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: Let’s talk about caring and not caring like everything else in this world, there’s a shallow meaning and a deep meaning. A shallow meaning is defined by ego. The deep meaning is defined by deep transcendence, deep spirituality. If somebody says, I don’t care about anything that’s not very spiritual. Notice how I said it, I don’t care. I don’t care of anything. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care if you like me. You know what that means? They care very much if you like them and they have suppressed the part of themselves that can’t handle the German like them or that this might not happen, et cetera, et cetera. You know that and that’s how this world uses. I don’t care. And then they say not caring is callous. It’s cold, but it’s impersonal. It’s non-social antisocial. It’s a terrible thing and people don’t care about each other that people don’t care.
That’s one way. We’ll talk more about that. The other way is you’ve gone so deep within yourself and you’ve seen so much of reality as you understand, it’s enormous. It’s the whole universe. It’s not where you’re standing. It’s everything. You better not care because it is the way it is. You better not care whether the Saturn has rings or not. You better not care whether there’s 300 billion stars in your galaxy. You better not care whether there’s 2 trillion galaxies. Why? Because there are. And what it means to say, I’m okay. I don’t have to care about such things because I’ve practiced this thing called acceptance, surrender. I understand truth. What is truth? Christ said, let those of eyes see. Let them see. Let those of ears to hear, let them hear. It’s very deep what it mean. It means can you tell what’s going on? Alright, open your eyes.
That’s what’s going on. There are men, there are women. There are 12 people, short people, young people, old people. There’s 8.3 billion people running around the planet. Do you care? Not at the personal level. I understand that they’re all different. They all have had different experiences. I don’t have the right to judge. I don’t have the right to like or not like. Why would I have that right? Who am I? I dropped down here a few years ago. You think I’m old? Come on The plants period for 4.5 billion years. I’m not that old, okay? You’ve been here 80, 90 years, alright? This doesn’t mean anything and you’re going to sit here and drop down. I always teach you this. The experience you’re having right now is completely meaningless. It is what we call statistically insignificant. There are 700 billion, zillion other experiences going on everywhere else and you’re having one and somehow that one’s more important than all the 700 billion zillion.
There’s ego for you. Turn to the left. There’s a different one. Look up, there’s a different one. It’s just a moment in Einstein’s time, space, continuum. Every single place there is in time and space, there’s something going on. You think that what’s going on in front of you is special. That’s ridiculous. It’s just what happens to be going on where you’re standing. You don’t want to going on stand somewhere else. Do you understand? I want to know. I know no one dares to understand it. Look at me like I’m crazy. The moment unfolding in front of you is no different really than every other moment everywhere else in time and space. It’s a moment that is unfolding in the universe except you have to be standing there. So why does that make it special? It’s no more good or bad or right or wrong, it just is what it is.
That moment is the result of the forces that made it be the way it is. It’s called science. Ever heard stuff called cause and effect things happen that cause the next moment to happen? Is that good or bad? It’s not. It’s just what is. If it rains the crops too good, it doesn’t rain, the crops don’t do good. Well, why is it rain? I don’t know. Guess. Figure it out. Alright, go study meteorology and they don’t know half of it anyways. It is because it is. How’s that? Very zen Flowers are red water’s, blue grass is green. Now go home Grasshopper. That’s what a zen master would teach you and you wouldn’t have any idea what he’s talking about, but that’s the deepest scene that exists. Things are the way they are. It doesn’t matter whether you like them or don’t like them. That’s your personal stuff.
Put somebody else in front of the moment. They love it, put you there. You don’t like it, put you there five minutes ago, you hate it five minutes later, you like it. Oh, can you think that’s meaningful? What’s meaningful are the forces that cause things to be the way they are and they’re none of your business. Your influence on the universe is so small. Your influence on the moment that’s unfolding in front of you is so minuscule, but I said something and it hurt him. Okay? First of all, where did he come from? Who made all the 35 trillion cells that are operating causing his body to be there? You did all that. Who was there every moment he was experiencing throughout his life that made it so he didn’t like what you said? Is it possible that if we were brought in a different household, had different inputs with different religion, had different experiences, they would like what you said, it has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with you. It has to do with the causes and forces of science that cause things to interact from the beginning of time and end up in front of you and you ended up there. What if it took five seconds longer to make your coffee? Then you weren’t there.
