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: Ative. When you’re scared you don’t have any perception of where you sit inside, you sit inside the fear, you sit inside the neurosis, you sit inside the panic, you sit inside the pain, the discomfort. Why? Because they’re very loud and they distract your consciousness. Pain is very loud. Suffering is very loud. Complaints are very loud. A lot of noise can be made in there by the mind and by the heart and by the body for sure. When that happens, you don’t realize. It was like when you’re drowning, you can be so drowning. You don’t even know where you are. You’re up, you’re down. You’re just fell. Your arms, you’re in trouble. That is what it’s like inside for almost every single human being. They don’t realize it and we’ll talk about why because it’s all relative. If you’re in the water and it’s tough and it’s sewing, you’re having trouble drowning, but you learn how to drug, paddle and push your hands down and keep your head above the water, you say, I’m doing okay.
You’re not doing okay relative to drowning. You’re doing okay. We’re not doing okay. Things happen and all of a sudden a wave comes over, you’re just making it. Most people are just making it. The rest aren’t making it at all. They commit suicide. They close up and then a few couple of pictures hanging on the wall are okay and we are going to talk about that, what it means to be okay, what it means to be drowning and why and what to do about it. The first thing to understand is most people they don’t know they’re drowning. Let’s say a successful person and they say, no, I’m not drowning. I’m doing fine, but if your I’ve left you, why’d you say that? I would die. What if your child died? Oh my God. What if you lost your job? Oh my God. What if your best friends turned on you?
What if you turned the corner to go to your house and it wasn’t there and not that it was burned down, it was never there. There’s no place there and the neighbors know nothing about you. How are you doing? In other words, you are relatively okay. It’s not even reasonable for you to talk like this. Who’s ever heard anybody talk like this? You’re okay. You are okay. As long as things are the way you expect them to be, you’re okay. As long as that little raft in there that you’re hanging onto floats and because you’re doing pretty good at dog paddling and treading water, having more treading water and you staying above for a while, you kind of forgot what it was like to be overwhelmed, but you’re still struggling. If all of a sudden the relationship isn’t work is so good, you go to counselors, you work it out, come on, work it out.
Why? Because I don’t want to find out what it’s like in there if I don’t work it out. Same thing with finances, same thing with respect. You are relatively okay. I don’t want to take that away from you. You’re welcome to be relatively okay. I want you to be absolutely unconditionally, okay? Because you’re capable of that state and that’s the far, far beyond and most people have never visited there. Don’t even know it exists. They only know how do I stabilize the ship? How do I keep this afloat? They very fact that you have to do anything. Anything at all means it’s conditional and you know how conditional it is. If you plan a party outside and it looks like it’s going to rain tomorrow, you’re not okay, are you Do the same call worrying? Does anybody worry? You worry going to drown. You worry.
The oar won’t hold you. Isn’t it fun to not be okay and worry about it and feel that you have to do it to be okay? You have to make sure you look good. Does you talk good? Does you sound smart that you don’t say something stupid that you not too hot, it’s not too cold. You don’t drop anything in your clothes. How many things you have to not have happen to be okay a lot and worrying to me is my favorite. Why? It’s one thing if there’s a problem and you’re having a problem, you got to deal with that. We’ll talk about that, but to not be having a problem and think that maybe you will have a problem and worry about it, that’s what worry is. You don’t worry about what’s actually happening. You try to deal with it, do your best to deal with it, right?
But if it’s not happening but you know it could you worry? See how simple it is. It’s not hard to understand people. They’re not okay. They have made up a structure system inside that if it goes that way, they’re relatively okay. They’re not drowning, had a good day and they worry that something will happen. That upsets the ship, upsets the boat. Guess what? You do not have to live like that. You should not be living like that ever, ever. Whereas other people teach you. Your society teaches you how to get what you need to get what you want and avoid what you don’t want. Now you don’t have to worry. Feel confident you have enough money. Get insurance so you’re okay as long as you think you got it together and yet always something could go wrong, can it? I am telling you, you do not want to live like that.
You do not have to live like that. It is not about being smart, it’s not about being rich, it’s not about being good looking. It’s not about people liking you. It’s not about any of that. It’s about how are you doing inside. What it’s really about is not how to not drown. Why are you drowning? Who said that’s drowning in there? I once gave a talk and it said the following, nobody’s drowning. Nobody’s drowning. What’s happening is there’s one inch of water, they have laid face down in it and they’re thrashing to get out, making a splash under their face. That’s how you’re drowning. You’re causing your own problems, you’re causing your own drowning, you’re causing your own conditions, you’re causing your own non wellbeing, period. Now that’s intense because you can think of all kinds of situations that would make it not be okay.
