E85: You Are Not Who You Think You Are

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

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

Michael Singer: Jai, Jai Masters. You are not who you think you are. That sense is so true and so real that it’s worth books being written. Why? First, what do you mean who you think you are? That’s a state of mind. Thinking is a state of mind, so who you think you are is a set of thoughts that you’re aware of and you identify with. You’re not your thoughts, you’re not your thoughts. You know more your thoughts in your car, your hand, your house, a ball, anything. Those are things you’re aware of. You’re aware of a car, you’re aware of a house, you’re aware of another person. You don’t say you are. Those things. You say, I am aware of those things. Your thoughts are no different. Sometimes people write and they ask, well, which thoughts should I listen to? Which thoughts am I? Any of your thoughts?

If you’re aware of the thought, you’re the ones aware of it is the same you who’s aware of every single thought you have. You have nice thoughts. You say, I had a nice thought. You have not nice thoughts. You say, I’m having not nice thoughts. It’s the same I It’s the same being experiencing the thoughts. That is what it means to be spiritual. As you have reached the line where you understand that you’re not your thoughts, guess what else? You’re not. You’re not your emotions. You experience your emotions. You have emotions unquestionably, but you also have a car, but you don’t say, I am my car. You also have a house. You don’t say, I am my house. It is always a subject object, relationship. That’s all that’s going on. There’s one subject I self, that’s what I meant by self, the indwelling consciousness, awareness of being.

What are you aware of? If you were enlightened, you’d be aware of God. You’d be aware of the nature of yourself, but you’re not, so what you’re aware of are the objects of consciousness instead of the consciousness itself. That’s the only difference. You’re aware of what you’re looking at and enlightened master is aware of who’s looking. It is not complicated. It is not weird. It’s not mystical. It’s not anything like that. Enlightenment is not some weird thing somebody experienced or maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. It is the fact that you are a conscious being. How do you know? Because you’re aware of things. Consciousness and awareness of the same thing. There’s just two different words for the same thing. There’s this stuff called awareness. Is the rug aware? No. Is it platform aware? No. Is it piano aware? No. Are your emotions aware? No.

The things you’re aware of, are your thoughts aware? Nope. Not a single thought is aware of you. You’re aware of them. I don’t care if you’re a beginner or you’ve been practicing for 50 years. It should be so obvious that you are not your thoughts. You say, my thoughts are bothering me. Who’s the me and what’s the thought? You understand that if you are them, they can’t be bothering you. It’s what you are, but you are there and there’s these thoughts happening that are not comfortable. How do you know? Because I’m in there and I’m experiencing them and I feel they’re not comfortable. Who does? Spirituality is always about the same thing. Who are you in there that is aware of your thoughts? Not what are your thoughts? Who are you in there that’s aware of the thoughts? Who are you in there that’s aware of your emotions?

Not I don’t like my emotion. I like this kind of emotion. Just you’re aware. It’s nice that you like an emotion. How do you know it’s there? I will tell you someday you’ll understand that you who is aware of the emotion is higher than any emotion you could ever have. Of course it is. One is an object that you’re aware of. The other is you who’s aware of it. The essence of your being. That’s who you are. That’s called self. I call it you in there. Are you in there? Answer me. Are you in there? How do you know? Don’t answer that question. How long have you been in there? Were you in there yesterday? I’m ask you a question. Were you in there yesterday? You sure? Were you in there last year? Were you in there when you were five years old having experiences, not the same experiences.

Were you having the same thoughts when you were 10 as you have now? No. The same thoughts? Was it you in there experiencing them? Were you experiencing the thoughts? It’s just so easy. When you were 10 years old, did you ever look in the mirror, see a reflection? Does it look like it looks now? Was it you looking? Of course it is. It’s always been. You always said I this. It’s still the same being in there. All that has changed is the environment is the things you’re looking at. You’re looking at different thoughts. Who is the self, the consciousness, the awareness of being. You’re looking at different, can you have one emotion and five minutes later have it change to a totally different emotion? How about five seconds later? Are you aware that that happened? Were you there five seconds ago and it’s the same being it was there now, but you’re experiencing different emotion.

Go home. You’ve got it. I’m serious. That’s it. The problem is that if I say to you, fine, the thoughts are just thoughts. Do they come and go? They’re transient. They’re just come and go, so what the heck Do you care what they are has nothing to do with you. People get mad at me when I say that. I say World has nothing to do with you. Oh boy, do they have trouble with that? I’m telling you, thoughts have nothing to do with you. Your thoughts have nothing to do with you. Your emotions have nothing to do with you. There are things you experience, but that’s not so easy is it? That is the fall from the garden is your consciousness fell from the awareness of being your God center your consciousness into what you were looking at. How do you fall into it? The same way as I can look at that picture and stay in this chair, I can project my consciousness, my awareness onto an object.

