E69: Above the Line: The Path to True Awareness and Freedom

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, Jai Masters. There’s a line of understanding of wisdom, of knowledge, and below that line, everything looks one way and above that line, everything looks totally different. Everything. So for example, the Bible says, man, which created an image of God below the line we paint pictures of God looking like a man or a woman. Even the cistine jackal form is reaching down to touch form. Below the line, we’re human and everything we look at gets related to as human. Everything’s framed from the point of view of what you see within yourself and what you see outside and that’s humanness. Okay? People say, I’m only human. Below that line, you are only human. What about above The line?

Above the line is very, very simple. Above the line, you realize that you are consciousness. You are an aware being and what you’re aware of is what you see. You realize, I’m not what I see, but here’s the line. I’m not what I see. I’m the owner who sees it. It’s that simple. It’s not some giant paradigm shift, it’s just understanding. Do I have a hand? There’s a hand. Am I the hand or am I the one who sees the hand and somebody asks you that question On a multiple choice test, are you the hand that you see or are you the one who sees it? It’s so easy. It doesn’t take any thinking or anything. If you look, you see your right hand. If you look over here, you see your left hand, which are you? The same one saw both. There’s just one consciousness that is seeing so with your body you see, you also feel, I feel my foot.

Who does the foot? That is the line. Are you identified with what you see or you identify with the one who sees Take a breath. That’s what all the witness conscience is about. That’s an objective observation. Krishna Murray, objective observation. It’s about realizing you’re not what you see. You are the one who sees it and that holds true for your body. What about out there? I see her. Am I her? It’s funny. I know I’m not her. Why? She’s just a few feet away. Okay, but I do see her, but with my body, I am my body. Why? Why is it any different? I see her body. I see my body That’s so rich. It’s because consciousness has the ability to identify with what it’s looking at. That is one of the most spiritual lines you’ll ever hear until you know that you can’t go above a line.

If I stare at something enough, I identify with it. What’s that word for if an animal is born among cows, but it’s a lamb imprinting because the lamb looked at the cows and they saw nothing but cows. They think they’re a cow and they act like a cow. If you sit there and stare at something enough, it’s no longer something you look at knowing that you’re separate, you identify with it. That key word is the essence of the fall from the garden. You identified. By the way, this is the fall from the garden. It’s that close. You are watching what there is. You walk around in heaven, you’re God looking at everything fine. You looked enough to be identified with it. You didn’t say, I am what was looking and that’s what I’m looking at. You said I am that I am a 50-year-old man.

No, you’re not. I stand in the mirror. It looks like a 50-year-old man. Fine. Okay. You’re the one who’s looking at it all the time. You are the one who’s looking at it. It can’t be stressed enough. That is the essence of awakening spirituality. That’s not enlightened. The fact that you’ve taken a seat of witness consciousness and you’re able to notice and we just talk about the body so far in the outside world, we’ll go beyond that. In fact, you notice that you notices. That’s just one step above the line. It’s nothing, but we can’t even get there because we’re identified with what we’ve looked at. We’re identified with our body. So basically is it just the body and the outside role that you identify with? No. You identify with whatever is closest to you to you in there you the awareness, the whatever’s closest to you in your face and there constantly you identify with, okay, your body is actually quite some distance from you, but there are all kinds of times that you don’t identify with your body.

When you go to sleep, you don’t take your body with you, but you identify with your dreams. I had this amazing dream I was flying who said that? Because the I who’s saying it was the I in the dream that was experiencing it. It’s the same I is it not? Okay? You didn’t say am my dream. Somebody else was having this situation. You say, I was having this situation. I saw this, I felt this. It’s the same consciousness identifying with the dream body as opposed to a physical body. So your thoughts and your emotions are closer to you than your physical body or the outside world. They’re closer than your car, they’re closer than your spouse, they’re closer than your children. Your thoughts are right in there, close to you, and they’re always, there are all thoughts always there. Which one of you identify with the white lines in the road?