I can tell you there’s a state inside of you that none of situation would make him not okay, that you are unconditionally fine. You’re the highest pain. I walked the face a nice Jewish yogi and I really, really like Christ’s teachings. He said, as I sit with the throne of my father, that means your state of consciousness so you shall sit by my side and these things, which I do just do these in even greater things. What is that telling you? You’re a pretty high dude and do this, okay? You are the highest saint ever walked the face of the earth. Nothing can touch you, nothing. Well then why is it like this? Okay, let’s talk about it. Is it meant to be like this? Is it meant to be with all this worrying and all this turmoil and all this possible drowning and all these problems?
Absolutely not. That was the fall from the garden. You fell from the state. I’m talking about absolute total wellbeing period. Having a good old time enjoying creation. What party creation. No creation. You’re with God, you’re God. You created the whole thing having a good old time. Okay, what happened? Oh, there’s the key. What happened? What happened? And they say it. That’s what’s meant and that’s strange genesis. Now Yogi gets it. If you get out even for a moment, you understand everything that happened when you get off the planet earth like the astronauts did one look at that little ball floating out there and have a thing called an overview effect. Ever heard of it? Their life changes because it puts it all in perspective. You go deep enough inside and you come back. Holy mackerel, you realize you fell down from up to down. You feel it.
You know it. You’ll never forget it. What does that mean? Why did I fall down? They said you ate of the tree of self-knowledge. Wow, it’s good to know yourself. No, it’s not. Not that self. You fell the consciousness and we’re going to talk about it. Don’t worry. The consciousness, you, your consciousness, you your being, your awareness of being fell into the body. What does that mean? Where’d it fall from? It didn’t fall. If I want to look at that picture, I don’t have to go out of the chair, do I? Well, how’d you see it? I just projected my consciousness onto it. That’s what fall from the garden means. Your consciousness is aware of whatever it’s aware of. It used to be aware of everything. My father and I are one. You’re God, you’re aware of everything. That awareness focused on this body. Which one?
Well, you got one. You got one. The ray of consciousness focused on a body and when it focused on the body, there was so much noise, so much feelings, so much stuff coming in, all the different senses and everything like that, that it got so distracted that it forgot who it was. I put up a telescope out there in the field, very powerful one. And you go out there and there’s this little quarter inch aperture that you look through a tiny little thing and you look through that and you see, oh my God, and they believe. You see a planet with things happening. Your telescope is so powerful and there’s people running around and animals and you get so fascinated that after an hour you don’t come back and then after five hours you just stay there and then after a day you don’t know there’s a back.
You got sucked in. Can you concentrate so thoroughly on something that it becomes who you are? You do it all the time. Your consciousness is not this body. It’s not the body. The body is something it’s aware of. It’s certainly aware of it, but I’m not aware of your body. I’m aware of mine. Why? Because your consciousness is staring at your body and my consciousness staring at my body. Otherwise, great beings can feel everything you feel in your I don’t talk about that, okay? It’s like basically because you’re staring at you, you only see you. Why do I only see me? Because that’s all you’re looking at. If I were to stare at my hand, I’m a great, I’m not, but maybe it was a great meditator, a great master, a great concentration. I stared at my hands so thoroughly. Could I start it enough that you guys aren’t here?
I mean you’re here, but I don’t know yes or no. Could I put all of my awareness? You do it. You go to a movie in the theater and it’s a really, really good movie. You’re not in the theater for two hours. Where are you in the movie? You don’t know the people next to you. You don’t know the temperature. Right or wrong cannot happen. That’s what’s happening. When your conscious stares at your body, it gets lost in what it’s looking at. You are not your body. You are not your body. That’s the funniest thing I ever heard of. Guess what? You’re not your car either. You’re not your car, you’re not your house, you’re not your wife, you’re not your husband, you’re not your kids, you’re not your clothes, but you are very aware of them. Can somebody become so enthralled and attached to their car that it’s almost like a part of them that they get hurt if something happens to it or somebody touches, somebody scratches it, anything happens, they freak out.
You identified with the object that you were staring at that’s different than just seeing it. You identified with it. Do you or do you not identify with your spouse? Do you do not identify with your kids? Tough talk, right? You projected your sense of awareness, your sense of consciousness onto that item that somebody has a jewel. It’s so important to them. They would’ve a heart attack if somebody took it. Could you be so attached? That means you identified with it as part of yourself. You are in there and you project your consciousness onto certain things and one thing you project your consciousness onto is your body. Right or wrong, you sure do, right? Why? It makes a lot of noise. If you touch it, it gets back there and you feel it. I don’t feel when the touch is yours, I feel it. Back here, when you open your eyes, you see what’s there.
Do I see everywhere? No. I only see what’s in front of my eyes. So all of a sudden I’ve totally hypnotized to identify with what I’m experiencing. Now what I’m experiencing is the body and the senses. Therefore, I say I am that I am a woman. I am a man. I am tall. I am old. I think it’s hilarious that 10 years ago I asked you, who are you? You’d say, I’m a 30-year-old and now I asked you say I’m a 40-year-old, but which are you? Are you the 30-year-old or a 40-year-old? Look in the mirror when you’re 10 years old. I say, who is that? Me. Now go look when you’re 80, who’s that? Me? Well, I don’t understand man. You’re lost. I look really different. Which one is you? You understand that you’re just identifying whatever you’re looking at. That’s the fault from the garden.