How can you say you did this? I’m just talking to you from a totally logical, intelligent point of view instead of personal point of view. From a personal point of view, you care a lot. Why? Because you take it personal. Don’t you Take the moments in front of you personal. You want to know how weird it is? I can’t believe it’s raining. It’s my birthday. It’s my birthday. Why does it have to rain on my birthday? It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. It really doesn’t, but you do that and you get upset. Always rains on my birthday. Why does it rain on the weekends? Let it rain during the week when don’t have to go to work. This is so stupid. You do talk like that. That’s the caring at the lowest level. You care about the weather personally, but that’s absurd. The weather has nothing to do with you personally.
You care that somebody was in a bad mood and you wanted to go out and have a good time and they were in a bad mood. You took it personal, had nothing to do with you. They got fired, they had a bad day. Somebody yelled at them. You weren’t even there, but you don’t care do you? Come on, be honest. Take a breath. This is called a true real spiritual talk. Let’s talk reality not this is how I want things to be. Let’s make ’em be that way. Why can’t they be the way I want? I care a lot. I care a lot whether you like me or not, I care a lot what you’re wearing. I care a lot as you burp. I care a lot that one extra person walked in that elevator. Didn’t they see how full it was? I care a lot that the driver in front of me is driving 10 miles out below the speed limit.
I care that the light turned right again, all the lights pretty soon, isn’t it? Okay, that’s the caring. That is not spiritual. This is what spiritual teachings mean when they talk about the personal self. You have to developed within your mind a personal way that you want things to be and it’s based upon the past experiences you had. Things happen in past that you like. You want it to happen again. They happen in the past that you didn’t like. You don’t want it to happen again. You’re afraid that things will happen. You worry that things will happen that you don’t like. Things happen because of the forces in reality that cause them to happen that way and you always teach you this. The moment of folding in front is the result of all the forces that made it be that way. Science, everything including psychology.
People are behaving the way they are because some of their learned experiences and you’re behaving the way you are. Some of your learned experiences, okay? The world outside is not doing that. It doesn’t know your experiences. It didn’t grow up where you did its behavior in accordance to some of its learned experiences. Bring those two together. The sum of your learned experiences, which is what your mind thinks. Here you go. And the sum of the realities learned experiences. They’re not going to match are they? Why would they? And you say if they don’t match yours, they’re wrong. You do it all the time. You shouldn’t have said that that was wrong. No, there’s reasons the guy said it, the reasons she said it in there. Study the history. It’s hilarious. That type of caring we could do without why it causes suffering. That’s what the second noble truth of Buddha says.
All of life is suffering the cause of suffering. They generally translate. That is desires. I prefer the word preference. Same thing, isn’t it? You can’t have a desire without a preference and if you have a preference, you have a desire, but it’s easier to understand spiritually. The cause of all suffering is preference. You have come into this moment with an idea of how you want it to be. You’re going to suffer. Why? Because it’s not going to be that way. You can manipulate it to try to make it be that way, but guess what? You know manipulated it. You know, have some work to do. Go dress a certain way because you think the person you’re going out with, whatever will like what you’re wearing and let’s say they do. That’s a real win. There’s no, it’s beautifully neurotic from then on. You can’t wear the same outfit every time.
If you win, you lose. If you lose, you lose. It’s a lose lose situation. Getting things the way you want is so oversold. It’s ridiculous. Not having a way you want them to be honoring, respecting reality. There’s a winner. Imagine you woke up every morning. He said, I’m back here I am back for another rotation around the planet. Told you if somebody asked you, what’d you do today, say a 360 because that’s what you did today, orbited under axis 360. That’s all you did. Well what happened? I don’t care if something happened, things happened. How would you like to be like that? And it was fun. Why wouldn’t it that be fun? It’s a fun planet. You all play video games. You probably, I dunno if you do or not, but I noticed I don’t play video games, but I noticed that a lot of video games are very challenging.
