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. Why do people have problems? Why do we have problems? You step back, you realize you’re sitting on a planet spin around the middle of nowhere earth. It’s just a very tiny, tiny planet and there’s lots of things happening on the planet. There’s animals, there’s things to do, there’s weather, there’s so much. There’s not a single moment in your life that there wasn’t something going on. You have to pedal, you have to pray, you have to do a single thing. There’s just stuff going on and you get to come down here and hang out for a while, not very long. Don’t worry. It’s like going to camp. You come home eventually, alright? I mean, how many years? 80, 90. The Earth has been here for 4.5 billion years and you can’t handle 80 or 90, and then you stop and you look at it and you say, well, maybe you’d rather be on Mars.
Maybe you’d rather be on Jupiter. I don’t think so. There’s absolutely nothing going on there. Nothing, dirt, gas, nothing. Would you like to go there and hang out there? Go visit people, want to go visit Mars? Fine. Go visit. You better figure out something to do. Listen to me. It’s that simple. You have to step back out of yourself for a moment and realize what is actually going on. Because what you’re worried about and what you’re thinking about and what you’re having issues with is nothing. It’s just nothing. It’s nothing compared to what’s going on. So you happen to land on the nicest planet that anyone has ever seen. We’ve spent telescopes out there, we got probes out there, we’ve got all kinds of stuff and no one has seen squat. Not an amoeba, not a protozoa, not bacteria. They have not found a single thing other than dirt, rocks, gas.
And you end up on a place that there’s colors and activity and things to do and computers and rocket ships and love and people and are you kidding me? How can you have a problem? That is the spiritual question. You step back. It’s not like going somewhere and having some spiritual person tells you, here’s how you should deal with your problems. That’s not deep enough. Why do you have a problem if you ended up with everything compared to anything else? So far we’ve seen in the entire universe, you ended up with everything. It’s beyond Disney World that somehow God or whatever made this place that there’s all this stuff going on and you won the lottery, you landed on a planet in which there’s animals and there’s grass and there’s trees. Oh my God, every single place you look, every moment of your life, there’s exciting things going on.
So why do you come down here and have constant problems? That is the spiritual question. Not what do I do about my problems? I’m sorry. I know you have problems. We have problems. You shouldn’t have them. How’s that? That’s what deep spirituality says to you. If you have problems, you got a problem, alright? Because it’s very nice here. It’s unbelievable. It’s exciting and you don’t have to stay, okay? You came to visit for a while and so you wake up, it’s called waking up. The astronauts go out there even they’re very intellectual, MIT and brilliant engineers and they studied all stuff. They go out there and have this thing called an overview effect. I’ve heard of it. They’re off the planet. They did their thing. They’re trained, they have their space route on, they’re doing all kind of stuff and they look out the window and they see this little Christmas tree ball blue and brown and white floating out in the middle of nowhere.
And that changes your life. Why? Because you realize I live down there. Down there is nothing. Look around, right? You’re circling one star, there are 300 billion stars in your galaxy and there are over 2 trillion galaxies and you ended up on this beautiful ball floating out there. And so their life changes. They do, they change. They come back. They think maybe we need to take care of that ball. Interesting place. They do. They become environmentalists and all kinds of stuff goes on. So basically you don’t have to go there, especially nowadays. You all have computers. You can look at the pictures they took. You can look at videos, you can look at all kinds of stuff about what it’s like to be out off of this planet and look down at it. And what it should do is not just wake you up environmentally or anything like that, but wake up to say, how can I have a problem?
Where’d that place come from in the middle of nowhere floating around? I can’t help myself. I tell you, fine, you’re floating around a star. The star is 93 billion miles away. Stop. Think you want to use your mind for something. How far is Miami? 3 20 90 3 million miles away. And it is so hot that you complain about the heat from 93 million miles away, don’t you? Oh, he’s so hot. Okay, imagine how hot that thing must be and you’re just floating around it. I told you, where is your nearest star to the sun? I said, there’s 300 billion. Where’s the next one? The next one is 4.3 light years away.
It doesn’t mean anything. Miami must be further. It’s three 20, not 4.3. That’s the next door, right? And I try to get you to understand, I’ve told you before, I don’t care. Catch a beam of light, just a beam of light. Hold it above the earth. Let it go for one second. It’s circumnavigated a glow seven and a half times. Now fast enough. Mind blowing, isn’t it? Go that speed every second for 4.3 years and you’ll reach the next star far enough away for you. And there’s 300 billion of them and you’re sitting on this little planet in the middle of nowheres and complaining constantly. And you do. Sometimes you consider positive. I’m not complaining. I just want to find somebody to love. That’s complaining. That’s complaining. I just want to find a job I enjoy. I want to feel inspired. You’re just constantly not liking what is and saying it’s positive to want something that I want.
No, it’s basically complaining. You’re complaining. I don’t feel good. It’s hot, right? I want to tree that looks like his. Oh, I didn’t want to bug to eat my rose when I went to the garden show. And okay, it’s unbelievable. And so you wake up, that’s waking up as you realize it is not about how to solve your problems, it’s about why do you have them? I’ll tell you, I’m not here to tell you how to solve your problems. Never have been, never did. Am I here to solve my problems? I’m here to question how can you be in this unbelievable place with all these unbelievable things going on? Look at all the people around you. I don’t care if you know them or don’t know them, they’re there. There’s no one on Mars. There’s no one anywhere else. And so you wake up. It’s not about how do I solve my problems and why do I have problems? And the answer is actually very, very simple. Why do you have problems? Listen to me. You have problems. You have a way you want things to be.
