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. Some people think that in order to grow and go deep, it’s all about meditation. And the great masters taught that way, including my girl. You’ll find on your path first of all, that if all you do is meditate when you come back, you can have a lot of trouble dealing with the world. You manage to achieve a quiet state, perhaps mindless, but it doesn’t fit. When you deal with people, deal with business, deal with finances, deal with stuff. There is a state, it takes time. It’s very deep work where the meditative state and the state of being in the world are not so different. That’s where you want to go.
Meditation helps techniques, help mantra helps. All these things help tremendously to quiet the mind, to get a sense of detachment and ultimately to merge. But again, to be in the world, not of it requires a different talent. Mayor above said man, minus the mind equals God. You’re going to find that’s the truth. The mind keeps drawing consciousness down into it. The mind is a distraction. The world can be a distraction. What does distraction mean? It means that consciousness can’t be doing what it was doing before it got distracted. We see distracted like a DH, ADHD and stuff like that as I was in my mind doing something, but now my mind’s doing something else and so I got distracted by something else and I keep getting distracted. So I can’t focus on anything. Spirituality is much deeper. Spirituality is I can achieve a seat of calm, of quiet, of centeredness, of witness, but then I get distracted from that state, not distracted from the distracted state.
You’re like third level distracted. I’m already distracted by my mind, which is distracted with what’s happening outside, which is distracted with what happened outside. Every minute of my life, I’m just all over the place just being distracted from one to the other, like a ping pong match. So when you achieve some semblance of centeredness or some semblance of a seat of consciousness, a seat of witness consciousness where you’re able to let things go through without pulling you into them, you’ll still get distracted by certain things, not everything, but you’ll get distracted by what you’re distracted by things you really like. You’re distracted by things that you really don’t like. That’s why in the end, they’re the same that yogi sees like and dislike as the same. There is no difference. They both have the same effect on you. If you’re sitting there centered and somebody happens out there that you’ve always wanted, you’re not centered anymore, you get distracted by that, you don’t even know it.
You get pulled down into that and you got to get that sucker. You’re out there trying to get it. It means it pulled you out of your seat of consciousness into the mind, into the personal mind. If something happens that you don’t like, which of course happens lots of times, a lot more than then you get pulled into that. You get pulled into defending yourself or protecting yourself, controlling everything. So basically they’re the same to a yogi. They’re the same like and dislike are the same thing. They’re distractions. And when Mayor Obama says, man, mind equals God, it means you not distracted are seated in the seat of self. That’s who you are. That is your state of consciousness. You are already there. You’re just being distracted from there. You’re already seated in the highest seat that can possibly exist, but you’re being distracted. Consciousness is being pulled down into these distractions.
So if this happens, then you’re dealing with what you’re distracted by. You’re not the self, you’re what self is conscious of and that isn’t always a very high state. In fact, there’s never a high state because it’s a personal state. The fact that you’ve got distracted by it means you had something going. It was a personal thing, it was a preference, a desire, a fear, whatever it is. And now you get pulled down into that. It’s hard for us to understand that because we’re always in that state. Very rarely is a normal human being. In fact never as a normal human being in that state. They wouldn’t be normal if they were not in that state. A normal human being doesn’t even know they’re distracted. They’re so distracted that they’re living inside that distraction, whatever distracted them, which is a whole bunch of things by the way.
And then what they’re trying to do is if what distracted them is not comfortable, they’re out there putting all of their energy, not being distracted into changing the outside world so that it is the way that matches what they were distracted by. I don’t like that this is going to happen. I’m going to make it not happen. I’m going to use all of my effort to manipulate and control the outside world so that whatever I got distracted by is doing okay. Or if you like something, same thing. Go out there and try to get it. That’s why I’m terrible. I don’t teach against, never say I teach against the law of attraction. I do not. I just have fun with you. Somebody has to be a voice in the wilderness who says yes, you can attract yourself what you want. In other words, you got distracted by what you wanted.
Now you can go out there and find a way to get what you wanted so you feel better about the fact that you got distracted. A great being understands that getting what you want is not such a hot thing. The high thing is not getting what you want. You’ll always want something else. You have to worry about keeping it. Do you understand that? It doesn’t change anything momentarily. It does momentarily. You were distracted by something. You’re uncomfortable with not having it. Now you get it. Whoa, whoopee. Or you’re distracted by something and it bothered you. Now you’ve relieved yourself. It’s not going to happen. Wonderful. Believe me, you’re still going to worry. It could happen. You’re going to worry that you lose what you wanted. You’re going to want something else. Do you know that yet? How many times have you gotten what you wanted and never wanted anything else?
Never. And that’s the answer for everybody. Where like the hamster running on that wheel, I’ll get there, I’ll get there, get where? Get to want something else and try to get it. And so basically the concept is not getting what you want. The concept is understanding why you got distracted from this very great state. You’re a great being. You’re God descended. You’re the highest animal about the face of the earth. Who told you that? Christ told you that as I sit by the throne of my father, that’s a state of consciousness, not a seat. As I sit by the throne of my father, so you shall sit by my side. That’s what he said. And these things that I do should do these and even greater things. That doesn’t sound like your sinner. You’re a great being, but you got distracted by the lower part of your being, which is what your personal mind again, let’s do it.