Which one of you identify with every tree in every cloud that you drive by an experience? None of you. Which one of you has this thing? What’s it called? Oh yes. It’s called an ego and don’t you dare think that ego means egotistical. Ego means I have a set of thoughts in my mind which is real close to the self, real close to consciousness that are constantly and consistent. They stay there all the time, therefore identify with them. Psychology defines the ego as a self concept. That what you think of yourself, that’s what a concept is, something you think of because it’s not a real thing by definition, it’s a concept. It’s a thought. Your ego is your self-concept. What does that mean? It means you have collected in your mind. We’ll talk about how and why you have collected in this thing called your mind.

What’s the mind, the place that has thoughts? Are the thoughts out here? No thoughts are in here and you have built a structure within your mind. A very, very specific like a computer program. Computer can do lots of things. It can run a financial program, it can run a teaching program, it can run a movie program and it can run a ego program that walks around saying, I this, I that. I like this. I don’t like that. And you build this program in your mind that’s always there. Therefore you identify with it. You think you are your ego and you stare at it. Who does? You do haven’t defined who you are yet, but you’re in there. It’s the same you who looks at your hand that watches your thoughts. Same you who watches your thoughts. It feels your emotions. Can you at the same time see something outside, think about it inside and feel something inside simultaneously?

Of course you can. It’s the same you. There’s just one consciousness inside and that consciousness is aware of the thoughts, aware of the emotions, aware of the body and aware of what’s ever passing by outside. Was it there yesterday? Were you in there yesterday? Answer me, were you in there last year? Were you having the same thoughts when you were 10 years old as you’re doing, you’re 50 years old? Same thoughts, same emotions. No, but were you having them? Was it you experiencing those thoughts? Of course you’ve been in it the whole time. Now you starting to see why that’s above the line. If you’ve been in it the whole time and you looked in the mirror and saw a 10-year-old body, now you look in the mirror and it looks a lot older. How old are you? I’m 50. No, your reflection in the mirror is reflecting a 50-year-old body.

You who’s looking is the same one who’s looking when you were 10, it’s the same being just one of you in there. You don’t have to remember that you saw, you know that you saw, you know were there, you were there were you not? But the emotions were different. The thoughts were different. The body was different and what you were experiencing outside was different, but the one who’s experiencing it is the same. It has no age, but you who’s staring at it, you have no age. See, we’re going above the line here, and so basically you get to the point where you realize that the fall from the garden is that consciousness is just there. You are not your thoughts. Do your thoughts change? Do your thoughts change? Let’s say you’re in love with somebody you haven’t been dating for a while doing very, very well, and all of a sudden you find out something about them that closes you down or they do something and all of a sudden you’re in there, you are feeling love and attraction.

Now you feel disdained, you feel uncomfortable. Can it happen? Is it the same you that was experiencing both of those emotions and both those thoughts or do they have to call each other on the phone? There’s just you in there. The changes that take place are a problem for only one reason because you identify with what you’re looking at. You can be in a relationship and have it break up. So many dies, so many leaves and you’re broken. You know that it got to do with you. You’re in here. The same one is in there watching, but what you’re watching breaks. That’s all psychology is. It’s not who you are, it’s what you’re looking at. So your mind, if something happens and you’re not comfortable, the mind goes crazy, the emotions go crazy. Who’s in there noticing? Is it the same one that was feeling good the day before somebody left or somebody died?

Is it the same being inside experiencing something different? And the answer is, of course it is. That is what above the line is. I don’t know if you like talking about it, but it’s the truth. You are not a human being. You are looking at one. You are looking at thoughts that get developed inside of a human being because of the experiences they have. You’re looking at emotions that come up because of the past experiences you’ve had. You’re programmed. So what psychology say man is a son, has learned experiences, man, woman is a sum of the learned experiences. It’s not true. You are the consciousness that is watching a mind and a heart that has been programmed by the sum of you learned experiences, everything you feel like or dislike, these experiences you’ve had, how much do you like?