No, I have problems because things aren’t the way I want. No, no, no. That’s worldly. That’s a normal person. And you don’t want to be a normal person. You’re going to have problems the rest of your life. I don’t want to go to a nursing. Why want kids take care of me? I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. No, I don’t even thinking about dying, right? I don’t want to get old. I don’t want to get old. I lose my hair. I used to be a hippie. I have no hair. I don’t want to get old. I don’t want to do this. Okay? You will have problems with the rest of your life if you don’t listen to me. So it’s not about how to solve your problems, it’s about why do I have them? And the answer is very simple. I told you, you have problems.
You have a way you want things to be. Now that seems so logical. Of course they have a way. I want things to be. Why don’t you enjoy the way they are? What if you enjoy the way things were? What if you met somebody and they were really nice to you and that was great, you met somebody else and they dished you. Oh my God, I can’t stand you. That was fun. What if you enjoyed everything? What if you liked life? What if you liked being on the planet? What if you liked the planet? What if you like the challenge of dealing with people that don’t like the planet? What if you enjoyed every single thing that took place in your life that you did not have preferences or I teach lately the third end patriarch, one of the deepest teaching one line, the most famous line of all spirituality is that first line.
The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Well, we just said that, didn’t we? But that’s an enlightened being. Talking to you. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences, but people say to me, I don’t can’t even imagine. Isn’t that a preference? Having no preferences? I like when they write me like that, but to accommodate everybody, and I got permission from the Thursday patriarch, I slightly changed it. He said it was fine to the following. The great way is not difficult for those who prefer everything. Same thing to have no preferences and to prefer everything. It’s called non-duality. In both cases you’re not separating what you like from what you dislike. So it’s fine if you want to like everything, go for it. But don’t like some things and not like others. Why? Because you’re going to have a problem.
That itself defines a problem. Listen to me. If you want to talk about spirituality, you want to talk about growing spiritually, you want to talk about liberation, you want to talk about enlightening, you want to talk about the highest states, you have to listen. It is because you separate what you like from what you dislike. You have problems. Of course, if I have something I like and I don’t get it, I have a problem. I have something I like and I get it and I lose it. I have a problem. If it’s something I don’t like and I get it, I have a problem. If I got something I don’t like and I don’t get it, I’m temporarily relieved. You did this. You did this by separating reality into what you like and what you don’t like. Can we take a breath? I never do.
I know you can’t imagine not doing that. But just for a moment, imagine that you didn’t do that. Imagine that you said, I’m here. It’s a heck of a place and things are going to happen in front of me. And it’s exciting that things happen in front of me. And by the way, I’ve taught you a million times. Not that many yet. Alright, I will. Alright. You sometimes say, yeah, but I don’t want to miss things. Do you understand how much you’re missing right now? How many things are going on in Gainesville that you’re not experiencing right now? You’re missing them. How many are going on Florida? How many are going on the planet earth? How many gone all over the universe that you’re not experiencing right now? You are missing 99.9 9, 9 9 9 9 9, 9 9 9 raised hundred hundred thousand billionth of power, everything aren’t you? And you said, I don’t want to miss anything.
That’s because you decided what you wanted to have happen. And you said, I don’t want to miss that. That’s what you mean by that. As I’ve decided what I want and I want to miss it and I’ve decided what I don’t want and I definitely want to miss that. And so now your life is dual, your life is broken up into what you like, what you don’t like. That’s very, very deep. Who taught you that? Buddha? Buddha said the four noble truths are very simple. All of life is suffering. Maybe you know something about that. It doesn’t mean you break your arm all the time. It means you’re suffering. You need, you got bothered. All of life is suffering. Rich people, poor people, sick people, healthy people, young people, old people, they suffer, don’t they? Suffering means you’re not completely at peace and content. That’s Buddha’s definition.
You’re not nirvana, you’re suffering. And then he said the most famous line other than the thirdhand patriarch, which is imagine someone saying, I will tell you the cause of suffering in one sentence. Well no, there’s old days, there’s sickness, there’s husbands leaving, wives are dying and children have problems and et cetera. No, no, no. There’s one cause of suffering. So all life is suffering. First noble truth. Second noble truth. The cause of suffering is desire. Now desire is preference. That’s just another word for preference. Unless you have a preference, you don’t have a desire. I have a preference that things happen the way I want. I have a desire. So there the cause of suffering is preference. We just said that’s literally Buddhist weight, 500 bc the truth to end suffering, stop it. He said to end suffering and desire. But I don’t like using the word desire because we look at it differently to end suffering, end preference.
That’s more understandable. Why are you setting aside what you like and what you dislike? Why are you doing that? If you don’t do that, you’ll be in awe of the fact that everything is here. All the fact that you have interaction and things are happening, those are Buddhist teachings, those are deep teachings. So why do we have preferences? You certainly have ’em, don’t you? First I want to ask you, is it not true that your preference has caused you to suffer? Is it not true that if you don’t get what you want, you suffer? Okay? Is it not true? If you get what you don’t want, you suffer. Okay, then you did it. The world did not do it. It takes two to, it takes two to suffer. It takes two things to suffer. It takes the world unfolding the way it is and it takes you deciding you like it or you don’t like it.
That’s the cause of all suffering. But there are terrible things that happen in this world. Yes there are. And nobody’s saying by the way that because you have let go of your preferences that you don’t work with things to raise them, to bring beauty into this world. It’s not that you’re passive, it’s just that you’re not suffering otherwise. Everything you’re doing is trying to stop your suffering. No, I’m trying to help others to do this that I guarantee you’re trying to help them do what makes you feel better. So we’re not okay and that decides what we’re going to do. I want to go real slow with this. Alright? Is it not? If I was okay, I’m okay. I just fell in love. Some of you guys fall in love. That’s really nice. Alright, I just fell in love. What do you want to do?
