomes some of learning experiences. Cough. When somebody’s saying to you that he killed somebody or that is mean, so you didn’t hear him, that’s all. Oh, what’d you say?

Nevermind. And you’re totally different person. That’s how powerful that statement that your ego is. The summary learned experiences is wake up. It’s true. That’s not who you are. Is it not true that what I just described is what’s going on inside your head. The summary learned, experience, what mommy did, what daddy did with your blanket away too soon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that’s what is logical is that the moment in front of you that you’re experiencing is nothing. I mean it’s nothing. It’s everything. It’s a moment in the universe. Take a breath. Okay? There is nothing special about that moment except it’s the one you’re experiencing. And so you say, but it’s all I got the great you got nothing. That’s called humility. That’s real humility. You understand? Everybody’s had a different experience who has had the same experience as you every moment you had an experience.

Absolutely nobody, never, ever and never will. So this is what starts to happen. You start to notice that’s what your ego is to some of your learned experiences. Therefore, it’s nothing because you miss all the other experiences and you would’ve been programmed differently if it had any one of those. So now you start realizing that’s who you’re interacting with out there. From a psychological point of view, you’re interacting with someone who is the sum of their learned experiences. How could you know what that is? You didn’t have the experiences. How could you judge? How can you judge? You used to say, but by God’s grace there goes myself, I’ve heard it so many times now. I cry when I say it because it’s the truth. If you had had those experiences, your mind would be totally different. I proved it to you. One more experience.

You change your whole feeling about somebody. Your whole concept of what you want. I want to go to such and such a college. Oh, I’ve always wanted to go there. Did you hear that the president was bigoted or something like that? I wouldn’t go there. I called rest of my life. I’ve done think about it. Some learned experiences and don’t you dare think it’s right. You had a slightly different experience. It’s somebody else that talked. I’ll tell you what, I never talk politics. I’m going to talk politics. If you watch Fox News versus CNN or CNN versus Fox News, those are very different experiences. I don’t care who’s right, I don’t care who’s wrong, I don’t want to talk about it. All I’m telling you is you are being programmed both cases. I’m not taking sides. You will be a totally different person and you’ll vote different.

Okay? Am I right or wrong? What do you think? You got some innate thing that knows stuff. Okay? So you start to wake up to realize you are interacting with the sum of somebody else’s learned experiences. They’re not your experiences. They’re not going to think like you. They’re not supposed to. They will not. And if they tell you that they agree with everything, you think they want something from you, they do not agree with everything you think. Have you noticed? Have you ever been in a relationship, found out that person’s not exactly like the way you thought they were?

How can they be? You made me cry. Nobody will talk to you this way. You understand that They want to talk to you how to get someone to behave the way you want them to, how to manipulate the world to get it the way you want. That’s what they teach you. Well, the Buddhists, they work at the root. The root is they are not you. They do not think like you. They will never think like you. No matter how hard you try, they’re going to go out and have a different day than you had tomorrow. That alone, if you think you manipulated them and make ’em be the way you want, just wait until they see somebody else. Wait until the boss fires ’em. Wait until they get a raid. Wait till they get the corner office. Then don’t get to corner office. They come home different.

Yes or no? Okay, so this is called waking up. So now we are sitting in a situation where we’ve seen ego and we’ve seen it be the summer learning experiences. And when you see it itself as some of your learned experiences, you wanted to go to Hawaii, you’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii your whole life, and you turn on a TV and there’s these volcanoes going on, okay, now you rest of your life, you won’t go to Hawaii. This is who you’ll be. I used to want to go to Hawaii when I was little. Oh my God, I used to build models of it. I always wanted to go. Then I turn on the TV and I saw that I wouldn’t go to a wife, I’ll go to Alaska first. What if you didn’t watch that channel at that moment? Didn’t turn it on. You’re a totally different person. It’s embarrassing, isn’t it? It should be embarrassing. How can you own that eye? It’s so fickle. It’s ridiculous. I told you it is meaningless. And if I say that, and then people doesn’t happen often, but somebody writes and says, I used to feel good about myself until I heard you say I was meaningless.