It’s not so complicated. Did you go anywhere? No. Did you go anywheres when you went from 10 to a hundred to 90 years old? No. You just were in there. You’re in there. You’ve been in it the whole time. Have you not? When you look in the mirror, you’re 10. What’d you see a 10 year old’s body look in there. When you’re 80, what do you see an 80-year-old body who sees it? Me. You use the word I all the time the word me all the time. So what has happened is we’ll start with the body. The consciousness focused on the body did not fall anywhere. It’s still there. I’m still in this chair and I’m looking at that picture I just identified with it, so I’m only paying attention to that. If I stop identifying with it, I’m back in the chair. How hard was it?
It’s not. I don’t have to go back somewhere, have stop leaving. I teach that all the time. It’s not use it to go back to God. Stop leaving. You’re already there. That is your seat of consciousness. Every great being. The kingdom is within you. I like quoting Christ and he’s an enlightened master giving the same teachings that all the great ones did. Alright, what does it mean the kingdom is within you? Are you in there? Hello? You in there? You hear me That you that close, but you’re not looking at you. That’s meditation. Meditation is to focus your consciousness on your seat of consciousness. Otherwise you’re focusing your consciousness and that which is distracting you, which is your body, which is your senses, which is all this stuff. So first you drop into the body. Then what happens? Because the body is so sensitive and the senses come in, you have the experience.
You’re not doing any of this. It’s happening automatically if you will. When you get distracted by something, did you have to get distracted or did it distract you? It distracted your consciousness. The body distracts your consciousness, doesn’t it? And what happened? Not just the physical body but the senses. What comes in through the senses. Some things that come in either from your body or from your five senses or from the outside when they come in and you’re in there trying to get your act together, you’re in there trying to be okay having a body and not knowing mommy and daddy and they call it the formative years, okay? You’re trying to figure out what the hell’s going on. Man, this is complex. There’s a lot of input, isn’t it? Colors and shapes and sounds and sights and touch and oh my God, it’s over. When you identify with yourself as separate from who you are, which is God descendant, you get lost.
It’s called a lost people. Somebody ask me, well, how can the soul be lost? I just told you. Is it still the soul? Of course it’s the same consciousness looking through the telescope. It didn’t go anywhere, but it projected its sense of self onto what it was looking at. That is what you’ve done. So basically now you’re looking at that and the stuff comes in. You’re trying to hold it together. This whole drowning thing, even with just the body, it’s a difficult thing to have one. Bring up a kid, you’ll see it. It’s hard to be in there, isn’t it? Why do you think they cry so much? Get out of here. Okay?
It’s hard to adjust to having a body. It’s hard to just being in there and then all the input comes in and so on, and all of a sudden something comes in, you’re trying to be okay, you’re trying to define it, and you start to get attached to certain things that will help you not feel your drowning. Like Mommy, my blanket, my toy, the my gets developed. That means it can hold onto something inside, not outside. Why having he take the blanky away, how he take the toy away and she says the toy, she says a blankie. Here’s another one. No mine. You see it niece. Okay, this is where psychology touches spirituality. They talk about what forms, because you’re lost. Spirituality talks about let’s not be lost ultimately, but the child has to build this.
Well, it’s self-concept how I think of myself. Why don’t you just be yourself? Why are you thinking of yourself? Because the self that I would be is scared to death, aren’t you? Deep inside. And so I have to build a place, a false home in order to have solidity inside. I’d use my mind to do that. So I say, this is my mommy. I build that in the mind. This is my dad. This is my blanket, this is my crib, this is that, this is that. This is my sister. And you start identifying with the things that you experienced. That’s what your self-concept is. I’m the one that has this mommy. I’m the one that has this toy. I’m the one that did this. You start defining yourself as the experiences you had. That’s the self-concept. It’s not reality. It’s something you start building inside your mind.
Now you’re really in trouble. Why? Because not only can the outside cause disturbance, now the mind can think and cause disturbance. There’s my mommy. Where’s she? Maybe she died. Oh my god, I haven’t seen her for so long. It can do that. Oh, by itself. Oh, there she is. What I like is you do that all the time. Well, if I get an accident, when time I take my car, what if I don’t look good when I have to go to the promise, when I get a blemish in my face in high school? Okay, and then it doesn’t happen. Do you say to your mind a stupid whatcha, are you causing me all this trouble for how many times have what you worried about not happening?