You okay with that? If you never had an experience, you know nothing about it. You don’t have anything going with it at all. But if you had an experience and it was some food and you really, really liked it, you get all excited and if it disgusting and it spit it out, okay, you’ve been programmed by the experiences you had. That’s what’s meant by mans of summer learned experiences. At least it should be, but more appropriate way is to say you are the consciousness watching a psyche. That’s the sum of his learned experiences. And I don’t blame psychology because notice it was called psychology, not spiritual college. It’s studying the psyche good spirituality wants to know who’s looking at that psyche you’re studying. Freud talks about suppression. What does that mean? It means something in there, some forces in there that can have an experience and not want to have had it and push it away.

I’ve discussed that with you. It’s so simple to understand. Freudian psychology. I love Freud at the level of understanding the psyche why things come in that don’t feel good. Have you noticed things happen that when they come in their vibrations, their experience is not something that is comfortable to you in there. And guess what? You don’t want to experience it, but it happened. Has anybody ever made what happened? Not happen ever. No one has ever made what has happened not happen. So it came in, therefore it happened. It is reality, but it’s not comfortable to you in there. So what do you do? You do a very natural thing. You protect yourself from it. How do you protect yourself from it is outside is over, but the vibration is not over. It came in. So what you do is you resist. That’s what suppression is.

That’s what repression is. That’s what denial is. That’s what creates the psyche that you didn’t let it come in and pass through. It’s not an experience you had. Interestingly enough, it’s an experience you’re having even though it’s over 20 years ago. Mommy did that. Daddy did, his boyfriend did that. It’s not happening but it is inside of you. Why? Because you saved it. You didn’t save the event. The event came and went, but the vibration that came in that formulated in your mind, that passing through, alright, didn’t pass through, did it because you didn’t let it. You use this thing called willpower. You have will that you in there are starting to let you know who you are, your conscious. That’s one of your aspects. You also have will, I won’t get into it, it’s very deep, but we if meditate deep enough. You see this stuff.

The power of will is focused consciousness. If I do this, I see all of you guys. If I do this, I only see my finger. It can expand and it can contract focus, correct? When it contracts, it takes all of its power and contracts it down like a magnifying glass outside. The sun is everywhere. Go hold a magnifying glass, it’ll burn zania. It’s concentrated sunlight, therefore it has power. Concentrated consciousness has power. You can go study it yourself, but don’t read about it. Go inside. When you concentrate, you are creating the force of will. If I tell you to multiply 132 times 12 in your head, before you say I can’t, you may try and if you do, you’re going to concentrate arch. You make believe, you wrote the number down there and then try to hold it, try to hold it while you carry one number to the next and you’re straining yourself.

Why? He goes, you’re concentrating. So you’re creating a power by concentrating. When you can’t handle an experience when it comes in and you don’t want to experience it, believe it or not, you have to concentrate on it to stop it from coming all the way in. Suppression requires concentration, otherwise it just goes through. If the clouds go through the grass goes through the trees go by. People you don’t know go by cars go by. You don’t have to do anything. What do you have to do here? This whole thing with witness consciousness. People understand for one moment I don’t want you to do a single thing. Can you see what’s in front of you? How hard was that? How hard was it on a scale of one to 10 to see what’s in front of you? How about zero? No effort. No effort at all?

Okay, now I want you to concentrate on a candle and don’t do anything else. Just ate the candle. You can’t do it. You understand that You have to put out effort and will to contract consciousness to focus on one thing and when you do that, you’re taking power and what you do when you suppress and repress and so on is you’re literally concentrating on it enough. It drew your consciousness to it enough to where you push it away. Why would I push it away? Your experience that already happened because I don’t want it coming all the way in. I do not want it coming right into my face. I don’t want that experience. There is some experience you’ve had in life, very few that you do want to come all the way in that first kiss, the hug, the sunset, it blew my mind. What does that mean?