I don’t care. I want to be with her or him. We do want to live. I don’t care. You’ll see. You will, right? But what if you don’t have any money? I don’t need money. I have love. Come on, you’ve been there. So then you’re fine. You don’t have a preference having an experience of wellbeing. So now when you come out into the world and somebody says, what do you want to do? I’m fine. Just tell me what you want me to do. I just love, I just love, I’m filled with love. I’m enjoying. I get to go home and be with my beloved. And so I’m fine. It’s fine. So it’s because you’re not fine inside that you’re trying to decide what do I do to make me feel better? It’s sad. You’re always trying to feel better, aren’t you? Where should I move?
Alright, where should I go on my vacation? First of all, I need a vacation. How do you know? Believe me, I need a vacation. Okay, say, all right, you’re not okay. If you need a vacation, you’re not okay. Does that mean something’s wrong with vacations? No. There’s nothing wrong with anything. The question is your motive, your intent. Why do you need a vacation? Because I’m burned out. I don’t like what I’m doing. Why do you need weekends? I don’t like what’s happening during the week. Isn’t that ridiculous? You go to work to earn money so you can go out and enjoy yourself. What are you doing for those five days? Earning money. So I enjoy myself on the weekend. Well then you missed your life. It’s a crazy way to live. And so you understand you’re not okay, and so I’m going to take a vacation. I’m going to go to vacation. How will you decide where you want to go on your vacation? We’ll cut to the chase after you went to the web, you looked everywhere, you talked to people, you had the travel bureau things, everything looked at everything, right? You are trying to decide what will make you happy. You’re trying to decide what will make you relaxed. Why? Because you’re not relaxed and you’re not happy.
Who’s willing to be honest. And so everything you’re doing is because you’re not okay? And then the question again becomes, why are you not okay? I’m telling you you’re not okay because you decided you in your own mind decide what you want it to happen, what you didn’t want to happen and that made you not okay. What is worry? Do you worry? Come on. I’m not saying neurotically worry. Do you worry all the time? You worry. What if I say something stupid? What I don’t what he thinks about me. What should I say? Something back. What if I don’t do that? Oh my God, I have to give a talk in public. What if I don’t do well? Do you worry? It’s pretty funny. Then do you worry? Yes you worry. Why do you worry? Because you have things how you want ’em to be and how you don’t want it to be.
If you didn’t have that, you would not worry. There’s something to worry about. You worry that you won’t get what you want and you worry that you’ll get what you don’t want or you’ll worry you’ll lose what you want. Okay? I’m telling you don’t have to live like that so you get to the bottom. Why am I not okay? The simplest thing I can ask you following question. I’m going to ask you questions today. It’s an interactive sport today. Have you had experiences happen in your life that you are not comfortable with and that you pushed away because you didn’t want to feel them? Where do you think they went when you pushed them away? They just dissipated when EERs went away. No, if you push them away, then the experience that happened outside comes in. The actual experience doesn’t come in, the physical experience doesn’t come in, but the energy of it passes up your nervous system, the impressions pass up, your nervous system render in your mind and then you don’t like them, you don’t like it, you don’t like what it feels like.
You don’t like what things like so you push it away. When you push it away, it stays inside of you. You didn’t let it continue. Some of the masters taught the following. The universe is coming in and it’s always passing. Weather passes, clouds pass, everything passes doesn’t stop unless you stop it. And if you stop it, it stays where it’s, I was using the example of the Hoover Dam, the Colorado River is flowing and then you stopped it. Well, where does it do? It stays behind the stop. It stays behind the blockage of the dam and it keeps trying to push through. It never stops. It didn’t say, oh I quit. Alright, you win. Didn’t ever say it At any point, you take a little pebble out of that dam, it starts to eat it all away and it’ll push its way through. Alright? When you stop the energy of the event that is passing through you with your will, you push it away.
It’s just like that power river in the dam. Listen to me, where is it? It’s right there. You stopped it from continue its natural flow through the universe. You held it inside of you. And so now if you have made a collection inside of you of everything that ever bothered you, I wonder why you’re bothered. That’s the bottom line. You’re just cut to the bottom of it. You stored trouble inside of you and now your preferences come from that. You did not decide what you like and what you don’t like. You did not when you were little, you had a sister and you both got bicycles and she got the red one and you got the blue one and you don’t like the blue one, it just didn’t hit you right. Well, I didn’t. It hit you right? Well, because you watched the blue meanies with the Beatles or too young, there was a movie they made and there was blue meanings in it and basically it impressed you that blue is not a color you like.
And then you got a, it’s impressions that got left on you that you stored inside of you and therefore you have preferences that what you like happened again and that what you didn’t like doesn’t happen again. So you have pushed it away. It couldn’t continue its journey through the universe. And now anything that happens, that stuff stored in there and reminds you of what felt good and what didn’t feel good. And so now you don’t like snakes and now you like butterflies. Somebody else wrote their dissertation on the monarch butterfly. They studied it. Oh, they went everywhere and their dissertation was failed. They didn’t accept they had got something wrong and somebody else proved it was wrong and they were disgraced and thrown out of school. I’m telling that person is not going to Butterfly Gordon, and if they do, they suffer.