Isn’t that funny? And you don’t say to the mind, Hey mine, what’s wrong with you? You causing me all this trouble? You say, oh good. It didn’t happen. You go right, go about your business. So you build in your mind in this place called mind, not body, mind, a whole world, a world that if it happens that way, I feel okay. Kind of fall apart as it ever fallen apart in there to where you didn’t know which side was up and you couldn’t handle it, you panic, yes or no? No. No one ever had that experience. You all had that experience. Why? Guess it’s false. It’s not real. It’s something you built inside and you’re only okay if the outside behaves like that. It’s so important you understand this and what they’ll teach you is okay, get powerful, get rich, get manipulative so you can have the outside be the way you want.
That’s ridiculous. You have to struggle for the rest of your life. You have to keep every single thing together and you know that you know could blow it, don’t you? When you walk away from having a conversation with somebody, do you ever think, oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I wonder, maybe I should. What is that telling you? You’re not even sure the solidity you built. So you have these conditions that if the world will be that way, you say, I’m okay. You’re not okay. You’re relatively okay as long as everything is the way you want it to be. And even then you worry. It’s really funny, but it’s not funny. You drop down to a tiny little planet, beautiful planet, go kind of animals and plants and go to Mars instead, go to Jupiter, it’s all gas and you won the lottery 700,000 times over, but land on the planet earth and for the time you got out to the time you leave, it’s so tough row to hoe.
You carry a burden, don’t you? Why? Because you’re not okay. And instead of understanding why you’re not okay, you’re trying to do things compensate, get things a certain way so that it will match what you decided. If it’s this way, I’ll be solid. So I call that false solidity. What did Christ call it? Don’t build your house on sand. Did you build your house on sand? Answer me. And so now you suffer. You suffer. Okay, so you fell into the body and then you built this mine to try to make it be okay and your emotions are tied to the mine. Now we’re talking about drowning. Your mind can cause you to drown. Can your heart cause you to drown? So what I started talking about is where’s the consciousness? The sun’s in the sky. Even though it shines on the earth, your consciousness is still in a very, very high state.
Every one of you, there’s a part of your being that’s an ecstasy right now. Complete hole, no worry, no nothing, just completely enlightened in the highest state. The trouble is you’re not hanging out there. Your consciousness is not aware of that. Why? Because it’s busy being aware of this. You all are wonderful, but I’m staring at that picture. I didn’t even know you’re here staring my hand. Take it down. Oh, where’d you all come from? You will be aware of what you’re conscious of and nothing else. How could you be consciousness, awareness and what you are aware of is your body, your mind, and your heart. Why? Because they’re very, very distracting. Can your heart be distracting? Can your mind be distracting right when you meditate? I think it’s very interesting. There are forms of meditation that teach you to focus on your breath. Have heard of that?
Well, what in the world has it got to do with going to God, focusing on your breath. It’s not that you’re focusing on your breath, it’s that you’re not focusing on your mind. Any place you can put your awareness other than lost in your thoughts and your mind is a high place, boy, you play around with, this is a nice thought. This is a not nice thought. I like this one. I don’t like that one. They’re all the same. The thoughts and your consciousness is still hanging out in those thoughts. Yes, it’s better to be positive. It’s all part of descent on your way out, but out means, and if you ever meditated deeply, you know that out means your consciousness is not distracted by your thoughts. Your consciousness is not distracted by your emotions. Your consciousness is not distracted by the outside world. What is it distracted by?
What if it’s not? Why does it have to be distracted? Why can’t it just sit in the self? It’s called becoming established in the seat of self. You’re just there where? No, just there. You’re in the self. You’re just conscious of being conscious. Ply describes that one of the deepest yoga, yoga, teaching ply describes the sation not as concentrating and not as being able to not be distracted by your senses. Those are not. He gives different names for those. He says meditation. He’s being conscious of being conscious. Your consciousness did leave its source. It didn’t get distracted and pulled out by the body, by the senses, by the thoughts, by the heart. Those are all places that distract you, aren’t they? And they’re not fun places. Well, the heart’s fun. Everybody’s the way you want them to be and says what you want them to say. Exactly the tone. Just the tone you can’t handle.
Well, you’re in trouble. Everything has to be exactly the way you want it to be. Whatever you really like somebody and they show up to take out a date and they’re wearing a bow tie. I just, oh my God, uncle George wore bow ties. I am a bow tie girl. How you doing? It’s over. What if you go out on a date and you’re eating, it’s wonderful, everything’s right and then it’s time to eat the soup. And he slurps her soup. I mean she slurps her soup and your mother used to slurp the soup and mommy wasn’t so nice all of a sudden. No more dates. You’re a pretty sensitive person. What’s happening is you’ve developed this way that things need to be for you to be okay and it is not easy to get them that way. It is not easy to not have them be the way you don’t want them to be.
Right? And worse, absolutely worse. My real pet so far, I’m not talking about pet peeve yet. My pet peeve. Okay, fine. So something’s not the way you want it to be or is the way you want it to be? Fine, we can get over that. But okay, and then the future, it may be, it may not be okay, worry a little bit. The one that I have most interested in is the one called the past. Why? It’s over. It had its day. The atoms of the past will not be doing that again. Ever. Do you have problems with the past? Can the past make you feel like you’re drowning? Well, wow, now you’re in trouble because that ain’t going to change. The only way you’re going to be okay with the past is to be okay with the past is a logical statement because it’s not going to change.