It came all the way in. Have you ever used the words? It was so beautiful. It was so amazing. I felt like I was in the presence of God. It touched me to the core of my being. Ever had that experience? Rare, isn’t it? It touched me to the core of my being. Why? Because you didn’t stop it from doing that. If it comes in, it’s going to touch to the core of your being, whatever it is. That’s why some people, they look at a sunset, they faint, they’re going to flower. You understand that? Whereas you just walk right by because you’re busy being distracted by your and your emotions. But if somebody comes all the way in, oh my God, it merges into you. I can’t even talk about it. It’s beautiful. But you don’t let things that don’t feel good, you protect yourself from them so you push them away.

When you do that, you build a, that’s where your ego came from. Your ego. That program is running in your mind called ego is the collection of the past experiences that didn’t make it through. That’s why you have desires, likes and dislikes and fears and anxieties because things happened in the past. I guarantee you, you have no anxiety about things you like and that’s not even the truth because you have anxiety that it might not happen again. Anything you held onto that didn’t pass through, you got stuff going about it, you got problems. It can cause suffering. Even good experiences cause suffering. Why? Because you want them to happen again and you want them to feel the same. Lemme say a secret, nothing will ever feel the same as that first kiss. Nothing will ever look exactly the same as that amazing sense. It caught you by surprise.

If you’re looking for it, oh it was on this corner, maybe it’ll happen again. You will never, ever get blown away again because your mind is now involved. Have you noticed that first experience that happens by surprise can blow you away If you’re looking for it and waiting for and comparing, you’re not open. It’s not the same thing anymore. So you built in your mind the stuff you collected and you don’t collect everything. You collect the extraordinarily bad and extraordinarily good experiences and then you sew all those together. Well, I guess they’re floating around in there. How do I know what I like or dislike? How can I make decisions? I have to present myself? So you try to sew together these, I’m the person who likes this and I don’t like that. I like that a little bit but not much. And I had this experience, oh my God, I was absolutely unbelievable.

I want it again. Person wants to happen again. I’m the person I do not ever, ever want to see you again. Who I am. I’m the person I don’t want to see you again. I said, well, you are. You’re the one in there that’s experiencing the psyche freaked out. So you built an ego. They’re right. It is a sum of your learned experiences. That thing you built, your self concept is what you held onto, sewed it together into a concept of yourself. Why would you do that? Because you don’t know who you are. You lost because you fell from the garden. You fell from the seat of awareness, which we’ll talk about as we go above the line. Now we’re showing why you’re below the line and you built this thing and now you got to learn to be comfortable. How I got to be comfortable by defining what I want and what I don’t want, who I am and who I’m not, and then I have to go out there and make the world support me.

You all need to think about me the way I think about me. I don’t want you dissing me out. I don’t want you saying it’s not true, right? If I say I’m a very loving person and everyone’s running around saying, oh, he is very hateful, really it’s bothersome, isn’t it? So I’ve got to go out there and spend my life manipulate and controlling every single thing that comes in to match what I built inside that is below the line and that is the fall from the garden. What does it saying? The fall from the garden of the Bible. Now you must work by the sweat of your brow to be okay, well I don’t want to work by the sweat of brow to be okay, well then stop doing this. Stop resisting events that happen in your life so you store them. I’ve often said to you guys, I think it’s hilarious who came up with the idea that if something really, really, really bothers you, you should keep it so it can keep bothering you.

What a good idea. Congratulations. You’ve done it and you do it every day of your life. You push it away so it doesn’t come in fine. So now you see below the line, welcome to humanness. That’s what you mean. Say I’m all human, I have emotions and I have fears and anxieties and desires and things I want and things I don’t want and I’m only okay if I get what I want. I’m never okay if what I don’t want happens and I’m not even okay, if I get what I want, I might lose it. I’m just a mess. I and the people who say they’re not a mess at that particular point in their life, they’re strong enough, powerful enough, manipulative enough to say I’m getting what I want. I got my family, I got two and a half kids. Everything’s good. I got a good job.

I got call office. I am doing great. Are you really? What if one of those things changes? What if your wife or husband leaves you? What if somebody dies? What if the kid is doing drugs? What happens? You’re not doing so good. What does that mean? You weren’t doing okay, you were just getting what you needed in order to support, compensate really to compensate for the fact that you’re not okay. You found things that would make you feel okay, people are applauding you won award, you’re special or you found just the right person. I’m doing wonderful until they change or until they leave and then you’re not doing so wonderful. Okay? So the state of what you find yourself in when the supporting things, the supporting cast is not supporting, that’s your state right now and it’s not good. It’s only good if you’re getting what you want and even then it’s not good because you worry you’ll lose it.