You should feel better about yourself because you let go of the fake part of you. You let go of the part of you that’s saying, I don’t feel good, but I make myself feel good. I did this, I did that. No, no, no, no, no. So let’s just make believe just for a moment that you pass that first stage of noticing. I have an ego and guess what? It’s some of my learned experiences. Isn’t that funny? And guess what? Nobody has ever had the experience one at the same time, but they haven’t in sequence. No one’s actually had the experience you’ve ever had. You are looking at me from a different angle. There’s different light and you have a different mindset while you’re looking. Every one of you is having a different experience. Okay? Can you talk about it? You understand how different it is.

So the day you can get to that point and meditation will help, all kinds of things will help, but I’m assuming you got there and you’re aware that what you are looking at in there is the sum of its learned experiences and it’s serious about it. It’s serious about what it likes, what it doesn’t like and what it was, what it doesn’t matter what it believes or doesn’t believe. Wake up. That’s all that’s going on in there is the sum of your learned experiences, which are nothing compared to the experiences you could have had and everybody else is having. Don’t ever forget that. Okay? So now, now I know I have an ego and I know how to deal with it. It’ll really calm it down. It’s like handling a kid that throws tantrums. Just learn how to handle it. Learn how to deal with it, okay?

The main way you deal with it is you don’t believe it. You don’t listen to it. Has your mind ever been wrong? Has your ego ever told you after talking how much you going to tell somebody something and you see them and you tell ’em that and you find out that you were full of it, that nothing you thought they were thinking, they were thinking and you’re embarrassed that you even opened your mouth. You wish yes or no. Have you ever followed what it had to say and find out that it was the stupidest thing you ever could have done that things weren’t the way you thought they were. Of course they’re not the way you thought they were. Your thought patterns are made up of your past experiences. Somebody else’s behavior is totally different. So now you’ve woken up and you realize what I’m watching is just an ego seeing one seen them all.

They’re all different. Why is somebody prejudice? Their father was their grandfather, was somebody hurt them of a certain nationality? You actually form your opinions. I know what I’m talking about. I grew up on a farm. I know what farmers alike. You don’t know anything. Nobody knows anything except for what you’ve experienced. And then you made a big deal out of it. So here you are now you have an ego, mazeltov, congratulations. Can you learn to live with it? Can you learn to not let that meaningless thing run your life? Ultimately, you don’t listen to it ever? Not did ever I say ever, right? In general, I don’t know 90% everything has to say is meaningless. It’s just you trying to get what you want to avoid what you don’t want. Plotting, planning, thinking. Do you know that that thing in there that I’m talking about spends time not liking what happened five years ago.

Now there’s a waste of time. Why it’s not going to change is it? There’s absolutely nothing you can do about what happened five years ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago or five minutes ago. You can work on not having it again, but you are never going to change what already happened. And it still complains in there, doesn’t it? It still feels bad about it. It’s still scared of it or it’s still desirous. I can’t get a subject. I’m sorry. It is crazy to live for that thing to devote your life for that thing. It’s just nuts and it’s not so much fun, is it? It’s the cause of all anxiety, all suffering, all neurosis, all depression, all everything, all disappointment. Okay. Alright, so now I’ll try to go on. So now you’re in there. You notice you got one.

I like saying that you got one. Okay, you got what? You have five fingers then, excuse me, 10 fingers, hope 10 toes and an ego and a nose too. Okay, you just got one. Learn what it’s like I told you it’s like alright, now I want to go to the next step. Once you literally get there and you learn to not tame, just live with the thing. You live with it. It’s got issues. It’s got issues, it has little fears and little desires, little anxieties and little depressions and fine. Just you stay calm and be able to be calm and center and clear. That’s what witness consciousness, right? While that thing is there. And guess what? It’ll get quieter. Just like the tantrum kid gets quieter when you don’t give it what it was, but if you hit it because through a tantrum in the department store, no, no, no, no. If you give it what it was because you can’t handle it. No, no, no, no. You use child psychology, you do different things. One thing I learned a long time, oh, I can’t believe I’m telling this to you. Way back in the early seventies, I used to deal with it like follows and I went this, okay, you can, yes, you can have it tomorrow. I never gave it to him.