It’s not like you win every time or something like that. It’s like you climb mountain and lose your weapons and things fall down. Right or wrong. You’ve seen all this stuff, right? Well, why is it fun in a video game? It’s not fun in real life. What if the video game was always the way you want it to be? Here comes the monster. Give me a weapon, blow him up. All right, good. He is blown up. Well, you would never play would you? You’d get so bored. Why would you bother playing? It’s like a sport here. You have football team, I want you to play kindergartners. No, you’ll win. I know. No, it’s no fun. But yet in your life you wanted everything to be the way you want. What if you were psychic here? Captain of the defense is psychic. They’re in the huddle.
He knows exactly what play they’re going to play. Calls you guys together are they’re run right thing. They’re pass over here number. You wouldn’t play that game. You would be so bored. That’d be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? You’d win but it would’ve been fun. Same thing with the video game. Same thing with life. You listen to me, Michael Shakti, the saint that gave us the dru statues lady over there. She used to come here and give talks once a year. She once said, problems are the nectar of life I just told you. Play a sport against someone who’s just a little bit better than you. The best game you ever played. You’ll learn, you’ll grow, you’re challenged, you’ll dig in deep. You’ll want to play again, right? Play with somebody who doesn’t even stand a cleanse. You’re so much better than them. You’re so boring. You don’t ever do it again.
Problems are the nectar of life. Challenges are the nectar of life. Situations that are difficult to handle are the nectar of life. They make you greater. What if every single thing, every minute was exactly the way you wanted? Do you understand how bored you’d be? Right? First of all, let’s be honest based on which one I want. The one when I was 12, 22, 64. Which one do you want to be exactly the way you want it to be so that it never changes. Doesn’t sound like so much fun. It How would you, like you woke in the morning, you probably think you would, but you wouldn’t wake up in the morning and write down exactly what you want to happen in exactly the order and exactly that takes place. There’ll be no fun in life. There’ll be nothing. What if you’re shopping at the supermarket and all of a sudden you bump into somebody and there’s this love at first sight and it’s like the surprise where you turn a corner, it says, oh my God, the sunset.
It blows you away. What if you knew that was going to happen and were waiting for it to happen every single time? Boring. It would have no surprise, have no newness. Are you listening to me? You think you want things to be the way you want? You don’t. You do not right now. Let’s get down to it. Remember I’m talking about caring. Why do you care? What goes on out there? You live in here, don’t you? You live in here. Hello? I mean here. That’s all out there. It comes in through your senses. That’s why you have senses. But so what You’re in here, the reason you care is because you’re not okay in there. You’re not okay in there are you Don’t feel the love you want. You worry. You have anxiety, you feel tension, you have fears. You insecurities. I get the wrong crew.
You’re not okay in there are you? You’re not okay in there. So what you do because you’re not okay, is you use your brilliant, brilliant mind. You have brilliant minds. They figured out how to take metal, put it together and fly of the moon. They took sand. Silicone made silicon, created thinking chips. Understand that your mind is brilliant. Don’t think not mine. You have the human mind. Which one of you don’t have a human mind? Possum, raccoon, ant. No. You have the human mind is the human mind. Brilliant answer made this planet before you guys showed up was a bunch of trees, animals running around. Monkeys were living in trees. Exactly what they do right now. Beavers were building dams stayed exactly the same until you guys showed up. Now there’s skyscrapers and rocket ships and lights in the middle of dark. Who did that?