And so you just made a mess and that’s what it means to be human is you built this thing inside your mind and since the mind is the closest thing to the self to consciousness, it’s right up in there, way closer in your body, way closer to the outside world. It’s right there in your face all the time and it’s the same. The ego has to stay the same. You said, I’m insecure never since I was young and I’ve always been this way. Okay, fine. So now you have a hand that you’re always staring at. It’s a set of thoughts that you’re always staring at and you identify with ’em and you say, that’s what I am. So the only way I can be okay is to get what I want to get. What this ego conglomeration got put together by not being able to handle life. You held it inside of you and then you built the ego. Now do you understand the ego? Okay, so don’t say you don’t have an ego, you got an ego. I remember way back when I first woke up back in 72 70 when I realized there’s no such thing as a good personality. You can say a good personality is something other people like how you’re making believe you are.

Let’s say you’re in a relationship and starts to break up and someone starts listing, give you a list. I minute write it down. Here’s a list of what I like about you and you really need the person you love the person you know what you say, thank you. I can change. Wait a minute, how you changed you. You’re you. I know I made it up. I can change it. Didn’t you make it up? Can you change it if you have to adapt to get what you want? Says it’s not real. Personality is not real. It’s like a mass that you put out to try and convince people to give you what you want and everyone makes up a different one. We all had different experiences, which is why there’s so much conflict, why there’s wars, why there’s everything, so many relationship problems and everything because everybody’s different.

I’m not going to get into it this time, but I give entire lectures on why is everybody different? Everybody’s had different experiences. Nobody that ever lived is living or ever will live has had the same experiences you have. Therefore everybody’s programmed differently. Wow, God, when I’m playing around, he made quite a video game. 8.5 billion of you guys running around all had different experiences that programmed their psyche. So now they all want different things and they all walk around saying, but I’m right. And they really think they’re right because the only data they have is the data that came in from their experiences. If I take a computer and I put a set of data in, it’s going to keep coming up with the same solutions. You’ll put ’em around a little different, but the basic foundation is that’s its data. That’s your data. Therefore you think everybody should be like you say things like, I would never do that, but they did. They have different experiences. It’s not they’re really thinking, yeah, I wouldn’t do it either, but God anyways, totally different experiences. Everybody’s programmed differently. Do you understand that? So your ability to understand another person is pretty much zero.

Well it is and things happen and you say, how could that happen? Because everybody’s programmed differently. That’s where compassion comes from. There’s so many things I can teach. There’s such a differently compassionate sympathy. Sympathy is I’ve been where you are. I know just what you’re feeling. I get right in there with you. I can sympathize with you. I can feel empathy. I can understand that I have sympathy. What’s compassion? I’ve been there too. And I know you don’t have to be a rose above it, but I understand it’s not that easy. I’ve compassion that you’re going through this, but I know you don’t have to. Now I can help you if I’m in there with you. Say, what does sympathy do make you feel better about the fact that you’re not feeling good? You understand that but you’re still not feeling good, still a little supportive.

Somebody who’s compassionate has the ability to raise you back up to where they are. True compassion can only be felt by somebody who rose above themselves and realizes above that line. It don’t look anything like it does below that line. But you can’t pull somebody up. You can’t force them up. So you enter the situation with an understanding of openness and compassion, of knowing the reality of what can be and you help the person up not get in there with them. There’s a big difference, isn’t it? That’s why Buddhists say compassion is the highest emotion. So just keep talking about that line now that we’ve talked about how you got below the line and don’t worry about it. So is everybody else, right? Welcome. Nobody ever taught you how to get a vote line. They don’t know how. They don’t even know there is. There’s so few that actually understand what you have to die to be reborn means.