Pay attention. That’s just an extreme example of what you’ve done with everything. So these impressions are stored in you and now the events of the universe unfold and you have preferences you prefer that which made you feel good before happens again. You prefer that which made you feel bad before, doesn’t happen again and you kind of extrapolate. So if you see a rope and you don’t like snakes, you jump. If you see a rope and you a rope climber and you love that and you’re into gymnastics and so on, it turns you on. Yes or no? Anybody can relate to what I’m talking about. That’s where your preferences come from. So it’s not impossible to sit there and say that the person who has no preferences doesn’t suffer because they’re not sitting there reacting and judging based on the garbage they stored inside. So to cut to the bottom of very early in the talk, you don’t have to get rid of your preferences, you do not have to get rid of your preferences.
You have to get rid of the garbage you stored and they will fall away by themselves and then you can be here now. You can be in the present moment and be blown away that the events are happening in front of you. That there are people who talk to this every single thing. You didn’t destroy the stuff inside. Otherwise you go study Freud. Otherwise somebody says something. My mother used to talk to me like that. I’m a man. It was 40 years ago. I’m not your mother. It doesn’t matter, does it? Don’t you talk to me like my mother talked to me. If you talk to me like that, I’m leaving. Okay, well you have a problem. No, you have a problem. You’re the ones talking like that.
I hope you’re laughing because you’re waking up. If you are living that life, you are suffering, you will suffer. I’m sorry, I’m not damning you. I’m not cursing you. I’m just telling you you have a mess in there. And now you’ve come up with a concept of what everybody and everything needs to be for me to be okay. And you’re out there struggling and suffering and have anxiety and tension and worry and all kinds of stuff because of that. The root is that. The root is that you stored this stuff inside of you that either really turned you on or turns you off and now everything is projected that way and you’re out there trying to make the world be the way you need it to be for you to be okay. Well, it’s not going to be that way. It is not. I’m not. I’m sorry, I’m being negative. No I’m not. I’m being real. I can’t help myself by teaching this over and over. Why wouldn’t it be the way I want? Nobody else in the world wants it to be the way you want. They want it to be the way they want.
Okay? That’s what war is about. That’s what divorces are about. That’s what disarm is about. That’s what all of it’s about. Every one of us is some of our learned experiences and we’ve all had different experiences and we’ve all stored different stuff inside. So this is a walking problem. And you think you know somebody you do not know. How many of you found it? You didn’t know somebody the way you thought you did. Have you ever said, I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you said that. I would’ve never said something like that. Well, because you’re not them. You didn’t have the experiences they did. You didn’t suppress the things they did. You didn’t push away the things they did. You didn’t have some experience that turned them on when they were little or experience that turned them off. Nothing about that person, nothing. But we’ve been dating for six months.
When will you wake up? You’re not going to make the world be the way you want one, you’re the only one who wants it that way. And so you have to struggle and fight and worry all the time. And so you can’t be okay anyway. And the other, which I don’t know whether you get, I say it all the time, why is the moment in front of me the way it is? If you want to know, that’s why there’s a thing called science, not philosophy, science. Why is it raining on my birthday? It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. And if you want to know why it’s raining today, go study meteorology. Why did that person say what they said to me? Go study psychology. That’s why they said what they said. They didn’t really say it to you, they just said it. You just have me standing there.
You just have me standing there and they had bad pizza last night or something. Or they got a phone call a minute ago or their mother did something 20 years ago and all of it is coming out and you just stood there or said something and comes flying out. And if you ask them, how could you say that to me? You get ready to study so hard for years and years back, every single thing happened to them and who said what? And that’s how they said it to you. So you wake up and realize the moment in front of you is not going to be the way you want. Look at me. Isn’t that terrible? I’m telling you that the moment in front of you is not going to be the way you want. Why it’s not supposed to be as it supposed to be.
It’s supposed to be the sum of all of the forces that coalesced together into this moment from the beginning of time to where this moment manifested the way it is scientifically, realistically in reality. That’s how it is. Well what about karma? You never hear me talk to you about karma. I don’t like how they teach you karma. Karma’s not a punishment. You are part of the inputs that make the moments in front of you. You’ve done things in the past, they’re part of all of it that comes together. And if you did something and it manifests in that moment because you did that thing, let’s say you hurt somebody, you’d have said something really mean you hurt somebody. That is a moment that got put into the pot of reality. And so all of a sudden you’re in a different state somewhere and somebody else comes up to you and says, wait a minute, aren’t you the person that hurt Sally down in Florida seven years ago?
No, you liar. In other words, because you put that into the pod, if it naturally does its thing and comes back, you are sensitive about that subject. You would not have hurt that person if you don’t have something going on. So when this subject comes back, it hits you. It’s your teacher. It’s coming back and saying, oh, you didn’t learn this very well and so simple but complicated to understand that somebody else standing there did not react to what happened in this other state the way you did because they didn’t have the stuff inside of you that you do. So it’s not that something’s happening out there to get even with you, it’s that you see it that way. I don’t want to explain it to you. You’re projecting your problems onto the world and so therefore, if you had a problem in the past and something comes back and reminds you of it, you have a problem.
If that’s karma, bring it on. Because what it is is your teacher, if you go to third grade math and you fail and you go back, take it over again and you pass, then it was a good thing you needed it. How do you know I needed it but it was embarrassing. I don’t care. The fact is it came back and you learned from it. Now you can go on when you get your PhD in theoretical mathematics, are you embarrassed that you did third grade math over again? If you are, you got a problem. So don’t look at karma that way. Look at life as perfect. It’s perfect. There’s a sum total of all I told you. Psychology says you’re the sum total of all your experiences, right? Don’t they say that? And you are, aren’t you? Okay? You’re the sum total of all your experiences.