Human mind. Do you hear me? Do you have one? Then you’re brilliant. Don’t ever think otherwise. What do I care? That one’s a little bit more brilliant than the next. Give me a break. You have a human mind. It’s brilliant. What are you doing with that brilliant mind that was given to you? I know teacher. What? I’m trying to figure out how everybody and everything needs to be so I can be okay inside. I’m trying to figure out how everybody and everything that I interact with has to be for me to feel better inside. Is that a true statement? That’s tough, isn’t it? That’s a tough row to hoe. Why is it a tough row? Because there’s a lot of people out there and a lot of situations out there and a lot of weather out there. There’s a lot of things out there and they can be, I don’t know, they can be anyway at any moment they do.
People ever act the way you didn’t expect them to? The way you don’t want ’em to? Yeah. So what do you do? You have stress and tension because your mind has thought how it needs to be for you to be okay as if it knows it’s never been okay, how would it know? Well, that’s not true. Every once in a while it’s better off. Feels better than it used to, than it was some other time. So it grabs that and says, now let that happen all the time. Good luck. Do you understand? I’m trying to help you. This is a nice talk. I said, why don’t you talk about God and nice spiritual things. I don’t want to talk about how to get to God. I don’t. I want to talk about why you’re not with God because the truth of the matter is you are, but you got lost.
That’s a fall from the garden. Okay? You dropped into this mess and now you use your mind to figure out concepts and views and hopes and dreams and opinions and preferences and oh my God, how I need it to be for me to be okay. That is the ego mind and it will always be that way. Do not try to make the ego not be the ego. The ego is the personal self not being okay. So it figured out a concept of itself that said, if things are this way, I’ll be okay. That is what it is. That’s ego. It doesn’t know how to be otherwise I’m not okay. Ego is not okay. Ego is not okay when ego’s no longer not okay. It won’t be there like that. You’ll have your pure open mind. Mayor Baba said, man, minus mind equals God. He means a personal mind.
When that thing fades away, then you are okay. Why? Because you are filled with joy. Your consciousness, the indwelling being you. You who watches the mind, you who feels the emotions? You Who uses the thinking? You who’s in there? The end user that you are seated with God right now. Sat Anand, the eternal conscious ecstasy. That’s who you are. Are you listening to me? That’s not where the masters are. That’s who you are. Well why don’t I feel it? Because you’re looking down at a messed up mess and you’re trying to solve it within the mess. You’re looking at it, you’re seeing it’s not okay and you’re sitting there saying, how do I make it? Okay, so you’re staring at that. Then okay, this is how I need it to get to be. Okay, how do I get it to be that way? So I have a strategy.
It’s like war. I have a strategy of how things need to be for me to, okay, don’t you? You’re supposed to have one, aren’t you? Have a strategy? Alright then what do you do? Well, I have a strategy if you don’t do anything, I have tactics, how I dress, how I act, what letters are after my name, what I do in my money, what kind of car I drive, what I look like, I nose, job name, you name it. I got tactics that I’m going to use to get what I want, so I’m going to go out there and fight. That’s why I care. That’s that type of caring. I care a lot about what you said. I care a lot about what I think you were thinking. That’s the type of caring, that’s the low level caring. I care because I’m not okay. I’ve come up with a strategy, how to be okay and I care that you all fit in, that you accept me, that you like me, that you treat me this way and that everything has to be exactly right, has to be exactly right.
The sight that you do every single thing I want, but do one thing different. Wear a bow tie. My Uncle George wore ties. I don’t like ’em. You’re out. Goodbye. I never thought you’d wear a bow tie. Why’d you wear a bow tie? Come on, you’re like that. First of all, I always teach you this. Where did you get all these ideas of how you want it to be? You had past experiences. You’re not stupid. You had past experiences and some of them felt good and some of ’em felt bad and some of ’em didn’t matter. The ones that didn’t matter went right through. He didn’t hold onto ’em. But the ones that felt especially good and especially bad, you kept, you suppressed them, you clung to them. Whatever it is, you kept them in your mind and your holy beautiful mind you held onto these things, your mind is no longer empty.