Now since just say the Qs thrown a tantrum, you don’t hit him. Oh, okay, we’ll talk to daddy about it. We we’ll talk about tomorrow. We don’t promise it. Yes, put it off. He calms down. You can learn to live with this thing. You just work with it, you work with it and it will get quieter. And as it gets quieter, you’re going to find out it’s much nicer in there because you’re not living there with a maniac making its demands and creating anxieties and fears and jealousies and insecurities and all kinds of stuff. Alright, answer me now. I don’t care who you are. Have you noticed it’s insecure? Have you noticed it’s insecure? Yes, of course, of course the U is insecure. Why? Because it made itself up. It knows it’s not real. And every time we meet somebody it has to present itself and try to be accepted and it feels insecure about it.

So there you got one tag. You’re it. It’s not wrong. It’s part of reality. So you learn to live with it, you work with it and it will get quieter. And so now you’re more centered, you’re clearer. And what happens is at some point you start to look at everybody else that way, the way you’re looking at yours, okay, you got one. So what? You’re not like me. So what? Okay, you don’t even agree with what I agree with. So what? It’s just basically those are the experiences you had and this is how you put them together and this is what the ego’s telling you to do. This is who you are. That’s what you do. And sometimes don people do things that you can’t understand, don’t they? Of course you can’t understand them. You didn’t go through the life experiences that they went through that caused them to be saying what they’re saying or doing what they’re doing.

I’m a nice Jewish yogi. I read the Bible one in my life, 19 71, 72 rather than the New Testament. And now anytime I’m growing or learning, I just hear the words when Christ said, you who’s without sin, throw the first stone. Let’s just change a little bit. You who’s without ego, judge the other person. That’s what it means, isn’t it? You stop judging, you literally stop judging. I don’t care what it is. You just realize that person is some of their learned experiences. My ego is I’m not, but my egos is some of my learned experiences. Of course I don’t understand why they have you ever said something? I can’t believe you said that. How could you say such a thing? I would never say such a thing. Of course not. You haven’t gone through their life experiences. Who’s willing to listen to this? That’s what it means to grow spiritually.

That’s what it means to grow up into reality and you look out there and you don’t judge. Judge. Not that you should not be judged. That’s what it means. In the third em patriarch says, cease this burdensome process of judging. Okay? It seems impossible, right? That’s because you’re caught in your ego. It’s your ego that’s judging everybody else. You should be like me. I you should be like me. Of course you should be like me. Why? Because I know I’m right. Of course you know you’re right. I have evidence that I’m right. I’ll give you every experience I had that proves that I’m right. That’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy because you had the experience, you decided that’s what it’s all about and now you can prove to the experience. That’s what it’s all about. I told you it’s nothing. And so you start to come a point where naturally you’re not listening to yours, you’re not fighting.

It’s not a fight I used to fight. It’s not a fight. It’s literally just being wise, working with your ego with the understanding that it comes out of fear. Somebody asked to do a gonda. What is the ego? Enlightened master? He said the masquerading self that is so deep. In other words, it’s a mask out of thoughts. You made a thought mask and you hold it in front of yourself and order to protect yourself and control and so on. And that’s what you present to everybody When you take the mask down, which is not easy, it’s a slow process, but naturally you rip it down, it’ll come right back. Have you noticed things can happen? You fall in love or you get something you want and all of a sudden he goes much nicer. It says nice things all the time. He believes in God and believes, oh, there is goodness in the world until something bad happens and it’s right back in two seconds the same way it was before complaining.