I do it. I usually have a whole lecture. Let’s do it very quickly. Why is your personal mind full of issues? That’s what you store there. Your mind is not objective or neutral in your personal mind. This happened to me in the past. I didn’t like it. I don’t want it to happen again. So I stored it inside my mind to remember to make sure that this does not happen again. You’ll not talk to me like that again. I don’t care what you say, I don’t care. But there you are, right? You didn’t like what happened or you did like what happened? How did I get this to happen again? So your mind is full of your issues. It’s full of what happened in the past that you didn’t like and full of what happened in the past that you did. And so now it’s very distracting and it pulls you down into it.
That’s why man minus mind equals God. There’s nothing wrong with mind. You use your mind to do math. You use the mind to build air conditioning. You use your mind for lots of wonderful things, but that’s not the personal mind. That’s the abstract mind, the intellectual mind that it doesn’t keep you from God. That’s literally God coming down and using the intelligence of creation to have fun to play, do these things, but the personal mind is the one that’s not okay unless it gets what it wants. I don’t want this to happen. I’m not okay if it does, I want this to happen. I’m not okay if it doesn’t. You know anything about that. So that is very, very distracting and that pulls you away from where you’re being distracted from God. You’re being distracted from your seat of universal consciousness. Literally you are right now at this moment merged in the infinite right now.
You don’t have to do anything. You have to go anywhere. No meditation, no mantra, no yoga, no church, no synagogue, nothing. You are fully merged right now. Okay? Why don’t I feel that? Because you’re busy looking at your little tiny mind. How is your mind? There’s 8.3 billion of you all running around right now and event God knows how many they came before and left and your little mind at most is one of 8.3 billion little minds that’s programmed by the experiences you had. So you’re running around with that thing saying this is everything. No, I don’t think it’s everything. I think it’s pretty much nothing. But because it can distract your consciousness, your awareness of being so strongly that you can’t even get back to the seat of self, it pulls you down into this tiny little mind. Don’t do that.
And you buy into it completely. Why? Because if you don’t get what you want, you’re in trouble. You don’t feel good. If you get what you don’t want, you’re in trouble. You don’t feel good. And so you devote your life to manipulating the outside world. The problem’s inside the problem is that you got distracted by your stuff you stored in your mind, but you go out there to try and fix it. Do you understand that? Do you not go out there to try to fix your life? Do you not think there’s something outside? Your ship’s going to come in my bucket list. There’s things that can happen out there that will make me, okay, this haven’t happened yet. And when I look at you and say, do you understand how okay, you are inside, you’re the highest people walked the face of the earth, but you fell down into this stupid little spot, your little thinking eagle mind.
It’s tiny, isn’t it? Now they paint it that way. Is it tiny or not? And I’m only talking about the 8.3 billion people that are alive on a planet earth right now. What about Mars? What about the galaxies? What about everything? How big is your mind compared to everything? It’s nothing is it? But you devote your life to it and the way you devote your life to it is you get distracted. I tried to tell you that so hard for you. Don’t understand the highest being that ever walked. The face of the earth is who you are and who you’re with. You are merged with the infinite. You’re the creator of the universe. So many people write me, they say, you say I’m nothing but I’m God. I created the universe that part of you is not God and it did not create the universe. Okay?
That little part, you’re looking at that little spiritual ego man. Let go that sucker. Alright? But inside your consciousness that is aware, awareness is awareness. It is the creator of the universe, universal consciousness, the infinite one. But it is distracted by your tiny little thought patterns and they’re not comfortable. Why go take something really big and shove into a tiny cage? No wonder you’re not comfortable. You made yourself pretty small. You just have as small these little experiences you had during your life, which are nothing. I tell you all the time, and I know you don’t get it. The experiences that you’ve had, what percentage of the potential experiences that were going on at the same time that you had anyone experience, how many are you missing? Everything else right now you’re having one experience. How many experiences are there everywhere else that you’re not having 700 billion zillion?
So you’re having one of 700 billion zillion and saying it’s the most important experience in the whole world. I’m going to devote my life to it. And then you have another one, another one, another one. And you build your ego and your self concept based on the experience you had, don’t you? And you think you know something? I’m sorry you don’t know anything. How could you know anything when you missed everything? I’m going to stop for a second. I never stopped. Can you hear that? How could you possibly know anything if you missed everything? All you saw was one spot. How many thieves were going on at the same moment you ate at that restaurant? How many other restaurants were there? How many places all over the world were things going on? Did you experience them? No. You experienced that one experience and you think that that’s called knowledge.
I know something and you would make decisions if it was a Chinese restaurant and it didn’t sit well with you. You’ll never be Chinese again for the rest of your life. I eat Chinese. I know what it’s like. You don’t dunno anything in one experience. Meet somebody and have them have a stomach ache when you meet them. I met him and he’s a schnuck first impression of everything. He’s terrible. I don’t want to see him again. Are you kidding me? Psychology says your ego is the summary of your learned experiences. It’s your self-concept. You built it out of these nothing experience that you had that you don’t like me saying. People write me, I don’t like you saying my experiences for nothing. I don’t care.