That’s what Buddhists mean by empty mind. You didn’t store all this stuff in there. You don’t have a whole bunch of past moments in there. Which ones do you have? The ones that I really liked, which are very few by the way, and the ones that I didn’t like, which billions. And you have formed these opinions and preferences and hopes and dreams and causes and views and likes and dislikes and all that garbage and that made your mind be messed up. I always ask you the question, if you store every single thing that ever disturbs you throughout your life, inside your mind, what’s it going to be like? Disturbed. You did it. The mind was not meant to be disturbed. You couldn’t handle the reality of life unfolding and therefore you stored this stuff. You cared at the personal level, therefore you stored it and the more you stored, the worse off you are.
The more things that you don’t like, the less your life is fun. You have to make sure they don’t happen. There are people who spend their entire life resisting the devil. I’m not going to tell whether it’s the devil or not. I won’t get into religious stuff, but they spend their entire life resisting the devil. Well, they just spent their life dance with the devil. Literally their entire life is thinking about evil and devil and all this. Oh, good job, okay? And that’s just the extreme. I mean it was that way about everything, that way about relationships that way about this or about that. I told you, go and don’t ever listen to me. Just listen to what we’re here. I want to see that you understand and someday it’ll come in and it’ll make sense. But otherwise don’t. Lemme screw your life up. Please go to a dating site.
They’re out there nowadays, right? Dating sites you go to, I want you to watch what’s going on When you’re at that dating site. Does it ask you questions? Oh, I see question such as what kind of food do you like? Do you like 12 people or short people? Do they prefer male or female? What a nationality. How old much? What are you filling in? You’re not filling in another person, you’re filling in you. You’re filling in based on your, how would you know whether you’re like an older person or a younger person? Well, high school then I got married, he was older. I wish I had blah blah, blah. You’re filling down there the stuff that you stored based on your past experiences. So the person you end up with having defined is you. And then you go to meet the person and I guarantee you if they match the square boxes, you project yourself onto them and you say, it’s my soulmate. They’re perfect. Look, they answer the same things I did come in two days later and they had another experience that you did and that answer changes. I really like people in an Irish accent. I’ve always loved it. Oh, the accent is so beautiful. I’d like to have something with an Irish accent. Okay, you filled it in two days ago. Right now you just got in a car accident with a drunk Irishman.
You want somebody who’s an Irish accent. That’s how fickle you are, whatever the experience is. So you wake up eventually and you say that level of caring is suffering. That’s what Buddha meant when he said all your life is suffering because you have preferences, because you care. Well, I care now. That’s a different thing. Let’s talk about something. Let’s talk about the other caring, which is much harder for you to understand. Let’s say you don’t care. Not I don’t care, just you don’t care. Roses are red water’s, blue grass is green. Dig it, man. Okay. Winter’s cold. Summer’s hot. Wow. It’s reality. There it is. I don’t care. Not I don’t care. I don’t care. The only time you can be there is if you can handle it. Can you handle? You’re in a gardening show and you are trying to grow the nicest rose and you’re ready to take it to the show.
You’ve got your plant potted ready to go out there and you go out in the morning and the lady bug had landed on a leaf on that rose took a chump. Just a little one. But if you have yourself a magnifying glass, which they do at the show, you see that little chomp and it ruined your rose. How are you doing? Ready? Personal. Oh, I hate ladybugs. I can’t believe this. Who let that bug in? Who didn’t close it? See, oh, I care, right? I look at the thing like, wow, I hope it tastes good. Look at this. This is neat. It was perfect and now it’s like it is perfect. It’s a zen perfect. I don’t care. I wasn’t trying to win the stupid prize. I was just trying to grow a beautiful rose. That’s a different, I don’t care, isn’t it? You understand that?
I don’t care because I really don’t care. I have nothing invested in it. I’m okay. This didn’t change me from being okay. That’s when I don’t care. That’s the higher I don’t care is it happened. I didn’t deny it. I didn’t resist it. I didn’t do anything like that. I saw it. I thought it was hilarious. Well, because I thinks everything’s hilarious. How can everything be hilarious? I have to be sitting a little planet in the middle of nowheres spinning through outer space for a few years and you think I’m going to care that a ladybug bit the plant. In other words, I am not personally invested in it, therefore I can enjoy it. So caring is because you’re not okay underneath that. Caring both. Yeah, I really care and I don’t care. Both those types are I’m not okay. I really do care. I wish it would be the way I want, but I gave up or I’m still trying.