So you get to the point where you don’t beat it up, you work with it gently, you work with it and then believe it or not, you start naturally having the same relationship with everybody else. So a drug dealer comes up to you on the streets, Hey man, you want like that? And he used to vile you. How got somebody live like that? It’s disgusting. Get away from me now it’s compassion. That’s what Buddhist said, compassion in the Ohio State, that that is the sum of his and hurdle learned experiences. That’s where they ended up. Maybe if I had had the same experiences and mistreating when I was young, this or that, or my parents did drugs and gave ’em to me, I don’t know. Okay? All they know is that’s who you met and that’s someone that was some of the learned experiences and you don’t judge.

You literally don’t judge. There’s just a sense of interesting, okay, you’re very quiet tonight, but I’m not saying you do judge, but then don’t you stand that? Of course I judge, but I’m not going to be like that. Yeah, you are like that because you just admitted it. I’m talking about it stops, judge. I’m telling you, the more you work with yourself, the more you understand everybody else because we’re all coming to the same place. We’re just programmed differently. But still the same concept as a computer being programmed, as a mind, being programmed by the past experiences. Fair enough. So the next thing is you start being able to walk out into this world without judging naturally. Well, if you don’t judge what happens, you honor you. Respect doesn’t mean you take the drugs, it doesn’t mean you have to talk to the person. It’s not telling you how to act.

It’s telling you how to be inside and it’s natural. You literally don’t judge. It just is a natural process to understand why people are the way they are. It’s not like, how could you say that? I would never say that to you. It’s like I understand. I wouldn’t say it, but I understand you do your thing. I do my thing that nicer. But if you’re married to somebody, all these people need marriage counseling and all these different things going on. What if you understood that we’re different? Yes, we’re married. Yes, we love each other. That doesn’t mean we’re not different. Have you noticed? Okay, you sign with our license, you want something new’s coming up one day, yes or no? Okay, so you start honoring, respecting that. That’s reality. Now how do you deal with the same way you deal with your own ego when you can deal with yours.

It’s funny, truth is we’re doing exactly outside what everybody else is doing. We have an ego in here wanting something to be a certain way, not wanting something a different way, and we’re manipulating, including our children and our parents and our husbands and wives and everything else. I’m not including especially that was just closest to you. Eventually you catch on. It’s not going to be the way I want. That’s called acceptance called surrender. People misunderstand the surrender experiment and it’s fine. I love that they write saying, well, I’m running a business and I tried not doing anything like you didn’t do. I don’t do anything, but somehow it’s not working out. That’s not what surrender is. Surrender is letting go of your ego, not letting go of the outside, interaction, responsibilities, decision making and so on. It’s where are you coming from? Are you coming from the ego, the only thing about a self and it just wants and doesn’t want and you’re making all your decisions based on that or are you letting go of that surrendering the hold it has on you and then dealing with the outside world from a place of clarity, place of openness, place of respect.

That’s what surrender means. You’re surrendering yourself. When you do that, the outside flows much better. You’re not taking your garbage and dumping it on everybody else. Okay? So basically now you’re at the state where you’ve learned to work with yourself and you’re going to find out you don’t judge other people. You just don’t judge other people. We are so judgmental. It’s unbelievable. You really believe people are wrong. You believe you are right and people are wrong. Now, do you understand? It’s absurd. What a stupid thing. Yeah, it’s hard to talk about. We’re so lost in ourselves. We we’re. And then we project that onto everything else, right? Let’s say you manage to work with yourself enough to you realize I got one. So is everybody else, okay, I’ve learned to live with mine. I can learn to live with yours and I don’t even have to learn.

It’s a natural thing. Now the next thing that happens, let’s just go even higher. The next thing that happens because you’re so clear inside yourself and you realize the next step is who’s looking at this ego? What is inside of me that’s able to look at the ego and not do what it says? Just be clear and you realize that’s yourself. That’s the self, that’s the consciousness. And you start realizing not only are they not like me, the other person, not only are they the sum of the learned experiences, but they’re not. They are the conscious inside lost in the sum of the learned experiences. I’m going to repeat that. They’re the center of consciousness lost in the sum of the learning experiences. You managed to get out a little bit. You’re witness consciousness. You’re noticing that you got one of those. They’re not noticing.