I just told you. Here’s a line. There’s your birth below the line, there’s your birth above the line. What does it take to go over the line? You have to die below the line. You have to let go of the ego. You have to have devote your life to your problems that you made up. You made them up. If you had experiences in your life and you didn’t hold ’em in there, come see me. I want to pronou ’em to you because you have very great being because what’s going to shine through? Let’s do this. Now the self, think of it as a sun, the consciousness, it’s shining down. You built a filter, a filter made up of the stuff you stored inside so it can’t shine straight through. What shines through is the filtered light and that’s what a person’s personality is, is that’s what made it through and usually it’s not so good.

And so basically you get to the point where you realize that all I’m doing is expressing my not okayness. I wear the clothes I do. That’s why I talk the way I do. That’s why I drive the car that I do. That’s why I have the job that I do every single thing is because I’m not okay and I need the outside world to come into me. That makes me feel better and doesn’t make me feel worse and work hard at that, don’t we? Alright, how do you go above the line? First of all, what’s it like above the line? Believe me, you want to go above the line. The first thing you realize above the line you don’t have any problems. You don’t have any problems. Your problems are you made them. You said, I need you to talk to me the way I want to talk to me.

I need to open the door for me. You just make this stuff up. You just make up what you want, what you don’t want. And now you complain. If it’s the way you don’t want it, you get all excited. If you do, you did that above the line, you’re not doing that above the line, you catch on. Wait a minute, if I want to be okay and I do, all of us want to be okay, I got to stop making myself not okay and then figure out how to make you let me be okay. That’s just ridiculous. So you just get up here and you realize I am okay above the line, you are okay. You are okay. You can handle things, you can be okay with things. Okay, well, she said something that I really don’t like. So what if you felt love so much?

Love that even though she said that you still felt the love, who cares? You want to give away your love because what somebody else is in a bad mood and says something, now you’re a nice person. You’re not nice because somebody did something. You’re nice goes inside, you’re nice, you found the place of beauty, of love. You’re holding complete within yourself above that line. But at first you’re going to realize you keep getting pulled back down. Why? Because you haven’t cut the cord. You still think you need things to be a certain way to be okay. At some point, little by little you start doing this thing. I teach letting go. What does that mean? People so misunderstand. Letting go doesn’t mean let the world do whatever it wants and walk all over you. And no, it doesn’t mean that surrender doesn’t mean that. It means I’m in here and there’s still a pull down into the ego.

That ego is very strong. Don’t you kit yourself, therefore it keeps pulling you back down. So what does letting go? It means let go of that pull. That’s all it means. But surrender means let go of that pull. I’m sitting there in a tug of war and I want to go eat, but the book, I say the whole NFL football team is on the other end and I’m trying to pull, I want to go home, I want to pull, right, let go. What do you mean open your hands and realize I don’t care if they come with me, I want to go eat. Who said that to come with me? Who said you have to convince everybody in the world that you’re the wonderful ingrained and have all this who said so you did well, what if I let go? You’re liberated, you’re free, you’re fine.

That’s what letting go means. That’s surrender means. What does that mean? I don’t deal with the outside. No. It means you’re now capable of dealing with the outside without it being you’re dealing with the outside to make you okay that’s really wanted to touch tonight. I talking about selflessness. It means I’m not going out there to make myself be okay. And I can tell you right now you are because that’s what humans do. Why? Because they’re not okay. They’re not okay in there. Deep in you’re not. Alright. So I have to go out there and manipulate the world to make it so when it comes in and makes me feel okay, I can do it nicely. Some people use a gun, some people use compliments, whatever. One’s a little nicer than the other by the way. But it’s the same thing. You’re trying to make the outside come in the way, makes you feel better.

And so that’s what you’re routes are doing. So you’re taking, when you get back here above the line, it’s not that you’re not taking, it’s that you don’t need to take. You’re fed, you’re filled with joy and that you start to understand the nature of self. It’s called such an ananda, eternal conscious ecstasy, eternal conscious ecstasy. You don’t get there right away, but you start getting glimpses. It’s kind of nice in there. Again, I’m a nice Jewish yogi. I read the Bible once in 1971 and when I’m teaching the words just come back. What in the world do you think it means? The peace. That path is all understanding. You get above that line, you start feeling that why is it beyond all understanding? Because it doesn’t matter what happens outside, you still feel the peace. It’s unassailable, it’s untouchable, it’s transcendent to the events that are taking place, including your mind.