I don’t have to go there, but if I start at enough so long and it doesn’t change, I start identifying with it. It starts being I’m the picture, not the one’s looking. That’s the fall from the garden. It’s not complicated. What’s the return to the garden? You stop looking at a stupid thing. Why does I stop looking at it? You stop being attached to it. That’s whether you attachment, un attachment and they try renunciation. What does that mean? Well, I’m not that and I’m staring at it, so I’m going to renounce staring at it. How would you know what to renounce? You’re still staring at it. Obviously you’re staring at it. You’re attached to it. Now you’re going to take it and push it away. He’s still right there. You still have to push it away. That’s not spiritual. Not really spiritual is every cloud is a cloud.

Every person is a person. Every picture is a picture. Every event’s an event. They’re just all the same thing. Okay? Now, you don’t have to renounce it. You I don’t know how they know what to renounce. I guarantee you if they tell you what they’re renouncing, they’ve told you what they’re attached to. There’s a food you don’t like renounce it for ash Wednesday. No, that’s not fair. So when they tell you what they’re renouncing, they’re telling you what they’re attached to. What does it mean to be attached? Your consciousness is addicted. It’s just like a drug. It’s addicted to an object. It’s addicted to staring at the object enough to where it can’t remove itself from it. So renunciation is fine as a nice thing to practice, but it’s not high enough. I’m talking to you deep. What’s deep enough? Why am I staring at that stupid thing?

It says a picture. Why do I care what my thoughts are? Why do I care? I’m just in here. For example, you think about something that happened 20 years ago and you care about that. Why? It’ll never happen again. Everybody’s dead, but you still care about that thought. Yes or no? Is that rational? Is anything meaningful there? No. You just are addicted to it. You just got attached to it. You projected your consciousness onto the thoughts so much. I’m the one that this happened to. No, you’re not. You’re the one who experienced the event. It’s not who you are. You are not the experiences you had. You don’t have had the experiences. Would you not be there if you didn’t have that experience here 20 years ago? I had experience. You can’t stop thinking about it. What if you didn’t have that experience? You don’t exist.

Of course you do. You just had a different experience. You’re always having experiences. They come, they go, so what do they come and go? Then why do you hold onto the ones that are already gone? Do you understand that Ramos wrote the book, be here now you’re practicing be there. Then it doesn’t exist but exists in your mind and you got a problem with your mind. Your mind doesn’t have a problem. You have a problem with your mind. Cars go driving down the expressway, tons of them. Oh, goodbye. It’s not a problem until you make it a problem. That car looked like my old car and my boyfriend was in it right now all of a sudden that wasn’t just any other car. Yes it was. It was any other car. It’s a car. There’s thousands and millions of them, but not to you. Alright, what does this mean? It means the entire spiritual path is about not changing your mind, changing your relationship with your mind, not changing your emotions. Change your relationship with your emotions. If you change your relationship to it, there is no way it’ll stay the same.

If your mind is bothering you, it’s because you are not dealing with your mind properly and you’re holding onto things from the past that are problematic. You’re doing it. You think your mind is doing it. You say, my mind’s bothering me. No, you have put stuff into your mind and held it there and shaken it all around and now your poor mind is in trouble. When you stop doing that, what do you see? The example that they use is a perfect example. Here’s a totally still lake and you like that stillness. You see reflection and it’s beautiful. Go have a leaf fall into the lake and have it start to make ripples. Oh my God, look how weird I look inside of those ripples. I don’t like that. Jump in, throw a leaf out. Hey, I got a better one. Level them out with your hand.

Get rid of the ripples. What will happen? You make a big mess. That’s what you do with your mind. Somebody came in mine created some ripples. They’ll stop. Do the ripples and the leg go away by themselves? If you leave them alone, they do. They go away. The natural state is stillness, but it’s also natural that something fall into stillness. Then it will come back to equilibrium. It go about as business. So how do you go about doing? Do you go about fixing the ripples in the lake? There’s only one way A machinery. Just make a mess. Everything make a mess. I’ll use a vacuum cleaner. No, don’t. Okay, you make a mess, leave it alone. It will pass, but you don’t know how to leave it alone and we’ll talk about that. You don’t know how to leave it alone, so you stick your hands in there.

My mind’s bothering me. What should I do? You go to the ripples in the lake and say, oh, ripples. How do I make you stop being there? Anything they tell you to do is going to make more ripples. They don’t know about, not ripples. They’re never there in the state of quiet so there’s no ripples. I don’t know, vacuum me away or it hit me with a hammer. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do it smooth it out. Your mind is the same. So yes, thoughts come in your mind. How do you get rid of them? Leave them alone. They go away. But if I don’t leave them alone, go play with ’em and see what happens. They make choo-choo train a train of thoughts, right? All of a sudden, what do I do? I don’t like this thought. Those are thoughts. Those are more ripples.

Your thoughts about how to not have the thought you’re having about what to do with it are thoughts? Yes or no? So you’re in there, somebody says something to you and course you thought, well, maybe she doesn’t like me. What should I do? Well, maybe I should. There you go. Have 10,000 thoughts instead of just saying, okay, fine, let it pass through. If you stop playing with it, it goes away. That’s what I just said to you. Thoughts are natural. The problem is not the mine. The problem is your relationship with the mine. What is a healthy relationship with the mine? It’s a lake. Leaves will fold in there. Once in a while they make some ripples. So what? They go away. If you leave them alone, they go away and the natural state becomes stillness, but every once in a while there’s ripple. They’re fun.