But yet you have more problems with the past than you do the future. Someday you’re going to catch on if you don’t understand what I’m talking about and find out you made up your future. It hasn’t happened yet, but you got one. Do you know how you made it up by projecting your past onto it. That’s what your future’s made of. God, I hope that doesn’t happen. And my future, I don’t want to get divorced again. Oh, I see you had trouble with the relationship Now when you see your future, that trouble projects onto your thoughts, what the future going to be like? And you do that with everything. And so now your past was a horror show. Your future looks at horror show. You had some nice experiences in your past. That’s how I see my future. That’s going to happen. I’m going to meet the perfect.
When I was in fifth grade, I had this wonderful relationship. Otherwise it’s unbelievable. It’s perfect, right? And then they moved away. I’m going to find that person again and my future will be just like that. I’ll have a relationship. Go on. I’m glad you have nice dreams. You just projected either the positive or negative things about your past onto the future. What else would you make it up about? Is there anything you know about? And so you suffer with the past, suffer with the future. You suffer with the present, right? That’s what Buddha said. All life is suffering. That’s just what he was talking about. You’re not being negative. Okay? So what does one do to be okay? What you’re taught to do and what you’re probably keep doing, but I hope not, is let the very mind that’s causing you trouble. That’s saying I’m not okay.
It’s this, it’s that it’s too hot. This person’s not treated. I’m treated. Should I leave? That very mind has trouble. You go to that mind and say, what should I do? So funny. You already know that mine’s for shn. It’s causing you tremendous trauma I have with my relationship. No, I’m depressed. I used to be happy. I’m depressed. I wonder what I should do. Oh mine, you depressed mine. Figure out what I should do to be okay. Run. Go away. I don’t know. Dye your hair. Plus have more fun. It gives you some interesting advice, doesn’t it? The very mind that’s broken is giving you that advice. That’s unbelievable. And what you’re taught is think right and look at it and watch movies that tell how other people are okay and read a book about how to be okay. And if I win friends, I’m doing better.
If I impress you and you like me, why am I doing better? I’m not okay. And if you like me, I’m doing better. Why you’re way out there? What’s that got to do with me in here? Absolutely nothing. The outside has nothing to do with the inside. God, I’m being tough today. Look at me again. Physically, yes. But in terms of your mental, emotional, psychological situation, the outside has nothing to do with the inside. I’ll prove it to you when you’re around. I feel so much better. Okay? George just told me that you hated me and you were just taking me for a ride. I take advantage of me now when I’m around you. I feel terrible. Well, which was it? It’s your inside doing everything. The reason the outside has something to do with the inside, you decided it did. Every single relationship you have with the outside is something you decided. This is what I want. What I don’t want, what I like the way I don’t like. You created it and now you’re complaining you’re liking the outside.
Okay, please understand that. Why? Because there’s a real fun way to get out, learn, train your mind, which your mind is just programmed by your past experiences. Why don’t you program your mind to like everything that is indeed a spiritual teaching? Either go out there and manipulate and control every minute of your life, including the past to make it be what you want, what you will want or what you wanted. And you’ll be okay. Good luck. Or decide to reprogram your mind and just sit there and say, this is fun. This is fun. This is exciting. My car broke down at night on the highway. I wonder who will stop. This is going to be so much fun. I can’t wait. This is exciting. Oh, I’m trying to go to work and I got caught in a storm and the boss told me if I ever miss a day again, I’ll get fired.
I wonder what will happen. This would be fun. I’ll go look for another job. But if you might have thought like that, would you be okay? Would it be fun? I’ve sitting a little plan, spin the middle of nowhere for as few years. What do I care? I’m going to have an experience. I’m just have experiences. That’s what’s going to happen. What does it cost to have experiences? When’s the last time you had a single moment in your life that you weren’t having experience? What do you think I mean by having experience is one you want to have and what you don’t want to have. What if you don’t do that? Does this sound like crazy teachings? There’s a very, very deep writing. It’s called They treat us on faith Mind by one of the deepest, deepest zen patriarchs in fully enlightened third Zen patriarch.
It starts off like this the great way. Enlightenment, total wellbeing. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything’s clear and undisguised make the slightest distinction though ever. And heaven and earth set infinitely apart to set aside what you like. What you dislike is the disease of the mind. Avoid such pursuits carefully. What did he just say? Every day? I’m telling you, if your mind is not saying I don’t like this, like it. I drop ketchup on my pants. I don’t want to go back to work. People make fun of me. Oh my God, I look like a slob. What? I say, wow, people wear ripped jeans nowadays. They pay good money for them. I got spotted pants. Could you do that? Would it be fun? Much more fun than being neurotic. So they teach you don’t drop anything in your clothes.