You can either senator, deep, deep place, then your mind sit there saying, God, what if this happens? And it just passes right through. You don’t go down and check it out. You don’t go down to figure out, well, what if it does? I ain’t giving up this peace. I’m not giving up the love for anything. The only reason you’re doing anything out there is feel peace and love. So if you have it inside, now when you come out into the world, you’re not coming out for you. You do come out above the line. Doesn’t mean you’re sitting in a cave somewhere. It means inside you’re fine, at least to some degree finer than you were below the line. And so now when you come out, you actually look and say, what can I do to help? Not help me? So if you come up to me and you’re in a really bad mood and you’re really upset, you start yelling and screaming at me and telling me it’s my fault.

What if I don’t feel defensive? What I don’t do anything about it except feel compassion. And what if every single thing I do for the moment forward is to help you, not me. Can you imagine such a thing? Imagine all the people, okay? Because what it takes, it takes to go above the line. And so now all of a sudden you’re coming out into the world. Well what if I’m running a business? You’re not running the business because you want to look important because you want to make money. It was given for you to do. Life gives you things. Does life give you things to do? Are you doing them in order to raise them to do the best? Are you doing them for you? I’m not doing well. Maybe we should move. I’m not doing well. Just change jobs. My boss, I don’t like my boss.

I like the other one. I don’t like this one. In other words, I’m not okay. And every single thing I’m doing is an attempt to make me be okay outside. That’s all I’m doing. People ask me about decisions. It’s my favorite dogs. It’s not what decision you make. It’s looking to see the motive behind trying to make it. And what you’re going to find out, I’m trying to figure out which one will make me happy. I’m trying to figure out which one will work out better for me. Which one will make me happy? Should I get married now or should we wait? Whatcha trying to do? He’s trying to try it on my clothes. If I do this, how will it fit my self concept? How will it fit my dreams? How will it fit my whole? And it was just my ego. How will it fit my ego? As opposed to looking in there saying, wait, whoa, whoa. It’s all about me. That’s why I can’t make a decision because I’m bifurcated all over the place. I’ve had good experience and bad experience and they were same. And so I’m trying to figure out how can I figure out what maybe be okay. You’re going to the part of you that’s not okay. Your ego, it’s not okay. That’s why I was trying to be okay asking the part that’s not okay how to be okay.

To me, that’s like going to a financial advisor that has done nothing but lose your money every single time you listen to ’em. Let’s try again. No. Is your ego a problem? Is it get insecure, get self-conscious, get embarrassed, afraid people don’t like it. It’s a problem and you’re going to it to figure out what to do. And so basically you get to the point where you realize decisions become a lot easier when you don’t have motives like that. Even in business, you just look at it and you see what is best. Doesn’t mean you’re going to be right, but what looks like the best for what’s going on, not what’s the best for me, not what will make me be successful. Success is such an honor sitting in a state of ecstasy all the time, no matter what unconditional wellbeing is success, not conditional wellbeing because you got to fight for that and fight to keep it.

So above the line, you start to catch on that when you let go not get something, when you let go of the identification with the ego, all of a sudden what’s back there can shine through. You start to experience something much more beautiful. So you basically get to the point where you understand that if you can touch a place that’s okay, at least you have a frame of reference that lets you see it’s nice inside. It can be nice inside. And then you understand, you’ll find out instantaneously why it’s not nice inside. Because you’re being pulled down to the part of your being that is defining every single thing is a problem. And so you can’t be okay and you learn to let go. You learn to let go. You learn to relax and release. That’s what relax. Release is back here. I want to stay back here then relax and release.