Stillness is so beautiful. You feel strong, but you don’t do that. Nobody does that. You’re not even taught to do that. You’re taught to fix it. If you have a problem with your mind, fix it. Think about it. Change things. Think about how to change the outside and then think about how to make it happen. Then think about whether you succeeded or think. I just think as you about thoughts, isn’t it? Come on, be honest. What do you have a thought? Well, what if she doesn’t really like me? What if she’s just saying that she wants something from me? Nice. There’s a nice ripple. You don’t understand how many things you’re going to do about that thought. How do I find out? Maybe she’ll hire somebody. No, I can’t afford it. How? If I’ve had a better job I could afford. Whoa, the Buddhist version, they say thoughts are like maggots.

They multiply tremendously. Okay, have you noticed? Alright, there’s nothing wrong with thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with clouds until you decide it looks like your grandfather and you didn’t like your grandfather and so you don’t want to look at it and you make the cloud go away. Or you really liked your grandfather, so you go running after the cloud and when it starts to dissipate, you get all upset. There you did it. It’s just a cloud. It’s just a thought. Now you can handle that with little thoughts, but I teach you little thoughts. First it’s rained and I like the rain. Oh, okay, it’s raining. I’m fine. But we’re supposed to be talking about is the ones you can’t lick off. Why are them different? They’re just thoughts because some of them make ripples big enough to where you’re scared. I’m not comfortable with that ripple.

I don’t like that ripple at all. It hurts. How can a ripple hurt? How can a thought hurt? It’s just energy in your mind. Do you understand that? But it does, doesn’t it? How can emotions hurt? They talk to you a deep place. How can emotions hurt? Where are they? Show them to me. You can’t even point at them. You have to tell people about yours because nobody sees them. They’re nothing. There’s energy patterns. There’s energy patterns manifesting in your astral and mental body. They’re just patterns in high level of energy. There’s energy patterns. How can they hurt? I’ll tell you a secret. They only hurt because you resist them. If I take a flow of water, a little stream, they’re a little stream run in my backyard, it’s fine. What does it do? Nothing. It just flows right? I don’t want it to be there, so I’m going to block it first.

It takes effort. Now I block it. What happens upstream? Floods. I get sued. Down street has drought, I get sued, I’m in trouble or I You touch it, you own it. I didn’t like the flow of energy so I interfered with it. Let’s take a better one. Wind is blowing by not 700 mile an hour wind, 23 mile an hour wind. Okay? The messing my hair up, I don’t like it. I don’t like the feeling of wind blowing across my face. Somebody could sit there and say, I really like it. It’s refreshing. And somebody else would say, no, I don’t like it. I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good. So the person who doesn’t like it gets a piece of plywood and holds it up Every time the wind blows, you understand, devote your life to blocking the wind. Plus the energy of the wind is now pushing against your arms.

You get tenured, you have trouble. If you resist energy, it doesn’t feel good because you blocked it and so it can’t flow by energy can’t stop. We go study physics. When momentum starts it will continue unless something stops, it equal an opposite direction. Newton, well, you just provided an equal opposite direction. You resisted the energy flow that is going to push back on you. It’ll push back on you and you’ll have to struggle with it. That’s why they hurt. That’s why it’s difficult because they’re stronger than what you’re comfortable with. Therefore you resist them and when you resist them, they don’t just create turmoil and pressure and anxiety and tension right then of fighting the plywood. Find the wood when, but because you resisted them, they can’t flow. They can’t pass. What do you mean they can’t pass? You? Stop them with plywood. No, with your will.

Your will is an energy force, isn’t it? Remember somebody dump some will on you. You feel it, don’t you? Yes or no. Your will has power does it not right? You get things done by willing it. Other people get things done by will and all you. It’s a power. That power can stop. The flow of emotions can stop. The flow of thoughts can stop the flow of the energy that comes in from outside. You resist it using your will and therefore you block it. That creates tension, that creates anxiety, that creates all kinds of problems because you held that inside, but if you didn’t it would pass. But what if somebody says something not nice to me? It’ll pass what they say it again, deal with it, but at least wait for two. Don’t just freak out. You don’t only freak out because they say something not nice.

You freak out if you think maybe they might say something not nice, you freak out. If you think maybe they said something against you to somebody else. Oh no, then I’ll be embarrassed to see that person. Maybe the other person says something not nice. Whatcha doing? You’re creating all kinds of commotion and garbage in there and then you resist it and now you have ulcers and intent, right? So this concept of resisting a flow of energy and like I said, not only does it cause commotion, then it creates real waves but it will not pass. What does that mean? It won’t pass for how long? How about for your entire life? No. What’s this thing about Troy that mommy did this and daddy did this when I was young and now I’m messed up? Ever heard such a thing? In other words, you held it inside and it is still there.