Don’t talk this way, don’t do that, right? And you’re so busy being neurotic. Why don’t they teach you to enjoy what is Do most people like getting old, getting wrinkles and varicose veins? Do most people like that sort of thing? Most people don’t. I don’t. This thing gets old by itself. Well wait a minute. When that thing was born, I would say when you were born because you wasn’t born when that thing was born, your body, what was it? Foot and a half, right? How’d it get to that size? I don’t know. Is it okay with you that it got from a foot and a half to five, six feet by itself? Guess what? It’s going to get old by itself. It see exact same process, isn’t it? I’m challenging you to wake up. Exact same process. It goes through this from zero to 120 seconds.
It goes very fast. She goes through there. So why does it make a difference to you? Oh, I liked when I was 22, 22, 32, 52, 92. What the hell’s the difference? It’s just a stage of a life you’re going through. No. Now watch why? Because I was 22. I was attractive and people liked me more and I was good at athletics and people were always impressed that I could do things and my voice was good and I could sing really nicely. And now it doesn’t. In other words, you’re not okay and you’re using the stage or looks of your body to try and manipulate and control people to give you what you want. Wow. No wonder we’re neurotic. And then you do things like saying, wait a minute, I have this biological clock, right? And I better get married by the time I am. Then you have babies after that or three, two and this and that and you got, oh my God, what are you doing?
How can you enjoy your life? You can’t. You made up a way that it has to be for you to say you’ll be okay and now you struggle and suffer. That won’t be that way. And what happens if you get past the little ticking clock thing? Oh my God, I can’t have children. So what? I know plenty of people that wish they didn’t have children. You just wait, you heard me? You did that. What’s wrong with having children? Nothing. What’s wrong with not having children? Nothing. What’s wrong with being married? Nothing. What’s wrong with not being married? Nothing. What’s wrong with getting old? Nothing. What’s wrong with being on nothing? What’s wrong with that? In other words, I can handle reality. I’m having fun when I want you to have fun every moment of your life. I’m not teach you to renounce anything, am I?
You’re the ones renouncing things. Every spirituality not about renouncing thing, worldly lies about renouncing thing, but you renouncing every single thing I don’t like and I’m only accepting the few things that I do like, oh man, no wonder you’re not happy. So spirituality is about realizing I’m in here. I am not my body. I am not my thoughts. I am not my feelings. How do you know? Because you’re the one who feels them. Do you feel your feelings? Do you feel love? Do you feel fear? Do you feel self-consciousness? Are you aware of those things? Are who’s aware of them? I’m interested in who experiences the emotion. I’m feeling depressed. Who’s feeling it? Do you have thoughts? How do you know? You know your thoughts? I don’t believe you. You don’t have thoughts? I do. So how do you know? I hear them. They talk to me.
I see them. They’re there. How do you know? Because I’m an aware being I’m in here and I’m aware that there are thoughts in here, aren’t there? And they ain’t so good sometimes. And I’m in here and I’m aware there are emotions. By the way, where do your emotions come from? Your head or your heart? If I asked you, you said you feel pain, you feel lost, you feel sorrow. Somebody died. Where do you feel it? In my ear? No. You can point right to your heart. I’m having trouble with my thoughts. Where in your foot you can point right to your head because your mind generates thoughts and your heart generates emotions. How do you know that? Because I’m in here and I’m aware. That’s how I really wanted to talk about your seat of consciousness. You’re so high. You have no idea how high you are.
You are aware here, no, I can’t meditate. My thoughts are driving me crazy. I’m not high. I dunno why you’re saying that. How do you know your thoughts are driving you crazy? Notice my thoughts are driving me crazy. There are things called thoughts. Then there’s you in there that experiences them and having trouble with them. Who are you? And I’m telling you, the highest mean world, the face of the earth, you are the highest mean face of the earth. You’re an ecstasy at all times. Why don’t I know it? Because you’re staring at something that’s not an ecstasy to say the least. You’re staring at a mind that is seriously broken, that has this concepts of views and opinions and presents and hopes and dreams and oh my God. And it’s only okay if everything is the way it wants it to be. Everything. If it even thinks it may not be, go out with somebody that’s wonderful.
You feel lovely with everything. And they’ll go home and say, I’ve been here before. It doesn’t always work out the way it looks. I better be careful. Don’t go too fast. Your mind can ruin everything and you’re staring at that mind. So that which is great, is staring at something that’s not. How did it get that way? I told you all you have to do is not be okay because of anything. Then your mind will figure out how to be okay and how you don’t want it to set aside what you like from what you dislike is a disease in the mind. Once you say, I like it, now you have to go get it again. And you have to worry that it might not get it again. And once you say, I don’t like it, you have to worry. It’s going to happen again.