Guess what? The moment in front of you is the sum total of its experiences. Physics, chemistry, life all unfolds and this moment now manifested in front of you because of its experiences. Not because your experiences has nothing to do with you, but you’ll see it as having to do with you because you got your stuff in there and it’s going to hit your stuff. You say it all the time, why did it have to rain? When I was going camping with this person, I really wanted to go with, oh my God, what a question. It had nothing to do with you. You made it have something to do with you because you have this preference going on inside of you. Otherwise, oh, it’s raining. There’ll be food at Publix. So don’t look at karma some. Oh, he’ll get his, no. If he got a problem and he did something that caused a problem, it’s going to come back because he’s going to see it everywhere.
Where do they say about somebody who robbed a bank? They think everybody’s looking at them when they walk out, right? They’re paranoid. Why the world’s no different than anybody else, but to them it is because carrying that inside themselves. So if you have this inside of you, yes, it’s going to come back and get hit. You will make sure of that. If you were driving a car of a certain make or model and got in a car accident five years ago and didn’t work through it very well, next time you see a car that is of that make and model, you’ll get scared. Your heart will beat faster and you think, oh, that’s just logical. No, it is not logical. They’ve got an accident, fine, it pass through. That’s an experience you had. Great. But no, you couldn’t handle the experience and so you kept it inside of you.
And now anytime you see something reminds you of it, it comes back. You want to call that karma. I want to call that you were silly to hold it inside of you and eventually I hope you’ll wake up and say I should let it go. I don’t need this inside of me. I don’t need that one incident in life that happened where I was standing. Lots of other incidents were going on at the same time, but that was the one where I was standing, alright, and it left this mark on me or you got divorced. That’s a little more personal and a relationship didn’t work out well if it didn’t work out and you got divorced. That’s a learning experience. It’s not a terrible thing, it’s not a bad thing, it’s a learning experience. So now if you didn’t learn and you didn’t let it go, you say things like, no, I don’t get any more relationships.
I had enough of that. I got to hurt so bad, I just be by myself. Alright? Or you sit there and say that I am scared and I will protect myself. I’ll get in a relationship again. I’d have to financially children, I don’t have children, but I will not open ever again. Not the way I did. I got really hurt. That’s like basically saying I didn’t learn. You know how it should be? It should be that getting into a relationship with a divorcee is the best thing you could ever do. Why? Because they learned about what didn’t work in the relationship and they’re better at it and they can be more open some, but that’s what we say. People have friends say, oh no, no, no, they got divorced, then we’re going to have a relationship. Stay away from them. Isn’t that funny? But the trouble is, do stay away from because they didn’t let it go and they all kinds of scars right out to dinner. Right to dinner and you order something. Oh, he used to order that.
Alright, so suffering is because you have preference and we talked about different preferences. The cause of suffering is that you have this stuff stored inside. I swear it’s that simple. It’s not some yogic thing. Go there and meditate in a cave and renounce everything. That’s not how you get rid of your preferences. Don’t tell them I told you that. Why? How would you know what to renounce on ash Wednesday? Let’s say you’re Catholic on ash Wednesday, you’re supposed to renounce something, right? I hate Brussels sprouts. I’m going to now give up Brussels friends. That doesn’t count. No. The priest should say, no, that’s not fair. So if you are sitting there practical renunciation, you have problems with that thing. I don’t want to touch money. I don’t want to touch relations. I don’t want to touch sex. I don’t want to touch this. I don’t want to touch that.
Why? Because I got had issues in those areas. Well, why don’t we work out of our issues so we don’t have issues in those areas? Why is not everything the same? Why are you not comfortable with all of life? Why can I understand and appreciate every single thing that goes on? Doesn’t mean what you do or don’t do, but you don’t have a thing going on about it. You can have money and be spiritual. That’s ridiculous. You have money to be very giving and charitable and helping all kinds of people and giving so much. So you get to the point where you realize I’m the problem. The world is not a problem. The world is a happening place and I drop down in the most happening place it could be, but I have problems and that’s the problem, not I have problems out there. I have problems in here and therefore the world of course has problems.
It hits my problems. However I say it that way. Does stuff hit you? It’s a problem. Why don’t you get rid of the stuff you are storing in there and I’m telling you, you’ll not have any problems. And by the way, you won’t really have any preferences, not any deep preferences. You can choose what you want to eat tonight. That’s simple. But you won’t suffer. You won’t suffer if you don’t have that stuff inside of you and have decided how you want things to be and how you don’t want them to be. You will not suffer. It’s exactly what Buddha taught you is the third Zen patriarch taught you and what all the great masters, including Christ taught you don’t judge, et cetera, et cetera. So basically you come down to spirituality being the essence of I have preferences and they’re causing me to suffer.
Okay? That’s a very good starting point. Not I have preferences. I’m going to go get ’em so I don’t suffer. You’ll suffer trying to get them. You’ll suffer, you’ll lose them. You’ll suffer worrying. Just wake up. When was the last time you got what you wanted and never wanted anything else throughout your entire life? When was the last time you want? Oh, I want that toy. Oh, I want this. I want that person. I want a baby. I want a relationship. I want a thing. I want to travel. I want to go somewhere. Right? Fine, that’s wonderful. When was the last time you got one that you wanted and never wanted anything else? Not a chance in the world for anybody ever. Why? Because the problem wasn’t that you didn’t get the vacation. The problem wasn’t that you didn’t meet the person. The problem wasn’t that you didn’t have the baby.
That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that you weren’t okay and you were projecting the solution to you not being okay on this event taking place. But that’s not the cause. You are not suffering because you don’t have a baby. You are not suffering because you can’t have babies. So some people can have babies. That is not causing you to suffer. That is just a reality. Just an event of a biological situation. Okay, well why am I suffering? Because you’re not okay. And you always felt that having children will make you be okay. You always had a dream that if I have children and my whole life will be wonderful, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with having children. We wouldn’t be here if there was, okay, but do you understand what I’m telling you? Right? You said the solution to my problem, to my, and I have a meaning in my life.