Any of you have stuff still there from before? Come on, answer me. Have any stuff still there from before? That’s because you resisted it. You couldn’t let it pass through and what you did was protect yourself as I’m doing with the plywood and protecting myself from the wind. Now you own it. Stop the wind for the rest of your life. But this, the wind stops flowing, that energy can’t stop. You held it inside and now it’s going to stay there until ultimately you let it go. But it’s called suppression or oppression or denial or resistance. I don’t care what you want to call it, but you’re holding energy inside and what it does is cycle around your will. Cycle around the blockage of your will because it has to keep moving. I’ve taught this to you. This is literally what you see when you go deep enough inside, you feel the patterns, they hit your will, they have to keep moving.

Energy can’t stop. It’s like electricity. It’s flowing. They can short, they can this, they can change directions but it’s going to keep flowing. So patterns of energy are coming in, have to go somewhere. So they do a cycle around themselves. Cycle around the resistance of your will around the plywood and when they do that, they’re still moving but they have all the energy which is stored in there. You blocked it, you suppressed it, and it’s going to stay in there and it’s going to come back up, doesn’t it? I always asked you this, does it come back up by itself? Sometimes can somebody say one word or one smell or one billboard or a car and all of a sudden this stuff’s coming up? That’s because it’s in there. It does not want to be in there. It doesn’t want to be blocked and it’s always trying to come back up and you just are always resisting it.

When it comes back up, you push it back down, don’t you don’t talk to me like that. No, I don’t like that. Alright, that’s it. That’s it. I’m out of here. You talk to me like that ever again. I’m never going to talk to you. Look what you’re doing because you’re holding this stuff inside. That is why the mind is always active. That’s why your mind doesn’t stop talking because it has all these garbage in there’re trying to release and it ends up touching the mind at different times. And you got this, you call it your personality. I thought a personality was supposed to be a nice thing. Your personality’s made of your garbage. The stuff you store from before that you couldn’t handle has affected how you think, affected how you behave, affected what you like fact, what you don’t like. You better off not have a one, but you do have one because you stored this stuff inside.

So again, it is not about your mind, it’s about your relationship with your mind. If you continue this relationship with your mind that I can’t handle the things that happen and they manifest in my mind and I push them away, that’s your relationship. Your relationship has tried to control the thoughts, control the emotions because only certain ones you’re comfortable with and you’re sure as heck is not comfortable with the ones you suppressed before that come back up. And so you’re in there struggling, you’re in there suffering. Buddhist, all life is suffering. That’s why it’s not all life is suffering and you’re causing suffering inside because you can’t handle life. And so what’s the spiritual path? Change your relationship with your mind. Change your relationship with your emotions. Not it was bad enough if I taught you, which I will love that. It’s about changing your emotions and changing your mind.

I didn’t say that. I said changing your relationship with your emotions. I’m talking from back here. You’re in there. I know you’re in there. Okay, I want to talk to you. I want to talk to your personality. I want to talk to what you like and dislike. I want to you in there. You’re in there and you’re doing this stuff. You have to change your relationship with your mind. Not only are you taught change your mind so it’s easier to be comfortable with, but since that’s not easy, you go out there and try to change the world so that when it comes in, your mind is more comfortable with it so that you can be more comfortable with your mind. This is what’s happening. So now you’re out there. Since you can’t change your relationship with your mind, you haven’t even thought about it and your mind is not comfortable to live with you don’t know how to do anything about it, can’t control a relationship with your mind, can’t control your mind.

The only thing you can do and everyone’s doing it is go out there and use your will. Not the will to stay back here, not the will to change your relationship with your mind. Not the will to change the thoughts of your mind, but to go out there and change everyone and every single thing you ever interact with from past, present, and future so that it doesn’t bother you. I need to make you behave the way I need you to behave so that when your energy comes in, it doesn’t cause my mind disturbance. Well, I have no control of my mind and don’t hit my stuff. Whatever you do, I told you don’t hit my stuff. Do not talk about that dude. Do not talk about that on your father. He can’t handle that. What’s wrong with daddy? He got some problems. Can’t talk about things.

You hear me? So you have a choice. Stay out there where you’re kind of without thinking about it, which you don’t realize you’re doing it and manipulate every moment that’s happening and will happen. It’s bad enough to try and make everything be the way I want it to be. Now I got to worry about how it’s going to be tomorrow. I, and basically I have made a royal mess in my life because I can’t handle my mind. I can’t get a decent relationship with my mind. So my mind’s messed up and now the world is messed up. You’re just projecting that mess outside. So everyone’s doing, when you deal with somebody, you’re not dealing with a person. You’re dealing with the mess that they built in their mind based on their past experiences, what they suppressed, what they liked, they disliked, all that kind of junk is being projected onto you with their words, their actions, all that stuff.

God, I hope you get it. Why? Because it doesn’t have to be that way. It does not have to be that way. Life is not a struggle. Life is not a battle. Life is not a freaky thing you have to worry about all the time. There’s sky, there’s rain, there’s 25 trillion cells inside your body working every day and night to give you a body and to have a nice life. You say ever say thank you? Of course not. You’re busy noticing is it the way I want it to be? Is it the way I want it to be? Is it going to be the way I want it to be? How do I get it the way I want it to be? Every single one of those words is your mind having a problem and saying the only way it’s going to be okay is that the outside unfolds the way it matches my mind.