Therefore, I don’t care. I care. That’s because I’m not okay. As long as you’re not okay, you will give a hoot because you have a way you need it to be either to be okay or hope it someday you’ll be okay. Let’s say, let’s get personal for a minute. Let’s say you’re a young lady. You always want to have children and you find out you can’t and have fur or whatever, something genetics going on. Is that okay? No, I don’t like it. We’ll adopt. I don’t want to adopt. Well, I’m my old kid, but you can’t have your own kid. I want it. It’s not fair. Whoa, you just ruined your life because you can’t handle reality. It has nothing to do with you that your genetics are such a body that didn’t perform. Whatever it is, that’s nothing to do with you. You’re in here and you got a body and I can’t have children.
Okay, I’m sorry. It’s just what is right? Then you can sit there and say, I can’t have children, but I don’t care. It’s fine. I’ll travel more. My life will be one way instead of another way. Is that okay with you? Is it okay that I talk about it? Answer me. Am I telling the truth? Right? You’re brilliant people. You’re a beautiful soul to send it down to earth to have an experience, dig it, have a good time, but what if things happen that I don’t like? That’s your fault. Not that they happened. Don’t give me karma stuff. Not that they happened, but the fact that you couldn’t handle reality is your fault. It’s not the events of life. They happen. Things unfold in a car accident judge all the time. My opinion, the word accident should not be used. Why? For two cars to meet at the same moment in the same place.
A lot of things had to happen exactly right for that to take place when they made the car over in Korea or Japan and when the brake pads got put on, the person had a hangover or had a fight with their wife. This is five years ago. So the pad didn’t hold up as well as it was specked out to be. Therefore, when you stepped on your brake, one second difference happened. A lot of forces had to happen for that accident to take place, okay? I’m not saying it’s not on purpose, it’s just an event that took place. Can you handle it that way? Can you sit there and say, wow, look what happened. Who would’ve unk? And then have fun dealing with the police and have fun dealing with insurance and just see how things are. Enjoy your life. Not have life enjoy you because it doesn’t, it doesn’t even know that you didn’t like it.
When a storm comes on your birthday, it doesn’t know that you were upset about it. It’s just boom. Have you ever seen after a hurricane, a real bad hurricane? You get up in the morning, sky’s beautifully and clear. It doesn’t say, I’m sorry. It acts as though nothing happen, right or wrong. Be like nature. Understand storms happen. Things happen. I’ve seen some of the storms that happened in Florida recently, right? There are some people so beautiful. They went out, they helped their neighbors, their houses got wiped out, flooded out and so on. They moved and they were positive and they talked about it, how exciting it was. It should be exciting. Is it the way you want it to be? Of course it’s not the way you want it to be. Life is not going to be the way you want it to be. You have to enjoy how it is.
Why? Because it is that way. Does that mean I don’t do anything? No, I didn’t say that. To me, surrender and acceptance are the moment that took place from the moment that took place reality back. You better accept and surrender. Why? Because you’re not going to change what happened Are you? Has anybody ever changed? What happened then? What? Right? Do you have to not like what? Can’t be changed. It is reality. It happened. Why are you running around bothering yourself about it here? Caring. Why do you care what already happened? Because you can’t change it. It’s meaningless. Now. What about what’s happening right now? It just happened a moment ago. If it already happened, you can’t change it. Reality told you, here’s what’s happening next. I didn’t know it was going to happen next. Now I do. Now as far as what’s going to happen, you of course have some say in that.