I don’t feel whole, blah blah, blah. I was very touchy subject. I picked children, but I go the whole way with you. Alright? That’s why I’m not okay. I don’t have children. It is not why you’re not okay. You’re not okay because you’re full of garbage that you shoved inside of you throughout your life and you’re not open and willing to experience the wholeness of life so you’re not, okay. And you said to yourself someday, maybe when you were three, alright? Or watched a movie or something like that and said that, well, if I have children or if I make money or if I can travel, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. That will make me okay. That’s the solution to my problem. But like I said, have you ever met anybody that had children and was totally okay for the rest of their life?
Oh, I’m asking a question, right? That was it. I don’t need anything. That’s ridiculous. They have to go to Harvard and they have to earn a lot of money to take care of me when they get old, right? Constant preferences. Constant expectations. So you don’t solve your problems by predicting the solution outside and then struggling to make it happen. You solve your problems by finding out why you have problems inside and you do not have to have problems inside. In fact, you stored them inside. Again, if you make a collection of every single thing that ever bothers you, disturbed you during your life, you’re going to be disturbed. So spirituality is not about getting what you want. You catch on that. I don’t need anything. I’m whole and complete within myself and you’re going to find out that you are. The funny part about it, and make sure I get it in for the end, is it’s not just a matter of non-negative so far we’re talking about non-negative.
You’re not suffering, you’re not this. You’re not that. If you let go of this stuff that you stored in there, which is causing you to have preferences and causing you to have knees and causing you to grab and be afraid and all kind of stuff, it’s not that, okay, I’m about suffering. Mickey, you were right. I’m about suffering. What will happen is you will find out what every great master found out there is inside of you. A beautiful energy called Chucky G. Spirit, I don’t care. I call it Shakti. I’m a yogi. Alright, A beautiful energy. What do you mean a beautiful energy? Have you ever felt love, real love, just that’s the energy. Have you ever felt enthusiasm, excitement, just, oh my God, I can’t wait to go do this. That’s an energy. You have felt it, but you only feel it when you get what you want.
It’s conditional. Your wellbeing is a conditional thing. No, no. It’s you’re blocking it that it’s conditional. If you let go of those blockages, I’m telling you it’s unconditional. It’s flowing all the time. It’s intoxicating you. Very great being once wrote, oh, what has thou done to me? Wave upon wave of endless joy saturates me day and night. Whoa, that’s inside of you. That’s Nirvana. That’s where Buddha went. That’s where all the great masters went and you are it. You are it. That’s how close you are. If you stop shoving everything ever bothered you on top of that energy. How do I say it again? There’s light outside. See? There’s light outside. I’m going to put blinds up just in case somebody’s outside and I’m not comfortable. I don’t want to see them, so I’ll put blinds up. Now I’m scared. Close the blinds. It’s dark in here.
What do I do? I do this unto the soul, right? It’s dark in here. What do I do? Well, you better buy some lights and so you’re busy, you’re busy trying to make a light inside. Well, what if you open the blinds? No, it’s scary out there. Okay, you hear me? That’s what you’ve done. You’ve closed yourself by shoving all this stuff on top of your energy. If you open those blinds, there’s light. You don’t have to do anything. It’s a natural state of being. They don’t even have them who wants them? I’d rather have light and once in a while have something, have an outside that’s a little scary. Then let the thing that might be a little scary make me live in darkness all the time. I dunno about you. Doesn’t seem much of a choice. I don’t want to protect myself If it means closing my heart and keeping it closed, I don’t feel love.
I what a trade off. I’d rather be open. Take the blinds down. Let go of this garbage I’m storing inside and I’m telling you, the light that comes in from the sun is nothing compared to who you are. Who said Christ taught you that? He says, as I sit with the throne of my father, that’s not a seat. It’s a state of consciousness. As I sit with the throne of my father, so you shall sit by my throne and these things which I do should do these and even greater things. You are the highest singer walked the face of the earth. You are right now, but you have shoved this stuff on top of you and you’re holding onto it for dear life. If this thing that happened 20 years ago starts to come back up, somebody says something, you push it right back down.
I don’t like when we talk about that. I told you I don’t like when we talk about that. Why do you have to talk about that? No, I’m not going to go move to Nevada. I had a relationship with Nevada. Hurt the hell out of me. There’s no way. I’m not even drive through the state. So you have to decide that now you understand. I give the whole thing my preferences. See, that’s a preference, isn’t it? That because you store this stuff in there, you only were okay when something doesn’t hit the stuff or when something brings up a nice thing you stored in there. Lemme tell you the things you stored in there that weren’t nice are at 7,000 times more than what you store. That is nice. If I asked you tell me how many experience you’ve had in your life that really blew your mind, just blew you away.
You don’t even need five fingers. If I asked you how many things in your life bothered you every day of your life, the light changed the driver in front of you, the temperature, everything bothers you. And so it’s because you stored this stuff in there and shoved it on top of your Shakti flow. The yogis. Now, yo Guinea, you s shoved this garbage. It’s garbage. It’s just something was meant to pass through the universe. An event that happened in moment in your life. What are you doing storing that in there? Look at me. I’m sorry, but it did happen. It happened. I am not in control. I wish I could be. I’ll make it go away, but I can’t make it go away. Nobody make it go away. There’s no time machines. I don’t care if it happened yesterday or five minutes ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago.