And of course everybody disagrees because they all had different experiences. So therefore you have wars, therefore you have divorces, therefore you have all kinds of royal mess going on out there. Everybody just projected the mess of their mind to try to make the world be a way that the mind feels better. You’re addicted to your mind. It’s like a drug addict is addicted to a drug. You’re addicted to your mind. You go to a party and you’re looking forward to go there. Oh my God, I can’t wait to go there. And you go in there and all of a sudden your mind, you don’t know why. You don’t care why your mind says, I’m not comfortable, I want to leave. I don’t want to be here. You leave, don’t you? And you think I’m crazy to look at you weird. Whatcha doing? Listen, that’s stupid thing.

Where’d that get that from? Oh, I don’t know. They were serving this and the music reminded me of something. You listen to every single thing it says you think it’s you think I told you, you are not who you think you are. You’re the self in their watch, in this mess that you made inside your mind and your emotions. And so basically at this point you have to decide, do I want to continue serving the mess by trying to manipulate and control everything outside of me so it doesn’t feel so messy, right? I don’t want you coping, I want you being liberated. I want you free. I want you to enjoy every moment of your life, but you wake in the morning, come back. I wonder what’s going to happen. Who cares? It’s just going to be interesting and I’m not going to last very long anyways.

You’d be here what? 80, 90 years maybe it’s been here for 4.5 billion. The planet you can’t handle 80 or 90. You got to drive yourself crazy. Of course you can’t. Your mind is not okay and it’s telling you how everything needs to be for you to be okay. It’s very difficult to get it that way, isn’t it? So you struggle and life’s no fun. I want you life to be fun. I just want it to be fun. I want you to be happy. But what if things happen that are sad? I want you to enjoy sad. I want you to enjoy any state. Your mind can be in any state. Your emotions can be in because it doesn’t touch you. I can be looking at the picture. Alright, change the picture. Alright, look at another picture. Change the picture. I’ll look at another one. Why do I care?

It’s fun to look. So there’s all kinds of emotions. There’s all kinds of thoughts, aren’t there? So what? It’s entertaining. Somebody dies. Well you feel sorrow, you feel lost. Of course you do. That’s a very human emotion. Are you okay with that? Now I’m talking to you. Seriously. It’s not that you don’t feel these things. That’s how I look at the heart. It is a musical instrument and it can play beautiful rite of spring. Can’t it love beauty and it can play sad funeral marches. Well that’s quite an instrument. How many people do you know can play like that and have a built-in orchestra? It’s rich isn’t it? Brings all kinds of richness to your life. Are you okay with that? Of course not. Are you okay with ultimate love? Just blow you away? Of course that scares me. How can I trust them? You see, you’re not okay with the high vibrations, are you?

How about the low ones? No. How big is your range that you’re comfortable? Really small and so you’re not okay with your heart. You have to fight to make the outside world be away. So the song that your heart plays is within the realm. Am I telling the truth that you get scared if all of a sudden you get blown away and your heart opens and you feel all this love? Oh my God, what do I do with that? It’s not like, oh boy, I like that. No, you’re scared. You can’t handle the vibration of your heart. You can’t handle your mind. So I’ll tell you, you have a choice. Either you go out there and control. Well, first you go and let your mind tell you what you need to control so that it will be happy. Who do you think is trying to fix the outside world?

Your mind, the one that’s broken. You actually go to a broken mind. It’s most upset. It’s driving you crazy. And you say, what should I do? You ask, what should I do? How can somebody who’s all upset and broken tell you what to do rationally? It’s going to be a terrible thing. Does your mind tell you crazy things? Answer me the truth. If you listen to your mind all the time, your life will be way worse than it is now because it’s broken. And you’re going to a broken mind saying, how do I fix you? And it’s giving you advice of what? To manipulate the outside so it feels better. That’s all it will tell you. And I’m not tell you how to fix the situation. It’ll tell you how to manipulate the outside world so that it feels better. That’s not necessarily the highest thing for the situation.

In fact, it rarely is. It’s just based on your past patterns. That’s what the mind thinks is the answer. And then you go out there and try to implement it. Wow, what a mess. And so you wake up and you realize your mind has a problem and the problem is that you can’t handle it. And so your choice is, I started to say that you have only one choice. Try to manipulate the world the way your mind tells you to so that your emotions and your mind feel better or change your relationship with your mind and emotions to where do your thing baby. Because I’m back here and I’m fine, I’m fine. What I’m looking at is interesting, but who cares? The seat of self is beautiful. That’s what you don’t understand. All beauty is from back here. You who’s looking at a disturbed mind are not disturbed.

A flashlight that’s shining on something broken is not broken is it? Consciousness is just awareness. It will shine on whatever it’s aware of. So that’s the seed of self. It doesn’t mean you don’t interact with the world. You just don’t interact with the world because you’re not okay. You interact with the world because you’re trying to help, you’re serving you do what you can to help. That’s compassion. Compassion is you are okay and you see what it took to be okay. You change your relationship with your mind and all of a sudden you’re fine. You realize in there is fine. Now you’re dealing with people or person who has not changed a relationship with their mind. They’re suffering. You have compassion. They don’t have to suffer, not sympathy. I’ll get in it with you. You do not have to suffer. Do you understand that? You do not have to suffer.