Not very much by the way, not as much as you think you are one force in a bucket of millions of things that cause the cause and effect that’s coming to the present moment. You get to have some say, I don’t mind that whatever. Nobody said you shouldn’t deal with things. But it is absurd to not accept and honor and respect reality and what already happened is reality. In the new book, I define reality. I didn’t make a philosophical book about reality. I’m do that. Here’s the definition of reality that which already happened. No one’s arguing it yet. It’s very simple. If you don’t get into mind that which already happened has happened, you have to accept it. Why? The alternative is to resist it and screw up your life and everybody else’s by the way, because you’re not going to be a nice person.
So this is again about caring and not caring. Do you care that things happen in the past? They’re terrible things that happen. They’re terrible. Can you accept that? No. Well then you’re going to be messed up. You’re not going to have a nice life and you won’t be able to help anybody because you’re busy being messed up inside yourself. Now, when I talk about not caring, the real, not caring, there’s very bad people that have existed on the earth before, right or wrong. I won’t mention all their names, but there’s people who do terrible things, okay? Not on the earth. Is that okay with you? You better say yes. That doesn’t mean that you won’t protest that it doesn’t happen again, but if you’re protesting, it doesn’t happen again because you’re not okay. You are a mess and you’re bringing a mess into the world. If however, you can sit there and say, yes, Saturn has rings and yes, Adolf Hitler in a mess the same. That has nothing to do with me now.
So I don’t care now because I don’t care. I’m not a mess. I’m okay inside that kind of not caring. I haven’t made a mess on my inside now because I’m okay. I don’t need the world to be a certain way for me to be okay. Believe it or not, I now can serve you because I’m not busy serving me. Imagine if you were totally okay, you didn’t need anything at all. Here’s filled with love, filled with joy, filled with peace, filled with God purposely, okay? Then you don’t need things to be a certain way. Imagine first of all, every one of you is in that state. You’re just not hanging out with yourself. You’re hanging out with the lower part of your being, but the mess you made of your mind and so you care a lot about everything and you can’t take care of other people because you’re busy taking care of yourself.
Are you busy taking care of yourself? That’s all you think about. If you are open and you’re okay, you’re going to find out that there’s nothing to take anymore and it just becomes natural to give. You don’t even know you’re giving. You just don’t need anything. It’s just out of you. Now comes, how can I help with every single situation that’s unfolding in front of you? It’s not about I needed to be a certain way. It’s about this is how it is. How can I assist? How can I lighten the load? How can I do anything to help not yourself. That’s what I don’t care at the high level means. I don’t care what’s going on because I’m not personally bothered by it. I can help. I can see what I can do to help. That was a big difference I wanted to talk about.
The problem is we’re so lost. Nobody can even hear me. Why? Because we’re not okay. And so our entire life and our society, our entire structure, all of humanity, and you see it everywhere, read the papers. They’re all not okayed. People that need things to be a certain way are not okay. They’re sensitive. They can’t handle the people not liking them. They can’t handle talking against them. Do you see that? The most powerful people of everybody? Why do they need wealth? Why do they need power? So they can control everybody else to be the way they need it to be? They’re not okay. Why are there wars? Because I’m not okay and I want more territory. I’m not okay and I want this happen. I want that to happen. But if you are okay, Matt here, John Lennon, all the people living life at peace, it ain’t going to happen.
Well, you have a way you need it to be. So when you’re able to sit there and say, I don’t care. I’m okay with it. I don’t care. It’s not personal. It’s actually a very high state. It’s a beautiful state. You’re now able to bring love into the world instead of manipulation. That’s what the St. Francis Prayer, okay, that’s what Gandhi taught you. That’s what King was living. That’s what they teach you. It’s like, yes, you’re in here. Be okay. Now. Again, there’s different levels of it. In King’s case, it was non-resistance. Don’t resist. Have a way you’re trying to make it be, which is fine. I said changing the future is perfect, but don’t fight. Don’t this. Don’t let it be a personal thing, okay? The ones who went to the extreme, Gandhi went to the extreme. He just basically no non-violence at the highest level and he changed the world.