It’s happened. Deal with it. Accept it. Honor it. That’s what acceptance is. Surrender mean. It’s okay. Terrible things happen, don’t they? Christ didn’t stop, didn’t stop ’em. It’s a beautiful place, but things happen. It’s a happen in place. Yin and yang, light and dark things happen. Can you handle that? And if you can’t handle it, you’re going to store terrible things that happen inside of you and then there will always be happening instead of they happen once. So there’s no reason to store it inside of you, but you have to learn not to, and that becomes the essence. The highest technique you can learn is learn to honor, respect and accept reality. That’s the essence of it. You can breathe all you want. You can do this, you can do, oh, you can put helmets on your head. You can do all kinds of stuff.
Wonderful, really wonderful. Do what you need to do when it’s said and done. If you can’t accept reality, you’re going to store it inside of you, the things you didn’t like and you’re not going to have a full life. You close the blinds and so you get to the point where you understand, I want to be free. That’s what it comes down to. I want to be free. I want to spend at least one moment. How would you like to at least spend one moment in your life where you’re completely open, no fear, no anxiety, and you walk through life? Not for a moment, but for a lot of moments. Then for a whole day, letting the entire day unfold. Come in, dealing with it, working with it. It’s an interactive sport, but not, I am interacting with the world. I’m not okay, and I’m trying to make it be a way that I am.
Okay. That’s not my motive, that’s not my intention. I’m not okay, and of course I’m interacting. I got to go out there and make it be the way I need it to be so I am okay, fine. You’re interacting with the world because you are okay. You are filled with love, you’re filled with joy, you’re filled with inspiration and you’re sharing it. Love wants to express itself. Inspiration wants to express itself. I need nothing from the world. Nothing. That’s your attitude. It’s an attitude. It’s the way you are, and I need nothing from the world and I’m giving, oh, I love expressing love. I love expressing inspiration. I’m just open expressing the beauty that’s inside of me. I’m not okay and you guys are in trouble.
I’m going to make you be the way I need you to be so that I am okay. Do you see the difference how close you are to switch from one to the other? Stop storing your problems inside of you. It’s that simple. I don’t need a whole philosophy. If you store your problems inside of you, you’re going to have problems inside of you. Okay? If you stop storing problems inside of you and let go of the ones you store from the past, you’ll not have problems inside of you and the Shakti will start coming up inside of you. You don’t have to know the chakras. Very rarely do I talk about that stuff. Do I? Right? They will open themselves. I’m telling you, it’s not that they’re not there. They are there and you’ll know that they’re there. You’ll feel them. You’ll feel them at every single stage, and you’ll feel them pushing up to higher levels and you’ll feel ecstasy pouring inside of you when they go to the highest levels.
It is a natural thing. You have to study it and know about what their symbol you can. I’m not talking against it. Know their colors, their symbols fine. At least better that you’d be doing that than you’d be out there trying to get what you want. It’s just a way of working with yourself inside. You’re naturally high as your natural state. You’re a being of light. You’re a being. You’re the most beautiful. I don’t know how to talk about it. You are literally God descended. You are what Christ is, right? My father and I are one. Why? Because you didn’t put a barrier. Take down the Hoover Dam and a Colorado roof is free and it will flow beautifully. You don’t have to pedal, you don’t have to do anything. You take those blockages out. You let go of those blockages. You don’t have to do anything.
You’re naturally high. So the whole of spirituality is about purification. Purification means let go of this garbage you’ve stored inside of you, and they write me from all over the world. Oh, I’ve been working with it. It’s true. I’m so much happier. Used to be. Of course you are. Why would you not be? If you’re driving behind a driver who’s driving 15 miles an hour below the speed limit and keeps stepping on his brakes on and off, you can get upset, then you’re upset. It didn’t change the driver, it didn’t change the situation didn’t change anything. I have fun with Mickey, right? Two blocks later after he, I won’t let him get upset, but he tries and all of a sudden you say, oh, I going to drive there, blah, blah, blah, and he turns for two blocks. I sat there and did that to myself.
He didn’t do it. He didn’t do it. He didn’t even know I’m there. I did it, didn’t I? What if I didn’t do it? Then I have a better day. Then I’m happier and so is everybody else. I meet, everybody interact with. So you have a choice. Your technique is to sit there and say, I am not going to store more of that stuff inside of me. When I interviewed it with Oprah on the new book, living Untethered, she said, her favorite line was, the moment in front of you is not bothering you. You’re bothering yourself about the moment in front of you. The driver can’t bother you. He can’t bother you. You bother yourself about it. How about you stop. I’m stressing to you. If you store these bothers inside of you, you’re going to be bothered, and that’s the foundation of your preferences because you’re bothered.
Now you have preferences. I don’t like the heat. I don’t like the driver. I’m not driving that road. If literally you drove down the road and somebody drove like that, you literally might say, no, I don’t want to go down that road. I’ll go down six. You’re ruining your life by not handling reality. And so your practice, your spiritual practice becomes on a daily basis, a moment to moment basis. I can handle this. I can handle catching every light in a row when I’m in a rush. Just how do I handle it? Relax. Just relax. Because the tendency is to get tight and then it ruins your life. It ruined everything that’s going on, and so you basically get to the point where you just start honoring and respecting reality and learning to love life on earth, learning to love everybody. Everybody, everything. The fact that you exist is exciting and more and more you don’t store stuff.
Then what happens as you do that? One, you won’t be ruining your days and second, because you’re not pushing more down there, the old stuff will start coming back up by itself. It comes up by itself. Yes, you can have a therapist. Of course, everything you do is wonderful. I’m not talking against anything. I’m telling you that energy underneath will push that stuff up. It wants to be free. That Shakti wants to flow, it wants to bring ecstasy, and it will push your stuff up and then you’ll write me and say, wait a minute. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I was so happy at first and I so excited now. Oh my God, I’m having so much trouble and my heart hurts, and I found myself crying. Oh, you’re cleansing.