You’re suffering because you have not had a decent relationship with your mind. You suppressed things. You held things. All this garbage is coming up all the time and now you try to change the outside world so it bess a way that doesn’t bother you and now you’re fighting and struggling. Well, somebody who’s not doing that, who found out that if I just leave it alone, it’s okay. It’s better than I touch it, alright? Just it’ll work itself out. It’ll pass if you let it go. If you don’t hold this stuff inside, it comes and goes. Then they can deal with people with the whole world, with compassion, with understanding that you don’t have to suffer. You don’t tell ’em they don’t have to suffer. You can help but you understand. To me that’s compassion. Compassion is they do not have to suffer. And then you do what you can to help.

So you either choose to continue going out there trying to manipulate everything and when I say everything, I don’t just mean the present. You’re out there manipulating the future, aren’t you? You’re trying to think ahead to manipulate what you need to manipulate. And believe it or not, you’re trying to change the past things that happened you don’t like they bother you still. I don’t want that this happened. Can we just analyze that a little bit? What good is that to not want that it happen? Will it ever not have happened? No. So what good is it to make a mess of your mind to say, I really, really don’t like that it happened. I hate that it happened. Okay, good luck because it ain’t going to change. Okay? So your choice is go out there and try to change all this so that when it comes in, your thoughts are better or change a relationship with your mind and find out that you back there haven’t been made of love, you’re made of joy, you’re made of God, you that is God back there.

Your consciousness was and is the creator of the universe. It’s the same consciousness that is everywhere. It’s for all of infinity and eternity. It’s conscious. It’s God. That is God consciousness back there. There’s only one consciousness, but that consciousness staring at your mind, at your heart and your body and through your senses, but that consciousness is the divine consciousness, but it got lost. That’s the fall from the garden. It stared so long at those thoughts that it made a little house in there that’s called your ego self concept. You build a little house in there made out of thoughts. People don’t really, your ego is a set of thoughts. It’s not a thing. This happened to me. So now I’m like, this happened to me that I’m like this. You just built a little house in there that said I am the someone. I learned experiences.

That psychologist said, I’m the someone I learned experiences where, show me it. It’s in my mind the someone I learned experiences, the house I built out of my thoughts that I held in my mind. I’m the person that got married over here and I’m so-and-so’s wife. Really? Is that who you are? Who were you before you met them? You are the self. You’re just identifying, projecting your sense of identity onto this collection of thoughts. That is called yourself concept. I love that they call it self concept. It’s something you made up about yourself. Can it change? Have you ever been in, I hope not. Don’t blush in a relationship that’s starting to break up and you really liked the person and what came out of your mouth was, no, tell me what you don’t like. I can change. I swear I can change. Just tell me.

You obviously aren’t who you said you were. If you can change, what you’re really saying is I can change my self-concept. I can change my thought patterns so that when you see them, you’ll be more comfortable with them. Well, who’s in there doing that? Who are you? You can’t be the one who said I can change. You’re the one who’s noticing. It’s sad. You’re out there begging to be something you’re not. Why do you need that person’s acceptance? Because I have problems and I don’t feel accepted. My mind’s uncomfortable. And if a person likes me, I feel much better inside. Emotions, thoughts, emotions, thoughts. You’re serving your emotions and your thoughts and they’re the result of what you blocked inside. That’s all your garbage coming up. It’s hard to talk about. No wonder there’s so much problems in the world. No wonder’s, so much suffering.

No wonder there’s so much control of wars and lying and all kinds of junk, isn’t it? You’re not, okay. People are not okay. Why would you lie? Because I’m not okay, and I want you to like me, so I’m going to come up with a car and tell you I own and I don’t to impress you to have to do things to change the world so that I can be better inside. What a thing to do. I don’t live your life that way. That’s ridiculous. But you have to. Why? Because you’re not comfortable with your thoughts. You’re not comfortable with your emotions. Therefore the world has to change and hold together. By the way, I use the example like some business people sometimes, right? And they say, I’m okay. I’m doing fine. I’m not suffering, right? I’m fine, I’m okay. My life is fine. I’m totally okay.

Alright. Really? What is in your life that makes you okay? Oh, my wife, I have a loving wife. I have two kids. I don’t do drugs. Well behaved. This kind of thing. I have a job. I have a corner office. Okay, take your choice. A, lose the wife. B, lose the kids. See, lose the corner office. Why are you saying that? Oh my god. Oh, so you’re not okay, are you? You’re conditionally okay. You’re leaning on this stuff that you built around yourself that makes you feel like I’m okay If any of it changed, how are you doing? Well then you’re not okay. Am okay. As long as I’m doing this drug and that situation and hey, go to a heroin addict, they will tell you they’re okay. When they get to heroin and watch their behavior, they seem to be okay. Are they okay?

No. So it’s the same thing. The answer is not to change the world. So it fits your problems. The answer is to realize who’s in there and I need to learn how to get along with my mind. Not suppress it, not serve it. Just see for what it is. Little wavelets of thoughts coming in, going, okay, so now we talk about can you get there? Yes, of course you can get there. You’re already there. I’m staring at that picture so much that I tell you I am the picture and you’re looking at me. I’m sitting here in the seat staring the picture. Alright, how are you going to wake me up? You going to stare at the picture If you start to take the picture away, I’m melting. I’ll die. Don’t do that. I’ve identified with it. Okay, so this is the work, how to bring consciousness back.