It’s like Senator saying, I wonder who’s going to win the 2028 election. So I asked her, who are you going to vote for Now I know. Hello? That doesn’t count as a sample does it? Does your one experience that’s missing every other experience that’s happening at that moment, but you consider it 100% righteous and real and truth. I know I’ve had that experience that met somebody from Afghanistan before. I know what they’re like. So that is the personal mind. You have taken the consciousness of the divine being such an Anand, the eternal conscious ecstasy. That’s who you are and focused it on that stupid little thing called your personal mind, your ego. What do I want? What do I not want? What do I like? What do I not like? What happened to me? They should. He is built a little house inside your head and said, that’s me.
It’s really funny. It’s not you, you’re everything, but you can’t experience being everything. Why? Because you can only experience what your consciousness is. If I go to a movie and for two hours, it’s so enthralling that I experience anything else, I didn’t have any thoughts. I didn’t even think of anything because it captured my consciousness and it was focused on that. And therefore that’s the only thing I know about the whole thing that happened in those two hours was what happened on a stupid screen. That’s what you’re doing with your life and you built an ego based on that and now you’re staring at that and that is why you don’t experience your divinity and that’s the only reason you don’t experience your divinity. It’s not about going back to God, it’s about ceasing to leave. And that’s a whole different path. One is sitting there saying, I’m this little ego.
How do I get back to God? Good luck. And the other is saying, wait a minute, the inner most part of my being is there, but I’m getting distracted by myself, by my mind. So that’s a different path, isn’t it? That’s what I’m talking about. So what happens is getting back to this meditation versus not, versus you meditate. Of course you do, right? But the rest of your life is as important or more important than when you’re meditating. Why? Because you’re being distracted as the only reason you’re not in your natural state. So what you need to do is practice not being distracted. When you’re getting distracted, you don’t practice not being distracted. When you’re not being distracted, you know anything about it. But if I’m here now and I look at you and you remind me of my sister and she die, you’re almost sin just distracted.
I can’t even talk. I’m sitting here. Then basically I need to work with that. I need to work with, I’m being distracted to learn, to not be distracted. And if I learn to not be distracted ready, I won’t be distracted and I’ll end up not distracted. Where are you? And you’re not distracted and God man, mine is mine equals God. I told you it’s not that mind is bad. You’re being distracted by the part of mind that you stored in there. I told you why? Because you stored the most powerful parts. You didn’t store the white lines, you didn’t store all the people that walked by in the streets of New York. You didn’t store the cars that drove by in la, but if one of those cars they didn’t untethered, if one of those cars looked like your girlfriend’s car and somebody looked like they were cuddling up next to somebody, but I’m not sure it drove by pretty fast.
You got distracted but there were thousands, thousands of cars. Very funny. So the reason you’re being distracted is because you stored this stuff in there from the past. You defined everything to be the way you want it to be. If it’s not that way, you get distracted and girlfriend, boyfriend, forget that you’re driving down the street and you want to go to the beach and all of a sudden you look ahead and it’s all cloudy and dark. How you doing? It’s just weather not to you. It distracts you tremendously, doesn’t it? Because you had a way you wanted it to be. How do you go deep so fast? Isn’t that why? Well, why distract you? It finds raining, it rains a lot of times, but isn’t what you wanted and because it isn’t what you wanted, all of a sudden something very normal bothers you.
That’s why the great writing the Thursday patriarch starts with the great way. Enlightenment, liberation, merger. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Now do you understand? I’m not telling you to do it, don’t get scared. I just want you to understand the deep states and how to get there. Why is that? I just told you if you don’t care whether it’s raining or now you have nothing going. It doesn’t distract you, it’s just what is it here now? But if you got something going, I don’t want this to happen and it looks like it might happen and it’s your whole life, it takes over. You can’t go to God because you left. Who else taught you that? Buddha, the real teachers are much deeper than people want to teach ’em to you. Buddhist four noble truths. One, all of life is suffering.
I think you know something about that. That doesn’t mean you broke your arm or something left all the time you suffer. You’re in there trying not to suffer that. Are you in there trying to be okay? Answer me. Have you found yourself being there trying to be okay? Doing things, getting things, avoiding things to try to be okay? That means you’re not okay. Be honest. By definition you’re not okay or you wouldn’t be doing that so you’re not okay. Therefore you’re suffering compared to nirvana, compared to your natural state of where you can be. You are suffering, you’re worrying. Anybody know anything about anxiety, attention, worry, insecurity, A lot of fun, isn’t it? No, you’re suffering. That’s what Buddha’s talking about. So all the life is suffering. Alright, Buddha got it down ready. I really love Buddha. He’s just the real Buddhist teacher are phenomenal.
He went out, he left. He was a prince and had a wife and children a child, and he left the castle. There were walls and he was protected. He had a beautiful life, but he didn’t understand why everyone was suffering outside the walls and he couldn’t handle that. So he left everything. He left his wife, he left his baby, he left his father, his finances, everything to do what? To find out why there’s suffering. I want to know why they’re suffering. And he fasted and he, oh my God, he went through so much and eventually he came back to the town where there were all these monks from different people that used to be friends with him and he was glowing a little bit. He said, I have found it. And they looked at him. This is how it happened. Imagine this guy showing back up thin, starve himself.