You want to blame like blaming a kid for do what they do. How do you blame somebody who’s not awake for not being awake? How do you blame somebody for the state of evolution that their mind is so disturbed, their heart is so disturbed that they can’t get out and they don’t try to get out. They don’t know there is an out. How do you like that? Ever met somebody like that? Ha ha ha ha. They don’t even know what you’re talking about out. They don’t want out. They went in. I’m going to get what I remember Frank Sinatra song. I did it my way. Congratulations, mazel tough. I wonder how that felt for everybody else just not awake. It’s fine. It’s understandable. People are growing. That’s why you have many lifetimes. Don’t worry about it, okay? You can’t make it all in one round.

And so not only are you not judging because you see yours now you’ve reached a state where you see you, you’re very beautiful. I’m telling you, you’re very beautiful Georgia. In India, they have a name for you, for the soul, for the self sat, eternal conscious ecstasy. You start feeling that inside yourself, constant rushes of Shakti spirit coming up inside of you, feeding you, raising you, feeling love all the time for no reason, feeling, inspiration about everything you’re doing. You can’t wait to do it. It’s so inspiring. It’s not that one thing turns you on, everything turns you on. You’ve reached that state of sitting in the seat of self. It’s not enlightenment. Don’t even think for one second that it’s a high state. That is not a high state, that is not a high state that I described to you where you’re sitting back there and instead of getting all involved with what’s down below you, the ego and all that stuff, you’re feeling this constant flow of love, joy, power, light inside.

There’s way higher stakes than that. Oh my God, he said that. How do you like? There’s way higher states than witness consciousness. Witness consciousness is like you got the rocket ship to the launchpad, hasn’t taken off yet, but at least you’re on the launchpad. They’re out there scattered all over the place. So you reach that point where you’re centered to that level and now you don’t. Look when somebody interacts with somebody, you don’t see them which are very compassionate as the sum of their learning experiences. You understand you have compassion. You’re not judging. You see them as the same as you. They are God descended. They are that consciousness that has been lost looking down at themselves, but that’s still who you are. If I take off a light and I shine it on something, it doesn’t matter what I shine it on, it’s still the same light shine something dirty, something broken, something beautiful, something worth a great deal, something worthless.

Same light. So the light of consciousness is shining on. Your ego is shining on everybody else’s ego. But when you stop seeing yours as you literally stop even seeing them as the sum learned experiences, you see God, you see who they are. You see the indwelling being that is in there used to say, meditate on the self honor, worship your own being for God dwells within you as you. Who else said that? Oh, I think Jesus said the kingdom is within you. Somebody who reached savage talked about they don’t have any problem understanding what that means. It is literally within you. The kingdom meaning heaven, ecstasy, God, beauty, everything is what’s looking at your junk. So now when you look at other people in India, at least traditionally used to be, they used to say don’t say hello. What’d they say? Naste. Ever hear that naste instead of, hello, what does naste mean in the tradition?

It means that which is God within me sees and honors the God within you. I’m looking past your body, looking past your mind, looking past the ego. You’re presenting to me and I see who’s in there noticing all this stuff. Okay, I had that. Beautiful. So that’s your next step. The next step is you literally see God everywhere. Those who see God, see God everywhere. Now you understand that because you’re seeing it within yourself. That’s what you see inside everybody. Now what? Now I want to see how you interact with people when Buddha said, right, action. Let’s talk about right action. When you’re busy wanting for yourself, they call right action. Don’t be too greedy, don’t be too needy. Don’t be too passion oriented. Don’t be too selfish. Just hold it back a little bit. Make sure you’re doing right. Action. That’s not right. Action.

That’s suppression of what you want to do. You get to a point where, like I said, where you see that yours is not right, it’s just what it is. Theirs are not right, but they don’t know it yet. That’s okay and you interact with them. That’s more right action to give people space. People need space. They have you noticed they need space. They don’t need you to take their space with your stuff. Don’t behave like that. Just try with kids. Kids need space. Doesn’t mean you don’t discipline ’em. Doesn’t mean you don’t bring ’em up. They need space. You have no right in the world to sit there and take that soul who’s different than you and having totally different experiences and we’ll always have totally different experiences and build a box and say this is where you fit and you better behave like that.