So it’s not projecting its sense of self onto what it’s looking at, but so that it realizes itself called self-realization. So it realizes itself as who it is the self. You have to become that. You have to find your way back to God. You’re there, you’re sitting there looking out. So it’s not about going somewhere, it’s about ceasing to do what’s keeping you away from yourself. Much easier. That’s a fine God. You have to stop leaving. Okay? So the path is very different from what people think it is. So how does one do that? I told you ultimately you change your relationship with your mind. You change your relationship with your emotions. How do you do that? Alright, there’s a basic relationship with the energy. Let’s talk with the wind. I want you to change your relationship with the wind. It bothers me, okay? That’s a relationship.

It bothers me. If you don’t want to buy the plywood, if you don’t want to get tired, if you don’t want to spend your life resisting, wind, moving to places where there’s not a lot of wind, letting it run your life. You have to learn to change a relationship with the wind. How do I do that? Learn to accept instead of resist. That’s the essence of spirituality. You are resisting the wind, therefore it runs your life. Accepting the wind is not running your life. It’s free to come and go. Well, how do I do that? I don’t like the wind. Maybe you need to look at why you don’t like the wind. Maybe it’ll look and see what it’ll be like to practice. Here we go. Practice acceptance practice. What do you mean? Alright, start with three mile an hour winds. Don’t start with 30 because I know you can’t handle that. Start with three. It’s win. It’s win. Yeah, okay, come on. Don’t. Don’t resist. Don’t resist. It’s just three mile an hour wind. Okay?

Wasn’t so bad. I wonder why I spent my life not liking the wind. Again, a three mile hour wind. It’s kind of refreshing. Okay, okay, let’s try five mile practice acceptance. Practice non-resistance, same thing. Non-resistance, acceptance or the same thing. Practice. I like non-resistance instead of acceptance because you don’t know how to practice acceptance, but you know about resistance, don’t you? You know about putting those hands up and holding that plywood about resistance. Just don’t do it. How do you practice non-resistance when you feel the tendency to resist? Keep your hands to yourself. Try to get this across people. It’s not some magic technique. Let’s say you’re a smoker and you want to stop smoking. How do you do that? Well, you can take courses, you can do this. You can with patches, you can do all kinds of stuff, or you can not pick up a cigarette again.

I guarantee you, if you do not pick up a cigarette again, you’ll never smoke again. And the advice was free. I’m not charging at all. And if you have trouble not picking it up, oh, it’s hard. I have this tendency. I kind of like it through my mouth and okay, fine. If you end up putting a cigarette in your mouth, don’t light it. Any of these techniques and any step of the way, if you practice not doing it, it goes away. It’s the same thing. Inside. You will feel the tendency to resist your emotions, to resist your thoughts. You understand that? Do you see that? Do you struggle in there? What are you struggling with? There’s nothing in there but you. Well, there’s these thoughts. They’re just energy patterns. I don’t see ’em. I don’t struggle. The ones you struggle with, it’s just something you haven’t learned to do.

And so when you feel the tendency to resist, you just don’t do it. How? I have found that the keyword is relax. When something’s coming in that you’re having difficulty with, your tendency is to tense and fight and push and resist. Can you feel that? You feel you do that? Okay instead, relax. The wind’s blowing. Just relax, relax, relax is the opposite of resist. Relax, okay? Watch the tendency to resist. You have hands in there. You can fight with stuff. Do you fight with your thoughts? Sometimes? Who’s fighting with what and what are the weapons? There’s energy fighting with energy, right? Will resisting energy relax? You won’t want to. I know you don’t want to, okay, relax. But start with small stuff. See that you can do it. Just when you feel a tendency to resist, relax, relax your shoulders, your heart, your buttocks, stomach, but inside, relax the tendency to push energy against it and you’re going to find out you can do it.

And then you do a little more. You do a little more and it’s just like lifting weights. If you can’t lift a hundred pounds, lift 90, then do 91. I don’t care if you do it slowly. I’m went in there telling you to do all these extreme things that are scary as heck. I’m saying if you can handle a two mile an hour wind, handle a three, obviously you can. I don’t care how long it takes. I just want it get done. I care about you. You can do this. So you just start doing with simple things. They’re driving in front of you, fine. They’re driving 10 level the speed limit. Good practice. Everything is a good practice field. Practice relaxing, and you’re going to find out you can do it. You didn’t bother, but you can do it now, right? And next thing you’re going to know is you’re happier than it used to be.

Why? You’re not wasting your energy. Resisting things that don’t matter. That energy. Have another word for that. Shakti. You hear me use that word a lot. That shakti’s beautiful. You are wasting that energy to fight with meaningless things like the driver in front of you or not. You’re not fighting the driver in front of you because he don’t know you have a problem. You’re fighting with the energy that came in that you’re resisting, you’re struggling with it. Struggling. Don’t do it. Practice letting go. Practice surrendering. That’s what surrender means. People read my book, the Surrender Experiment. They think, oh, you’re supposed to accept whatever life does. That’s not surrender. Surrender is you have resistance to what life’s doing. Let it go inside, then deal with life from a place of clarity. It’s not just say yes to every single thing that’s happening. Some drug dealer comes up to you.