Now there you are. You just built that mind. And how many things you’ve done that about, oh, about 6 billion. Billion. All through your life. You gather all this stuff, right? Your seat of consciousness is always back here, but you’re being distracted by the noise that the mind creates and that the heart creates and that the body creates. And you think the world, the world doesn’t do anything. The world comes in. You don’t go out there, it comes into you and it hits your stuff, it grounds you. It’s freaky. So you’re busy building solidity. Now we got it. I’ve talked about it enough, right? You are busy in there trying to make it be okay. So you’re okay inside trying to make the outside be a certain way. So you’re okay inside. Who decided that you did now capable of getting lost in your emotions? It’s almost hard not to.
You’re capable of getting lost in your thoughts. It’s almost hard not to, but you’re capable. What does that mean? But you’ll start to feel, I shall feel yourself not. I feel my thoughts not I feel my emotions. I feel the sense of being. And there’s a seat back here. And what happens is your mind will say something and you’ll feel like a rubber band. It would start to pull your consciousness down to it. It starts to pull you into it. Especially strong thoughts. Have you ever heard of a train of thoughts? It means I had this thought which led to that thought, which led to that thought, which led to that. All of a sudden they’re popping up in there, all connected. And I’m in. I got on the train, I’m in that train going somewhere and I don’t know where, but I can’t get off ever.
Not be able to get off the train. Listen to me. Who is this that’s getting distracted and getting pulled down into the thoughts being pulled down the emotions. It’s called the self. It’s called the core of your being. That core is extremely beautiful. But how do you get back there? You stop leaving. See, I’m not going to teach you to go back there. I’m not. I’m not giving you yoga techniques or meditation techniques. They’re going to do ’em. No, I won’t talk about any of that. I’m not going to talk to you about leaving and then how to be okay or how to come back. I’m going to talk about not leaving. That’s a way higher teaching. And people write me from all over the world and tell me, oh my God, I meditated for years. I did this. I followed that. But since I started trying to not leave, everything changed.
Of course it did. It’s easier. It’s to not leave than to leave and try to get back. The rubber bands pull tight. What do I do to get back? Don’t get with it When it gets pulled, let go. You know what to pull that rubber band, one side has to be holding on and the other side has to pull. You try to stop the other side from pulling. I don’t. I stop holding on. I use the example in Living Untethering a new book. You’re in a tug of war. You want to go eat lunch. But now the whole football team, you have football teams on the other end of the rope and you’re pulling out how do I move them? How do I get the whole thing pulled back so I can go eat my lunch? And you’re learning techniques of how to dig your feet in how to do this.
Oh my God, the balance. You’re doing every single thing you can to learn how to get that pulled. I have a solution. Let go of the rope. But they won’t. I don’t care what they do when I let go of that rope, they ain’t squat. That is exactly what it’s like inside to grow spiritually. Learn that you in there are holding the other end of the rope and you don’t have to. And if you let go immediately there’s a sense of complete freedom. It rushes up. Well, what do I do if I have an haven’t offered to go here and I don’t know whether it should go or should stay here and I’m suffering and I’m put, okay, I’m sorry. You’re drowning again, right? No, you don’t want to ask me. You’re no longer going to say why do you care? Why do you care which one you pick ready?
Because I’m not okay. And I think that one of them will make me be okay and the other won’t. Isn’t that what all your decisions are about? I’m not okay. And I want to decide the one that’ll make me be okay. Pick one and be okay. How? By saying you’re okay. Who decides that you’re not okay? Me? You don’t have to do that. You can let go and you should let go. Doesn’t mean you’re negligent. Doesn’t mean you don’t deal with things, but you don’t deal with them because you’re not okay if I’m dealing with it. Cause I need money. Who said why I’m not okay? And if I get a new car, I’ll be okay. And if people respect me, I’ll be okay. If I get really good looking clothes, if I travel a lot and go to all kinds of new places, I’ll be okay.
Well what if you don’t need money to be okay? I mean sort of basic food, clothing, shelter, fine, but not fancy clothes. What if you don’t need it? And you found out that if you let go of the rope that you’re holding onto that says, I have to win this battle, that you’d be in ecstasy all the time. Now come down and share that. Do your work. Have a baby, get married. Not because you’re not okay and you think it will make you be okay, but because you are okay and nothing will ever make you not be okay. So everything’s fun. You don’t go to work don money. You go to work to do the job. You go to work to bring down the beautiful energy you have and express it to create beauty in the world. You go to relations, same way. You don’t get into a relationship because the person makes you feel love.
You get in a relationship because you’re filled with love and it’s fun to share. How do you do this? See, we talk about it. I want you to understand that state exists. It doesn’t just exist. It’s who you are. You are the highest thing in the world. Looking at something that’s not so high and getting lost in it. So what do you do? Stop it. Don’t go down and try to come back up. Just watch every day. There will be little things that happen in your life that you come down over for no reason to driver in front of you doesn’t drive the speed you want and use the blinker. They keep stuff under their brakes. That’s sure worth coming down over. Sure, if they drove exactly the way you wanted, you’d be better off. But if you didn’t do that, you just said, I’m going to be fine.