Relax and release the ego. How do you not identify with the ego? Relax. Let it pass through. Oh, look at that car. I wish I had that car. Oh, that’s how you do mantra. You do mantra. Instead of doing your mind, you just let go. You can let it go. Which would you rather have that car and that house or unconditional peace, love, and wellbeing because that’s all you’re trying to get from the car and the house anyways. And so you start letting go. That’s how you get above the line. You let go of the pull to go below the line. It’s not easy. It goes extremely strong. Why? Because you’ve been married to it in your lifetime and your whole culture, everything. Everybody teaches you to be like that. You went to college, you went to school, nobody taught you this. They started out to be successful as opposed to hello, you’re the highest you ever walked the face of the earth, but you’re identify with something that’s not.

What do I do? Let go, let go. Just keep relaxing, releasing, relaxing, releasing. And so you just finally catch on that what it’s about. Your whole life, your entire life is about letting go of your identification with the ego. But don’t think you’re renouncing the mind. You’re not renouncing the mind. Mine’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. The personal mind, we could do without the part of your mind that’s fixated on this tiny little house you built in there. That’s about me. And that’s all it talks about is me. That can go how? By letting it go. But you’re welcome to get involved in projects that are more expansive than you instruments. Music, creativity, science, all things are beautiful. But if you scientists and you want to win a Nobel Prize, that’s ugly. If you’re a musician, you want people to clap and buy your music, that’s ugly.

But if you’re doing it to be expressive, to be creative because it is just beautiful to learn and to express. That’s beautiful. The Gita teaches that. That’s what it’s teaching. Do it but not for the results they use. Renounce the fruits of your actions. That’s too late. Just come from a place that’s expressive, just expressing your being, expressing the beauty of your being, express beauty. And that’s enough. You don’t need anything back. So that’s the life above the line. And what happens is I’ll close it down. You’ll start to get high. Why? Because you are high. I always teach you. It’s not about going to God. Listen to me. It’s not about going to God. It’s about not leaving. You’re already there. Your consciousness when they say ma’am was created an image of God. God is consciousness. That’s what’s created. The universe is consciousness. You are that consciousness array of that consciousness.

You are literally created an image of God and you have will and so on. But you fell down. You identified with something below you as you let go. You don’t leave it In the sixties. You’re talking about expanding consciousness. Oh, that’s a big thing. Expanded consciousness. No stop contracting consciousness. It’s already universally expanded. You keep bringing it down to stare at your thoughts. It’s your emotions in your body, in your life. That’s very funny. It’s pretty tiny, pretty small. So that’s why you’re not okay. So it starts to go up. It naturally goes up. As you let go of identifying below, it goes up by itself. It just keep going up. You start feeling now you feel the pull going down. It keeps pulling you down. You’ll start to feel like a vacuum cleaner pulling you up all the time. It’s always pulling you up.

May not be ready to let go. Totally yet takes time. That’s called the evolution of your being, that you learn to look up instead of down. And as you go up, it pulls you up. And every step you go up, you usually get higher every day of your life. Every single day of your life should be higher than the day before. How? Because you use the day before to let go, to let go of yourself. You just keep letting go. And it gets higher and higher. And then where the great ones went, they had the ability to let go. And they me, they fall back. They’re no longer consciousness is no longer tending to look down. It’s not even looking up. It just gets pulled back into the ocean. And that’s what enlightenment is. That’s the merger. That’s yoga. Yoga means union. That your stream of consciousness that was looking down now melted back into the ocean and merged with God.

That’s what Christ landed. When he said, my father and I one, I said, yoga on the man. When he said my first experience in cosmic consciousness, that’s where the great ones went. That’s Buddhist Nirvana. You’re a great being. And they all said the same thing that which I am. So also you did Christ say that? Did Christ say, as I sit of the throne of my father, it’s a state of consciousness as I sit by the throne of my father. So you shall sit by my throne and these things that I do should do these and even greater things, right? So that’s your choice. What do I want to do with your life? Beg, steal, take to try to be okay and you’re not. Or every day let go a little more. Every day something happens that she makes that ego, let it go. Relax through it. Relax through it.

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.