Hey man, I want some drugs. Well, I’ll make you say surrender. Yeah, I’ll tell you, you see a difference. But if the drug dealer comes up to you and you feel repulsed and you can’t stand in their presence, maybe you should let that go. It’s just a person having trouble. Does that mean you take the drug? No. It means first let go of your resistance. Inner resistance. Let go of the inner resistance. Then deal with the situation in a rational way. Maybe just walk by or maybe talk. I don’t know. It’s your business, but don’t do it because you can’t handle it. Anything you can’t handle, you can’t deal with properly. You admitted it. I can’t handle what you did well then you’re not going to be able to deal with me reasonably. Your children, your spouse, your work. If you can’t handle it, how can you be the right person to do the job?

So let go. Relax. Just relax. Practice relaxing. Never can happen. You can find out. You can do a little more and a little more. The next thing you know, you’re struck a handle of things. People look at you and what happened to you? People at me all the time? What happened to you? What changed? Nothing changed but me. I changed my relationship with myself. Not going to like this. The only relationship that matters is the one with yourself. What am my relationship with your husband? If you don’t have a decent relationship with yourself, you’re not going to a decent relationship with your husband. The most important relationship in your life is the one with yourself. If you can’t handle your relationship with yourself, that’s the wrong you’re doing because I can’t have a relationship with myself. I’m out there manipulating you, changing you, trying to get something that makes me feel better about myself.

Alright? Change your relationship with yourself. How? Relax, accept, relax and you can find out you changed. It’s amazing. It doesn’t take long either. Then what’s going to happen when you work with the small stuff is you’re going to write me. You say, I don’t know what happened. I was doing so well. I was feeling so high, and it gets so clear and I felt Shakti flow and now I feel terrible. The world has turned on me. No, no, no, no. What happened is something came up from before that was bigger than what you’re used to handling. Why? Because you weren’t shoving down the small stuff, so the bigger stuff was free to come up. You want that to happen. That’s not a bad thing. That’s called purification. The stuff doesn’t want to be in there. I told you it’s circling around. When your will gets more surrendered, then you’re not resisting as much and when don’t resisting as much, the stuff that you held down there will start coming up.

You want that to happen. You want to get that empty. Look how high you got by letting go of this wall stuff. Where do you see how much energy there is when you let go of the big stuff? Eventually when the worst things happen and you’re very spiritual, bring it on. Does it hurt like hell? No pain, no gain. Why do you say no pain, no gain when you’re working out, but it can’t be no pain, no gain. When you’re working in and you catch on that, eventually what happens is enough energy gets released. Why? Because you’re not holding it down there. When you hold it down, there’s two energies. You waste the energy that is down there circling around that wants to release, and you resistance to that energy. So you’ve wasted double the Shakti to be doing that, and you do it with everything.

All of a sudden, when you start letting go, all this energy starts rushing up inside of you all the time. It’s like waves of beauty pouring up inside of you. You have to learn about the chakras. You’ll feel them. They burst open. When the energy comes up, you’ll feel every one of ’em pouring out your heart, pouring out the top of your head. Whoa, whoa. You’re going under what? Wrote a loop poem. Oh, what has th done to me? Wave upon wave of endless joy. Saturate me day and night. You want some of that? That’s what you’re wasting in there with your stuff. And so you start letting go. You start practicing what I said and little by little, don’t need to rush it, just little by little. You’re going to get better at it by practicing the piano or practicing the sport. You get better at it when you practice.

Practice letting go. Practice non-resistance, practice acceptance, all the same thing. Letting go. Surrender. Non-resistance. Acceptance. They’re this inner state where you in there are dealing with you instead of your thoughts in your mind. Next thing you know, your total relationship has changed with all of it. I’m a spiritual being. Okay? I’m going to step by step. Do you understand? And you’ll come to me and say, can it hurt? Answer me. Has it ever hurt in there? What is hurt is somebody touching you. You have to challenge. It’s just energy. It’s wind, but it’s stronger than what I’m used to in it hurts because you’re resisting, right? You’re fighting with it. No, I don’t want this practice letting go. Practice letting go. Then do it with this small stuff. I don’t want you to come to me when it’s big. This happens and we die. We work, which divorce?

What should I do? It’s a little late. You forgot to practice the piano for a few years and now you’re in Carnegie Hall and it’s time for you to play some Mozart practice along the way so that you’re able to handle the situations as they come to. Alright, thank you. Thank you for listening. I really honor that you even want to try to do this work. It’s a very great work, and it’s not just for you when you’re able to relax and release, your marriage is better, your children are better, your job is better. The whole world is better because every place you walk, not only not dumping your stuff, but there’s this light coming off of you and everything benefits. That’s a very beautiful work. Spirituality is beautiful, and I didn’t talk about angels and I talk about visions. I talked about real spirituality, the inner work that you do with yourself. 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.