I found it. I found the cause of suffering and he looked at him and said, well, we know the cause of suffering. Old age, poverty, sickness. No, no, no. That’s the cause of suffering. No, there’s one. One cause of all suffering. Oh my God, that’s what he said. There’s one cause of all suffering. How can there be one cause of all everybody’s suffering. One cause everyone that ever suffered one, cause one, there will never be another cause there’s one root cause of all suffering. Wow. For sad, the cause of suffering is desire. Desire is a preference, is it not? Was it really desire and a preference? I prefer to say the cause of suffering is preference. Why? Because you think des desire means lust. Do you think it’s extreme? No. No, no. Any preference? Cause of suffering. That’s what the third same patriarch said. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
Why? I told you if it’s raining up ahead and you have nothing going, you’re not coming into the moment with a concept or view or opinion or preference about what’s going to go on. You just be here now you don’t suffer. It’s raining. Fine, we’ll adjust the rain. I don’t have to not do anything. I can still interact. I can have a date. I can go intend to go to the beach, right? But it’s not a preference, it’s just something I’m doing. So it’s raining. I’ll play Tilly wings. So do something else. If you have a preference, you will suffer. Have you noticed I don’t want this to happen. Just I swear to you I’ve maintained this for so long, right? What if there’s only one preference that you have in the entire world? One, I don’t want you to talk to him. Guess what? I’m dead. Why? I’m going to have to worry about whether you talk to him. I have to check out where you are and where he is and keep my eye on it or hire somebody to watch you. But that costs money. So I have to get a job.
Just one preference. I want something to happen. I don’t want something to happen. And your mind is born. Your personal mind is born. Can you see? I’m not telling you not to do it. Don’t misunderstand me. I think it’s neat to understand the deep truth, isn’t it? That’s pretty deep stuff. Buddha said, isn’t it all if it’s suffering, the cause of suffering is preference to end suffering, end preference and in the eight full path, that particular Buddhist path of how to do that, how to end preference. I had a fun thing I find I really like sharing with you all. I had somebody and he wrote me, he sat there and said, well, I kind of like my preferences. I’m not ready to let him go. So I wrote him back and I said, well, the third same patriarch
Gave me permission to change that first sentence. Nu one said that was the most important sentence ever written in all of spirituality and Roberts used to give out the book The Thursday per in the seventies. So the first line is the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. I have permission to change it for you guys. Make it easier to digest. Ready? The great way is not difficult for those who prefer everything. Contemplate that. There’s no difference is there? There’s no difference about having no preferences and preferring everything. If you just prefer everything the way it is, you’re free, aren’t you? I was going to go to the beach. It looks like it’s raining up ahead. That’s fine. I love the rain. Okay, so these are the deep teachings. So basically what’s happening is you a very high being, but you’re distracted by the fact that you stored in your mind all the past experiences you had that were pleasant and not pleasant and you turn those into preferences, desires, fears, and so on. That’s what your psyche is, the sum of your learned experiences. Did you know that before? That’s what your ego is. That’s what psychology says. This is some of your learning experiences. There’s nothing in there. Nothing in there that you never experienced. What’s your opinion about?
I’m waiting. You never experienced it. You have nothing going. Now go out there and have somebody come up to you and say you and now you don’t like that word at all. What’s going on in your head? Your personal self is the sum of your learning experiences. You stored the ones you liked, stored the ones you didn’t like and you made a little house in there. This is what I’m like. I like this and I don’t like this. And I’ve always liked that and I never liked that. I don’t like other people that like this. I don’t like that. That’s your hopes, your dreams, your concepts, your views, your preference, your ego, your self-concept. Everything is the cellular experiences. Well, basically, as long as you’re carrying that in there and you are, you’re going to get distracted with things outside. Stimulate those thoughts. And by the way, it doesn’t even take the outside.
You can do it to yourself inside. Right or wrong. Can you have a thought that makes you depressed and unhappy? Can you have a thought that makes you excited and inspired? Of course, but you’re hitting your stuff. You can’t have a single thought and inspires you about something you don’t know anything about. And plus you don’t even get scared about things you don’t know anything about. I said, would you mind seeing a coral snake? I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Is it dangerous? See, right away I’ll decide whether it’s okay that I see one or not. And it is all based on the stuff you store to decide. So basically the path that we’re talking about is the path of not getting distracted. If you don’t get distracted, you’re going to find that you’re a very high being because what you’re getting distracted from is something very, very great.
Now you try to distract yourself by getting entertainment. It’s entertainment a distraction from you. You’re trying to have things happen outside that distract your consciousness from having to sit in there amongst all that garbage you built in there. I want to travel. I want to a vacation. Why do you need vacations? Why do you need vacations? I need a vacation from work. Why do need a vacation from work? Because I don’t like it and I’m make myself doing it. I getting tired of it. I don’t like my employees. I don’t like the boss. I need a vacation from all this. I need a vacation from being with the person you love more than they think of the whole world. No, you’re in there fighting with yourself. You’re in there building problems and now you need vacations from yourself. The vacation has to be from yourself.