That stuff will come up by itself. Well, what do I do? Let it how I understand. Breathe. There’s your techniques. Breathe. Do yoga. Positive thinking. Oh, I love herding. I said, it’ll eventually go away. There’s all kinds of things you can do. Okay? I’ve been through so many stage. I’ve been doing this for, what, 52 years or something, right? And I love the stage that finally unfolded. What? You welcome it. You welcome it. You honor it. You respect it. You want it to come up. They don’t understand. They tell you if you don’t want to hurt it, something hurts. It relax, because the tensing of the muscles make it harder for the stuff to go through, right? Same thing in here. If you don’t like that, it’s coming up, you’re going to try and Oh, but I’m not pushing it down. Yes you are. You’re not letting it up.
You understand that you’re how with it, you’re coping with it, you’re tolerating it. How’s that? You’ll get to the point where you welcome it. You’re open to the process of purification. I love it. No pain, no gain, and you do weightlifting. I do it inside, right? And then you get to the point, I was surprised when I saw that point where you apologize to it. What do you mean? You shove that down there? It’s been down there for 40 even years. Rotting. It’s like a virus that you shove down there and it spread all over the place. No. What are you doing? So when it starts to come back up, you have compassion for it and you apologize to, I’m sorry I pushed you down there. I’m sorry. I wasn’t high enough to handle the reality of what took place during those situations. And so I held them inside of me.
Come on up at your own pace. You’re welcome. I’ll help you up. Takeda has a line. One should raise a self of self, not trampled down the self. They’re talking about the higher self you in there whom I’m talking to, and that junk that you stored in there, your ego, your personal self, one should raise the self with self, not trampled down the self. And now all of a sudden, your whole life has changed. Now, it’s not a matter of getting what you want now. It’s a matter of letting go of the garbage that keeps you from appreciating reality, appreciating everybody, appreciating all of life as it is, and as you’re letting it go, you’re raising it up. You’re just raising it up. You know what you can do If you’re into God, you just offer it up. You say, here, here, this is keeping me from you.
Like those blinds that you close. This is keeping me from the light. You take it, take your dirtiest stuff. Pull it up and lay it down at the feet of God. Here you take this. I don’t need it. In other words, be open to the process of purification and your whole life will change. I started on preferences. You will get to a state where you will not know what the word means. You’re just in awe that things are real, that there’re unfolding, that they exist, and that you have the ability to experience them. You’re just blown away every, that’s why I want you. I want you to be blown away every moment of your life. When you wake up in the morning, no fear, no anxiety, nothing. Just excitement, passion and enthusiasm. And then what happens every step of the way, you’re just totally open and then the Shakti will flow inside of you.
And not only will you have a beautiful life, it will take you to God. That uprising energy, you’re going to find out is connected to something very, very great. Eventually, I have to close down or stop. You’ll find out when once that energy’s flowing, it’s beautiful. It intoxicates you. You’re totally inspired, but use that inspiration to interact with life, right? You’re not interacting. You’re creating. You become so creative because you don’t have this garbage inside of you keeping it about you. It’s not about you. It’s about this inspiration that’s pulling up. Eventually you reach the point where it dawns on you. Where’s the energy coming from? It’s beautiful energy. Where’s love come from? I know when you open, you feel it. Where’s it come from? What’s the source of love? Where’s it come from? Shakti come from. When you start feeling the spirit pouring inside of you, where does that come from?
And that becomes the next stage of your journey. Now you’re okay. But now that seeking that openness to the source, and the only way to find it is to let go and go back into it. Just like in the springs, you throw the springs and there’s water coming up. Where’s it coming from? You have to go down into it. Follow it back to its source. That’s where the great masters went. They let go enough to where they were not looking down at themselves anymore, and the Shakti took them up and they found merger. They found oneness. They found what Christ found. My father and I are one. Yoga means merger. Union. Your Shakti, your energy flow merges with the universe and you realize you are everything. You’re the stars, you’re the moon, you’re all of creation, and you’re also nothing. Then they go beyond the non-dual into total peace.
You are a very great being. You have made a royal mess of it. Have you not? And don’t you blame it on anybody else? You are the one that couldn’t handle reality. And then you push it inside of you. And now tell me, are you not walking around with all the problems that ever happened in your life inside of you? Scared that’ll happen again and trying to make things be the way you want them to be? Take a breath again. You are naturally beautiful. You’re the highest thing. Your nature. Natural nature is so high, it’s unbelievable, but you have messed it up by storing the problems that you couldn’t handle. Start by practicing today and tomorrow and every day to not put more down there. It’s a fun game. It’s like a video game. You just keep letting go. That’s what letting go means. It doesn’t mean letting go of life.
A great being interacts fully with life, with passion, the whole being. Every moment you’re letting go of what’s keeping you from doing that. The garbage inside. So you handle the moments of the, and then I’m telling you, skull and cross bone, this stuff’s going to start coming up. That’s wonderful. Appreciated, honor it. Respected. That’s what it means. People climb the Himalayas to meet great masters so that stuff can start coming up. Well, guess what? You don’t need to. Life’s your guru. Life is your guru. It’s all you need. So I started by saying everybody has problems. You don’t have to have any problems, do you? Wouldn’t be fun. Not having any problems. Just joy and inspiration giving. Alright. Ative.
Tami Simon: You’ve been listening to The Michael Singer Podcast, produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information on Michael’s body of work and all back episodes, please join us at MichaelSingerPodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. Sounds True: waking up the world.
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