Now we got mass murderers later when they grow up. We have problem things. So you give someone space. It doesn’t mean you don’t deal with them, but you give ’em space to be who they are. You give ’em space to be some of their learning experiences. Do they learn that they’re not? People say to me, I’ve gotten here and I’ve practiced teaching so much better. I want to tell other people how to do it. How can I teach? I want to teach this. I want my wife to learn about it. I want my kids to learn about it at a young age so they can be like that. We tell them when they’re like that. You grow within yourself. Let go of yourself. Go as deep as you can that will teach everybody. Just present to any person you meet the most beautiful human being they’ve ever met and you will change the world. It’s not about convincing. You’re right Or how do I teach them to be the teachings?

You understand? Alright, so now you’re at the point where you’re not judging, you’re not trying to manipulate or control. So what’s right action. You look and realize they have the right to be the way they are neat. We just had selection and everybody’s very for against. Who cares? Who cares? Because everybody did what they thought they wanted to do. They didn’t do what you wanted them to do. Or maybe they did. I don’t know, I don’t care. But the net result is they acted out of the sum of the learn experiences. Now does that mean you don’t interact and be active and interact with the world based upon the state of consciousness you reach? It’s like the earth as a matter of fact, 8.5 billion people, they’re all the sum of the learn experiences. Therefore everybody makes the whole. So your part of it is meaningful.

It’s not that you say, okay, my seventh learning experience don’t mean anything, so I’m not going to do anything. No, you look at it, you don’t get caught in it. You understand? Okay, that’s your piece on the chess board and you do it with respect. With honor. That’s the entire bag, Gita, the entire book sits there and is Christ talking Arjuna telling what I just told you. You have your part to play. You happen to be a warrior. There happens to be a war going on. Somebody’s trying to take your kingdom away and you’re supposed to defend it. But I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to kill anybody. It’s not nice and Christian, stop across the face. I thought you were a high being. You have your role to play. You were trained as a warrior. Here is a battle unasked for you don’t even want it.

That’s beautiful. That’s why you should do it. You’re the purest person here. You’re the purest person involved in this thing and this is where you find yourself. It’s so deep you don’t talk about it. And even the scene in which it takes place, it takes place with Krishna Godhead driving a chariot with our June on the back, the warrior on the back, I’m going to be your chariot cheer. I’m driving you into the battle. What do you mean you will fight? Here we are. God, set this up. God’s game. Alright, but do we respect do with purity? There’s another story comes from the Samurai warriors. I love it. There’s a story about in the Summeri tradition, if somebody kills your master, you have to kill them. That’s your dharma. You have to follow ’em and kill them. So there’s really, really terrible person killed this very respectful, high summarized master, and he followed the guy all over the world for a long time trying to catch him and do his thing, what he’s supposed to do.

And so once they finally caught him and the guy was bathing in a lake or something like that, and the summer walked up to him, pulled his sword out and looked at him and said this, what’s going to go on? And I finally backed you off. Well, the guy sat there and spit in his face. He spit in the sunrise face, okay? The warrior took a step back, put his sword back, turned around, started walking away. And the guy said he was a very ugly guy, very mean guy. He said, what’s wrong with you coward? What’s wrong with you? I turned around and I said, I felt anger. Therefore I had no right to act. It wasn’t coming from my dharma for my responsibility that I had. And I said, what dharma means Now that which was meant for you to do not you want to do or don’t want to do, it’s just your dharma.

We don’t have a word in English language. We’re not high enough to touch the word dharma, but that’s the whole bbi. It is all about that. All the deep tissues are about that. You’re here on earth. You’re not here on earth to get for yourself. Whatcha going to get, you’re going to die in years or whatever. They were 80 years old. Nothing goes with you, don’t catch yourself. And so you just catch on that I’m here on this little planet spin in the middle of nowheres. It can’t be about getting what I want because I ain’t keeping it. And plus I can’t get it anyways. Which one do you always get what you want? That’s pretty funny. Which one? If you want what you got after you’ve had it for a while, very funny. And so you wake up, you realize it’s not about getting what you want.