If you take you’re tired, worn out self with you on vacation and keep it there, what kind of vacation is that? You need to be distracted from yourself and that’s when you get into the extreme sports and extreme people who do all kinds of weird things. Why? Because they’re so caught in themselves that nothing outside distracts them from themselves. So everything is about distraction. The problem is it’s about not being distracted. If you’re not distracted, you’ll be enlightened. You’ll be enlightened. That’s all it takes if you are not distracted by anything, okay? I always quote the gee at this point. The Gita has this very, very beautiful section where you have to know the gee. It’s okay where Arjuna, which is a spiritual son, very spiritual being and Christ is God. They’re having a conversation. We’ll just start that way. And Krishna says to Arjuna, Hey Arjuna, there’s some very high dues out there. He didn’t use those qui. There’s some really high people out there who’ve reached oneness with me. They’re very enlightened. They’re enlightened beings. Arjuna, he asks Krishna, he says, how will I know one if I meet? One sits, he walks, he talks like anybody else.
Krishna says to him, you’ll not know him like that. He sits, he walks and talks like anyone else if you would know him. No. As such enjoys. He’s not overjoyed and sorrows not over sorrows. He lets darkness come when it will and it will depart and lets goodness come with it will and will depart. He walks as a sojourn or stranger in the midst of the qualities of nature, just as all the rivers and streams of the earth pour into the ocean and leave the ocean as it found, it doesn’t overstep its bounds. So the world of sense pours into the yogi and leaves him as it found him, serene. Content at peace, not distracted that just describe of being that anything can happen come in and it remains seated in the seat of self. That’s an enlightened being. Okay, so distraction is a key word, isn’t it?
About all this? Most people think distraction is a bad thing. No, you want to know about distraction and go because you’re very distracted. You think distraction means distraction from a math problem. Distraction. What? A reading. No distraction means distraction from the self, from a spiritual point of view. You’re distracted from the greatness of your being. How would you like to not be? To be able to walk in this world and have it come in, pour through you and you remain seated in the highest state of such an eternal conscious bliss while you’re in the world, while everything’s going on inside. Do you understand that? Okay, that’s the highest thing. That’s not to call. I did a drug or meditated my way to have some nice experience that I’m telling you about in the past tense, right? I’ve become established. I emerged my father and I won.
Whoa, that’s a whole nother level that nothing can take you away from that state. Well, what will I do? I’m in the world in that state. I’m going to cry. I don’t even talk about it. Now you have a rare being who is not doing anything for themselves. Are they practicing detachment? They don’t need to practice detachment. There’s nothing pulling them in. They practice selflessness. There is no selfless self to have to be dealing with. So what are they doing? If you don’t need to be doing anything for yourself, if you’re okay, you’re more than okay. You’re ecstatic. You’re filled with love and bliss all the time. When you come into this world, you’re not trying to do anything for yourself. You don’t need to. You’re already there. Well then what do you do? It’s just very natural. You serve. That’s a saint. You just naturally serve.
You don’t know you’re serving. Whatcha going to do? You need help? All help. You’re just giving. You’re just giving all the time, not expecting anything to return. It’s not about results. It’s not about why I’m giving. It’s not even thinking I’m giving. There’s nothing else to do. They don’t need anything. They’re a very high being. That’s a whole nother level than trying to make yourself be nice, building spiritual ego. I want to be the kind of people that people respect and that people like and they think I’m a nice person. Good. Have fun. That’s just another desire, another preference. What it’s about is can I wake up in the morning? Here’s your spiritual practice. Can I wake up in the morning and realize, you know what’s going to happen today? There’s going to be a day unfolding in front of me. I won’t see much of it.
I’m not asked to handle it all. Even what you’ve seen in the movies or reading the paper and radio, I still very little compared to what’s going on in the universe. I’m going to wake up, I’m going to be here and I’m going to practice handling what happens. And if I can’t, I’m going to work with myself. I’m going to work with doing this thing called letting go, letting go of a part of me that can’t handle reality. And at this point you all raise your hand and you say, who knows what reality is. I defined it in my new book. I like that one sense. No treatise, no essay. What is reality that which already happened? Pretty simple stuff. Have to vote on it. Do we? You already said that maybe you didn’t. No, you did. It wouldn’t be inside of me if you didn’t say it.
It already happened. Can I handle it? Not do I like it Not was it fair not was it just not that I deserve it? Some words came out of somebody’s mouth on the planet earth. There were a lot of words that 8.3 billion people were saying at that time. This is what I was hanging out. Those words got said, can I handle it? That’s what the quote from the Gita meant. Let’s goodness come when it will and depart let’s darkness come when it will, will depart. Are you able to handle what is happening in front of you in unison? No, you’re not. But it’s reality. I have this talk with you all the time. I don’t understand. You can’t make it not have happened, but I didn’t like it. Okay, I’m sorry, but you can’t make it not have happened. You only have two choices with reality.