Big deal. I’m driving a car a little bit for a few minutes. I’m not going to cause myself trouble with that. Or it’s hot out. I told you I am serious about this. Your spiritual growth is not about getting what you want. Getting what you want is so overrated. It’s ridiculous. Why? Because you probably will never get it. And when you get it, you don’t want it or it’s not exactly the way you want. Are you worried about losing it? Have you ever got what you want ever? Any of you ever got what you want? Was it over? You never need anything else. You can’t be okay that way. Getting what you want does not make you okay. What makes you okay is to not need things to be a certain way. So you’re free to experience the beauty of your own being and then come down and help everybody else come down and serve.
Come down and express the beauty that you found inside. The beauty is inside. So I said the driving the one I’d like to talk to you about, because I remember when I did it, I remember when I was smart enough and moved out here in 70, something like that, right? And it was hot out here. I had no air conditioning in my van, had no air conditioning in my house. And it gets hot in the summer, okay? And he’s complaining. And once I remember exactly stopping saying in the field out there saying, okay, quiet Mick, why is it hot? Why is it hot? The sun, there’s a sun up there. It’s hot. What is the sun? Because he likes his stuff. What’s the sun? He said, it’s a star. It’s a star Really? Who doesn’t like stars? It’s like stars are neat things. You go out at night and then romantically, they’re twinkly.
This is one of those twinkly little things out there that’s so close. You’re so close to it that you feel it’s heat. That’s pretty neat. And there’s 300 billion of them in your galaxy. And there’s just one that you’re so close to that you’re complaining about the heat generated from a star. Did you ever think of that? It’s a star. You don’t get sunburned, you get star burned. Well, who doesn’t want to get star burned? It’s exciting. And all of a sudden, every time you feel that heat, your mind does that. Mind does it. Every single time. If I step out of the car and I feel the heat come down, I just feel ecstasy. You’re just like, whoa, I’m circling a star. And then the one I give you all the time, 1.3 million earths fit inside that star. 1.3 million Earth inside the sun. Did you know that you’re sitting in this little dot, they’re going around this giant fall, the fire.
And you get to feel it. You just changed your whole life. You can do that with everything. Learn to enjoy, accept, appreciate reality. Did you know there were trees on the planet Earth? Do you know that We’ve sent telescopes and robots and everything so far away. We have never seen an amoeba out of protozoa. Nothing. And there’s these trees all over the place, aren’t there? You’re driving them all the time and there’s grass and there’s birds. How in the world you blown away? Like I said, from now on, if you see a baby, you don’t think it was a baby that is a single cell that left alone. It started making a baby out of what? There must have been molecules or out of. Yes. It takes the component parts of what you eat, what the mother eats. Molecularly breaks ’em down like a chemist and sends carbon over here and hydrogen over here and this over here and puts them together to make kidneys of whoa all by itself.
No human being has anything to do with it. How can that not blow you away? And you say there are things that you need to be for you to be, okay. Why is that not V? Okay, there’s 8.3 billion of those things running around the planet that got made that way. And all the trees and the animals and the birds and everything and roaches. Why can’t you live like that? You can. It’s free of charge, but you have to decide. It’s not about getting what I want. It’s about realizing who I am and straighten up the mess in there so that it’s not conditional. I want it to be unconditional wellbeing. Unconditional love, unconditional joy, unconditional giving. Alright? You have the ability to do that every single one of you. So the next time you have problems, I want you to pay attention to where are you and what is the problem that’s pulling you into it.
And do you really need to do that? Or is it just because you defined you’ll only be okay if this is that way? And so on just little by little thing each day. Let go. Let go of the rope, let go. Okay, fine. It’s hot. I like hot. Okay, okay, fine. I can handle it. That’s it. I can handle it. And just keep working yourself out of being lost in yourself and you will find yourself in a place that’s very beautiful. Okay, I want to talk about the seat of self. I kind of did. I want to talk about when you realize when your heart hurts or feels wonderful, that your consciousness is now drawn into that place where emotions are happening. It’s the same consciousness that feels fear and feels love, but you get pulled down. And when your thoughts, you get pulled down, I want you to feel down. It’s pulling you down. And then realize you don’t have to go. It’s not matter changing all that. It’s a matter of saying, okay, fine. I’m a bad mind day. Have a bad hair day. I have a bad mind day. Who cares? I want you to not care. I want you to say, I can handle that. Let go and then come down. Do the best you can to enjoy your life and give and serve. Alright, I could go on forever. You know that. Thank you for listening. Jai.
Tami Simon: You’ve been listening to The Michael Singer Podcast, produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information on Michael’s body of work and all back episodes, please join us at MichaelSingerPodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. Sounds True: waking up the world.
© Sounds True Inc. Episodes: © 2025 Michael A. Singer. All Rights Reserved.