It’s not about affording what you don’t want. It’s about waking up. It’s about getting clear enough inside to realize I’m in here and I got this ego naturally. And how do I interact with the outside world with respect? You literally have such respect that I’m interacting with God wearing a costume. That’s what the ego is. It’s just a particular costume that got put on and it’s acting that way in a play. But it’s God’s the most evil person ever lived. That’s God I like very much that a Christian tradition, they say that Lucifer is what? That the devil is a fallen angel. That’s where you fell. You fell into the costume of your ego. You’re being very quiet tonight. And so you wake up, everybody’s a fallen angel, everybody’s a fallen angel. Even your ex-husband or ex-wife. They’re just behaving based upon the garbage that they’re looking at that they collected.

They built their own costume. God made quite a game for himself. He doesn’t have to program you. You program yourself. Just walk out there, have the interaction, you build this complicated program, you behave, the toys behave differently all the time, but still God, it’s still the same consciousness coming down, interacting, et cetera, et cetera. And so now when you come down and you do come down, you don’t go hide off somewhere, right? You just basically, here you are, you’re clear and you interact not from your ego. You interact from the depth of your being and you interact with love. How can you love somebody who hurt you? You learn to, you learn. You learn. If you got hurt, there’s only one way, not physically. Physically I draw a line to understand if someone is physically hurting you leave. No, there’s no excuse, no hitting, but psychological hurting.

That’s a whole other ball game that takes two to tango. It takes you doing something and me not liking what you did. And so you start letting go of yourself. So now there’s more room for people to be someone. Learn experiences that nice, that’s very nice to give people room. And then basically if you need to leave, you leave, but you don’t do it. You can’t handle it, you can handle it. But if it turns out it’s not healthy and so on and so forth for the children, nobody’s telling you what to do except don’t follow your ego because that’s the lowest part of your being. That’s just something you made up based on your past experiences. You had different experiences, you would look at it differently. And so you learn to let go of yourself, but then you respect other people and you start living your life with great respect.

You get to the point where just to see another person. Somebody told me, and it’s true, I can’t find it because I’m not very good at poetry and stuff, but women, Walt Whi, great American poet is apparently a very high being. And there are people who wrote books about how he experienced enlightenment, that he has been in a very, very high state. And he talks about, I think in leaves of grass somewhere you can look it up. That inside of every human being, there’s two people. One, when you meet them, you can’t stand because it’s so disgusting. The other, when you meet them, you can’t stand because your knees go weak and you fall down in front of ’em. Same person, same capability, which is a human right. It goes from one to the other. It depends on how caught they are within themselves. So you get to the point where you just feel respect for everything.

You feel respect, you still do what you do. Somebody steals your car, you call the police in order to hurt that person, show their shit. No, it’s just the dharmic thing to do. You just do the best you can with what you’re dealing with. And that’s what the whole G is about. Christian tells our you to pick up your sword and fine, you’re not fighting to get the kingdom. You’re not fighting because you don’t like the person. He says, there’s no greater gift to a warrior then a battle unasked for unneeded, unwanted. In other words, it’s not personal. They’ve let go of the ego. Here we are. So it was an example. We fought Hitler. It was Darmic. The man was not doing very well. It wasn’t a lot of trouble. Okay, and so on. Does that mean we should fight all the time? No.

Doesn’t mean we should never fight. No, there’s no answers. It’s just how clean can you be? I can’t believe coming to my mind in the first Gulf War Swar, was it General Schoff? I got it still. He was the head ran armies. I ran the whole multinational force after the war was over. And I’m not a military person, but after the war was over, they did a tour of his bunker. And I’ll never forget it, it was a long time ago, he had some books on his very simple bed, simple little place. He had two or three books on his nightstand and one of them was the Bible. One of them was like the art of war that super right? Whatever it is. And the other was the Prophet by Giran. Isn’t that beautiful? I gained a lot of respect for the military. I grew, come on.