Accept or resist. There’s no other choice. You either accept it or you resist it. And what you do is resist it. Well, it happens. If you resist it, it stays in there, doesn’t it? It’s called suppression. Repression. Denial. Resistance. You pushed it away. You pushed what? Away The event. No, the event already happened. Hung. I’m going to talk to you guys straight. You can’t push the away. It happened. She said what? She said she did what she did and everything does what it does. If it’s in the past, you can’t change it. The only thing you could do is refuse to accept it when it comes into you. No, I didn’t like that. Too bad it happened. You can’t make it. Another happen. I know, but I don’t have to accept that it happened. Alright, what does that mean? It still happened. All it means is I’m going to suppress it.
I’m going to push it away. I’m going to resist it. I it came in. I don’t like that it came in. So you can push away the result of it, but you can’t push away it. And there’s a difference. If I accept that it happened, it comes through. You’re in a bad mood. You said something not so nice. Ain’t the first time is it? I’ve been around the block a few times, heard a few things. Okay, fine. It’s not even, I’ve forgiving you how deep you want to talk. I shouldn’t talk like this, right? But it’s forgiving. Forgiving is too late. It means you already resisted it. You couldn’t handle it. You didn’t like it. But I forgive you for saying it. Hear me.
Have you ever forgiven somebody or at least tried to and realize that it was still in there and it’s kind of like when they do it again a year from now. See, you told me you would never do that again. You stored it, didn’t you? There’s no eraser in there. All you can do is try a little bit, which is good. Forgiveness is good. Better acceptance instead of resistance. If when the event takes place, you just sit there and say, I can handle it. I can handle it. Why? Because I said so. I don’t want to hold it inside of me. I don’t want to build yet another one of these things that make my ego be what it is. It made me have all these problems. Okay, you said it fine came in, it hurt a little bit. I let go. It’s over. Nothing to forgive, nothing to judge, nothing to do anything about it fit inside of me.
It made it through. That’s a very great being. That’s what the Gita quote talked about. The world of sense pours in Lisa, him as a found. So if somebody said something, somebody didn’t say something. You know what things people don’t say? Don’t you? I love you so much. I can’t even handle it. I love you so much. Wait, wait for something to come back. I said, I love you so much, but what if they come back and they tell you that they love you too? Like this? Yeah, I love you too. Oh boy. Look what you’re doing. You’re causing suffering. You are suffering. And then everybody else’s, if you didn’t like it, then he don’t like it either. Where do you see? Okay, and then the kids don’t like it. You’re causing big trouble. Don’t accept reality. So the spiritual path I’m talking about, which again, I’m not saying don’t meditate a month.
I’m saying do this too and do it more seriously. Every single moment of your life, you have the opportunity to not be distracted away from your seat of self. And if you don’t get distracted, you’re going to find out that you could stay happy every day of your life. Doesn’t mean you don’t interact with the world. You can be an activist, a political activist, but still be completely filled with love and centered and you’re just using that to express yourself. You don’t hate, you don’t judge. It’s not like that. It’s like a sport. Have you noticed it? I think it’s neat that football, football is a rather violent sport, okay? There’s a lot of contact and people really doing stuff to each other. Did you notice that at the end of a football game all sweaty, they get together and hug each other? Have you noticed that?
Not just people on the same team. They go out and find each other and laugh and hug and holy macro. Baseball doesn’t do that. Baseball, they don’t. They walk off the field. People one gets in the middle, they’re all excited. Nobody shakes hands, nobody. And that’s not even a context. Sport. Life is a contact sport. Why don’t we get along and have fun? Okay, you see things different than I do? Fine. Okay, let’s go for it. But it’s with a sense of love. It’s a sense of appreciation, a sense of understanding. Your experiences in life were different than mine. Did you know that no one had the same experience as you did they? Therefore, no one sees things the same as you. Is that okay with you? That’s part of reality. They had different experiences. They see it different. You don’t sit there and say, I would never do that.
How could you do that? Because I had different experiences than you. My family. They fought at dinner, their family, they all got along mazel tough. You missed out the nice fights that my family had. I missed out on the nice stuff your family had. You don’t think that way because you think yours is perfect, okay? And so Wake says we can get along, we can still work together or work against each other, whatever it is. But inside there’s love inside. There’s sportsmanship, there’s appreciation, respect really. But you can’t, if you’re fully distracted by your stuff, then the only thing you see is you have to take a step back. How do you do that? You learn you to not be distracted. How every minute of your, it’s like learning a sport. If you’ve never played tennis, you’re not going to be very good at it.
If you’ve never played an instrument, I’ll be very good at it. Does that mean you say, oh no, I can’t play a piano. I’m not good at it. No, you don’t do that. None of you do that. He said there say, I can learn, I can practice. I can play scales and then get better and then try and twinkle. Twinkle right or wrong. I can learn this sport. I get a coach and practice or a ball thrower and practice hitting yes or no. You don’t sit there and say, it’s just not how I am. You do that with your interstate. He said. They’re say no. I never even handle that. I don’t like that. I don’t like that kind of thing. Can you learn? No, I can’t learn just how I am. We’re all different. Wow, that’s not true. You can’t learn to not be distracted and you will naturally elevate to a very high state and it’s not like all at once.
Don’t get distracted because she said something you didn’t like. What does that mean? I have to like it. No, don’t let the fact that you didn’t like it distract you. Don’t get into it. Fine. She said something, it hit you wrong and you opened up and said you handled it. I didn’t get distracted by it. It took a second. It was like a little pinprick. It passed right through. I’m better off. You’re better off. I’m happy with you. Even though I could have not been, you could have ruined our relationship by saying that there are people like that. You say one thing they don’t like, that’s the end of that. Well, I guess they got distracted. So when you learn to not be distracted, your life becomes more beautiful. So does everybody else’s around you, your children, your spouse, your bosses, everything. You become a greater being.
How would you like to have an employee that every single thing wasn’t exactly what they wanted. They wanted to quit. They want to do it. I don’t want to deal with it. Told everyone negative. Give me a break now. Give me an employee that no matter what you ask them to do, they do the best they can. You can tell they didn’t like it much, but they’d devoted themselves to it. Wow. Same thing with your spouse, same thing with your children, same thing with your friends. Everything. Who are you? Are you the person that’s insisting that when I get distracted, you better change how you are? You better change what you did. You better change your whole everything. Or are you learning to handle yourself? Learning to handle without getting distracted? So that becomes a form of spiritual growth. And when do you do it? All the time. All the time. Somebody beeps at you. When you’re at the stop light, when you’re looking at your phone, you go right away, beep. How you doing?
How much wrong with people? They’re always in such a rush. It’s ridiculous. Only a second. Hold on. There’s just a second. I was just sitting, wow, man, if your car pulls up later next to you, you don’t feel good about that car or that person. So you practice handling reality. I’m begging you. You can wake up in the morning and say, the meaning of my life today is handling the moments that unfold in front of me. That’s the meaning of my life. That’s my spiritual growth, that’s my path, that’s my spiritual path. Acceptance, honor, respect, surrender. Okay, things happen. I let go of the part of me that got bothered by it. Did I get bothered by it? Don’t deny. Don’t practice denial. If it bothered you, except it bothers you, but let it go. If I’m playing the piano and I’m doing scales and I make a mistake, do I get up and quit?
No. I made a mistake. Fine. You just learn to keep letting go. You learn to keep letting go. Will you get better at it? Of course you’ll get better at it. Do you get better when you practice at piano? You get better when you practice sports. The professionals practice, don’t they? The Olympians spend four years killing themselves with one sport. They practice. You can practice your spiritual state. That’s the highest thing you can do. Now. Meditation helps. It helps you just take a breather. Mantra helps. All these techniques are techniques to help you handle reality. I’m talking about the technique that ultimately works called what? Handling reality. How about I can handle this to everything? Well, what if I can’t try? You can’t play the piano. Perfect. What if I can’t? You’ll practice. Practice. What if I don’t do it and I fall? Get the heck back up and just do the best you can every single time and you’re going to get better at it.
You’re going to find out they run me from all over the world. Sometimes it moves me so much. I didn’t know what Shakti was. I never heard of it, but now I’ve been letting go and all of a sudden, all these rushes of joy and love, well up inside of me for no reason is that Shakti, if you let go and don’t get distracted by yourself, then you’re not getting distracted. It will naturally be in the state of not distracted. How about that? I’m going to define enlightenment as a state of not distracted, and that is, it’s what it is. It’s just basically you’re able to remain seated in the seat of self. No matter what’s going on, you still interact with it. Yes, you still come and do things. A good example is a Dalai Lama. He really practices this. He practices acceptance. He practices surrender.
Even when he talks about the Chinese, and I’ve seen him, I was so impressed Chinese, they went in and they burned your house and the temples, they burned and he went, ha ha ha ha. Reporter said, what are you doing? He says, my tradition is that nothing is real enough in this world that you can’t laugh. Oh my God, laugh first, then do what you can to help. First accept, honor, respect. Can you do that? I know your mind says you can’t. People write me, there’s terrible things going on in the world. Okay, go to Mars, hang out there for a while. There’s nothing going on. Would you like that better? Go to Saturn. Go anywhere. Go’s 300 billion stars in your galaxy. Pretty much every star in the Milky Way has at least one or two planets. Well, there’s 300 billion stars. That’s a fair number of planets and you are a one that all this stuff’s going on.
The other ones, we ain’t seen a squat going on. We haven’t found a protozoa, haven’t found an amoeba. We haven’t found a sign of life. We’re trying to find out. Maybe there was life here 7 billion years ago. You got a few things going on around here. Isn’t this a terrible place to be? No, it’s not. Are there terrible things that go on? Yes. Is it a terrible place to be? No. Go pick another planet. Have fun because you’re not going to, you’re comparing your life against what you want to be happening instead of comparing it against everything else that is happening. But it’s silly, silly thing to do. Of course. It’s not going to be what you want. It can’t be what you want. Everyone wants something different. Okay, I’ll let it be the way you want today and hurt tomorrow. That’s not how it works.
It is what it is. And so you learn to let go. You let go and all of a sudden you’re struck getting high. And then because you’re high, it’s easy to let go. You’re not any problems. Then you get higher. Then you guys, they’re called the stairway heaven, the ascent. It’s called the ascent. And you’ll see the energy right now. You don’t feel the inspiration. You don’t feel the love. You don’t feel the energy unless so special heaven outside. Why? Because you’re blocked. Your ego has blocked you as you’re willing to let go of that and work with yourself through respect and honor and appreciation. You should appreciate life. Does your body breathe? How much work does it take for you to make your body breathe normally? I know some people have trouble. Let’s talk about that normally does your heartbeat, how much effort? My understanding is you have only 35 trillion living cells making up your body.