I grew up with the sixties, the Vietnam War, and I just gained respect for some of these people are real and they’re deep. It’s not a matter of warhawks or that kind of thing. They’re the people that are into doing their responsibility and taking it seriously and so on. So that’s the stages you go through As you let go of your ego, it doesn’t stop with you letting go of your ego and you’re feeling joy. It comes out as how you’re interacting with other people and how you see other people. And what you see is God. Literally that’s all you see is God. There’s a beautiful story. Ram Krishna, I love. I grew Ram Krishna, my hero. He was just God man. From the age of six, God man heard the name of God. Every hair on his body was standing in. If he saw something beautiful like white birds, Ingrid’s flying across the monsoon black sky, it hit him so hard.

He passed out. They thought it was epileptic. They used to take him home. He fell into so money at age of six. Okay? And his whole life is what a story. So his disciples, of course were very deep and he had one particular disciple and it was Brother Ramadan died. I’m not sure it is. But this is back in the late 18 hundreds, early hundred. And basically after Robert Krishna died, left the body, some of the disciples, students would come to this guy’s house and they get to have talk with them. And so their door to his house, the little room where he used to sit was there and he’d come out and to them, a handful, not a whole lot, a handful of students. And one time they didn’t come out, he didn’t come out. And all the students were waiting there. Trump was talking about this stuff without crying.

I love deep stuff. Okay? Students were waiting there, they knocked on the door, they didn’t answer. Another student came and was close to him, opened the door and walked in. And there he was sitting there meditating. He’s older, old man meditating. And they said, brother nun, the disciples were waiting for you. He said, no, I can’t go out. They said, why? I’ve reached the point that it seems really stupid to go out there and tell God how to behave. Isn’t they’re beautiful? So these are the stages you reach when you let go of yourself. Yes, you meditate. Yes you do. Mantra, yes, you go do whatever you want, but please do this. It is all said and done. What do Christ say? You must die to be reborn. It means you must die of the personal to be reborn in the spiritual. It’s not all or nothing.

You don’t need drugs. The more you let go and come to peace with yourself, with your ego, not go with it, not beat it up, not try to rip it off. The Gita says, one should raise the self with self, not trampled down the self for self, which is self’s. Friend can become self foe. And that’s taking off on the capital. S meaning the higher self and the ego self is the lower self. One should raise the self with self, not t trample down the self. Learn to work with yourself to raise it up. And as you do, you’ll start realizing that Shakti is flowing inside of you and you start being fed from inside. And I’m telling you, then you look out on this world and you won’t judge people, even people that aren’t so nice. He understand. He understand so much. How can you judge the person?

Look, they went through this childhood with this happened, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so now they have different opinions about things. Of course they do. Of course they feel differently about things you feel strongly about. Of course they do. They had different experiences. Can you understand that? That doesn’t mean you don’t work just like Arjuna or I were. You have a responsibility. You’re the person who sees it the way you see it because those are the experiences you had. So yes, be an activist, yes, come forward. But don’t judge. Don’t sit there and say they’re crazy and hate them and turn fear and anxiety and think everything’s crazy just because it is. Of course, it’s crazy. How can you take 8.5 billion of you and you’re all totally different because you all had totally different experiences and dump you onto a planet together? What do you think is going to go on?

Okay, so can you live here? Can you do your thing? But not personal, right? I’m representing this side. I think it’s neat in debate club. I never did it, but I’ve heard they make you debate. Both sides a fine debate club. This time you take this side. Do you take that side next time? That’s so healthy, isn’t this? Could you do that? I like it. Especially after it. So close the election to look at you in the eyes and say, can you do that? Alright, of course not. But that’s what it means to evolve. But it doesn’t mean you don’t do your thing. That’s your responsibility. You are representing this side. You do your thing, but not with hate and not with fear, and not with judgment, with participation in the process of life, right? So you work on these things. Jai.

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