They need to eat, excrete, multiply, divide. They need to interact with each other. They need the muscles better. Be in unison. Are they rip? How much of that are you doing? When was the last time you made your liver secrete bile? And you don’t appreciate a single thing except you made up something in your mind that you want. And unless it’s that way, you’re not okay. Instead of honoring and respecting and appreciating, you’re given everything. How hard is it for you to get food? Some people it is, but you guys it isn’t. You go to Publix. What is Publix? I used to do this. I used to make my mind do this. I walk into Publix and look around. There’s a lot of stuff in Publix and look around. Where’d it come from? Well, a lot of it grew out of the ground, out of the dirt.
Dirt here. Eat dirt. You’re eating dirt. When you eat vegetables, you’re eating dirt, water and sunlight. That’s what that lettuce is. That’s what that spinach is. That’s what every one of those things is. Dirt, water, sunlight. It doesn’t look like it. It doesn’t matter. It still is. The DNA took the dirt, the water, the sunlight, took it apart into some molecular structures, put it back together. Humans did that. No, humans didn’t do that. It did it by itself. Whoa, pretty far out. Put it back together. And then grew a cornstalk. Okay? And so you wake up and you start using your mind for a much higher purpose than the stupidity of what you like and what you don’t like, which is just left over from your past experiences that you handled or didn’t handle. People say to me, how do you get rid of desires?
I don’t teach that. I do not want you to know how to get rid of desires. I want you to get rid of why you have desires. There’s a reason you have desires. That is you didn’t handle life very well. Things happen you didn’t like, you stored it and now you have a preference and it don’t happen again. Things happen that you liked. You were afraid they wouldn’t happen again. You didn’t appreciate that. Life is always giving you something. Alright, I want that one. And now you’re a mess. If you learn to let go of storing this garbage inside of you, you will not have preferences. You didn’t have to tear them away. You’re not practicing pronunciation. It’s nothing like that. They just fall away because you’re fulfilled. Me. I stand many times a day. I stand on top of the planet earth. It’s like my chair.
I sit on it. I look around and guess what? I don’t have a single problem. How can you have a problem spinning on a planet in the middle of dark, empty space for a few years? How can you have a problem? Is have fun? Look at it. It’s in the middle of black, empty space, tiny little planet. But I teach you 1.3 million earth fit inside the sun. Please listen to me as a fact. 1.3 million of these planets fit inside the sun. How can you have a problem? You sit in a piece of dirt spinning around a few times, you’ll leave. Do that with your mind and you’re going to find out you don’t have these problems. Wait a minute, how come when she caused a problem? You don’t. You can have a problem today and it turns out to be tomorrow. You decided it was a great thing. I didn’t realize what was happening. Oh my God, that’s so special. You need to do learn one more thing. And that was a problem, becomes a blessing. And that was you want it to happen more than anything. You found out something more about it. Oh my God, oh my God, I can’t believe I talked to him. Now I know who he is. Oh, he’s going to start calling me. I don’t want that.
You define what a problem is. That’s why you have your problems. Everyone has theirs. It’s something you define. That’s what a problem is. How about we don’t do that? How about we sit up on a planet and say, all right, I’ll be here for a few years and we’ll have some fun, have a good time every day. I don’t have preferences, I have excitement, I have enthusiasm. I’m hearing on this planet, spin the middle of nowhere and there’s computers and there’s people and there’s sports and there’s music and oh my God, there’s so many things. Why would I not be completely passionate about every single I get to wash the dishes? Why would you not be passionate about everything? Comparing it against what you want and what you don’t want? You’re passionate. If it matches what you want based on your past experiences, I guarantee you, you are not passionate about anything, nothing about catch on.
You are doing this. And so your spiritual path becomes the great way is not difficult for those who prefer everything. I’m going to learn to wake up in the morning and say, this is going to be fun. Well, this everything, it represents everything. You can do this. Just decide. You start working with yourself and you’re going to find out it’s not so easy and things happen that bother you. Good opportunity to let go. Opportunity to say, do I want to be bothered by this or am I willing to learn over time to play the scales and then play the next level, et cetera, et cetera. Alright, so that’s what I wanted to talk about. I hope we communicated. The path is beautiful. It’s not a toil. You’ll meditate and do mantra, right? Fine. Of course you can do those things. It’s a wonderful fun thing.
Have fun, but you better do this. It won’t be natural. You do this and every day I used to teach you, every morning you wake up, you’ll be a different person that woke up the day before every single day. Why? Because you let go of more and more of yourself the day before you let the unfold, you kept letting go, kept letting go. You won’t be perfect. You don’t have to be perfect. Just grow a little bit each day and it makes it beautiful. And ultimately that’s what I want to talk about without even trying, knowing anything about it. As you let go of the anchor, the ship will sail. If you have a hot air balloon and it’s tethered to the ground, don’t keep putting hot air in it. Undo the tethers, and guess what it’s going to do? It’s going to go up. Okay? Work on these things.
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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