So the thing about caring, lemme repeat it again. The personal caring is a problem. It makes you sick and it makes the world sick because you need the world to be a certain way for you to be okay because you’re not okay. So you really care a lot about every little thing. Ever feel rejected? Ever hear of a thing called thin skin? What does that mean? You care so much that you can’t handle anything. People are so scared to go out in society. People scared to talk to each other, put bars on their windows, do every single thing, run around with guns, feel they have to protect themselves from everything. Why? They’re lost inside themselves not being okay, and so they just care about every single thing at a level that’s neurotic. In essence, you can’t be happy when you go to the higher level of not caring, which basically means really what it means is I can handle reality.
That’s what high spiritual, not caring means. I can handle reality, therefore I don’t have to care the way it was or I’m not scared or that it’s going to be. How would you like to wake up in the morning and know that you’ll be able to handle every single thing that happens for the rest of your life? It’s called liberation jivanmukta. That’s a liberated soul. You are capable of that state. You don’t need things to be a certain way for you to be okay as you let go of yourself and Christ meant by God to be reborn as you let of your personal self, as you thin out your ego. We can talk about that in a minute. As you thin that out, then all of a sudden you don’t have so many ways you needed, I like most that you needed them to be a certain way.
You’re never going to get the way you needed it to be as past tense. So all you did was make yourself upset. You made yourself sick. I don’t want you to do that. So things that you can do to where when you wake up in the morning, you will be okay and you’ll be okay, and you’re not afraid at all about what’s going to happen, you know can handle it. Now you have to be careful what happens, you know can’t handle it. So how do you get to that state where you’re okay? You don’t do it by trying to be okay. You do it by noticing you’re not okay, and you’ll notice that things happen outside that hit your stuff. Have you noticed, relax and say that’s the entire thing, the entire journey from not okay to always okay is can you relax inside as things are happening outside?
Let’s take an example of an Olympic athlete. They work, what, four years, five years, four years, killing themselves to try and be perfect. What they’re doing, they’re on the bounce theme and they slip. You’ve seen it. What do they do? Cry, scream, yell, run. No, they get right back on. They know they blew it. They finish that routine. I would you like to be able to be like that with all of life. You do your best at whatever you’re doing, but it’s okay if you make a mistake, it’s okay. It’s not a thing. So what happens is life unfolds, it hits you and you practice letting go. I teach don’t start with big things. You start with little things. The driver in front of you, the weather to me, I’ve taught this before. People say, how do I find a guru? The weather can be your guru.
The weather can do the exact same thing that a real guru does. If you sit there and say, I am going to honor and respect the weather however it is, that’s the guru, however it is, and you can find out you can’t do it. You find out you complaining when it’s hot, complaining when it’s cold. Does anyone complain about the weather? Has it ever changed it? So what you do is you start practicing, letting go. You practice that. The weather is what it is, and you start to feel resistance inside yourself. That’s your ego. That’s that whole system. I talked to you about the one who cares because it’s not okay and I wanted the weather to be a certain way. See it. It all ties together at that root, and what you do is once you see it start to resist, you relax. Relaxation is the opposite.
Resistance, relaxation is the opposite. Resistance. So that when it starts to get tight in there, what people do is they fight it. They either suppress it or they go out and try to change the outside so it bes the way they need to be so they feel better. They’ll get something to eat, they go do this, they go to that, call somebody, say something, yell at somebody, right? Other words, I’m not okay, you get out of my way. You are capable of relaxing in the face of that energy. You just start with small things, the heat pressure, the weather, whatever it is, you relax. What does that mean? People write me, they say, I started getting angry and you told me to relax. It won’t relax. What they’re trying to do is make anger, relax. Anger cannot relax. Jealousy does not relax. Jealousy has its nature, doesn’t it?
It’s jealous. Anger has its nature, it’s angry self-consciousness. Embarrassment have their nature. You’re not trying to change the nature of what you’re feeling. Are you capable of relaxing in the face of what you’re feeling? I dunno if you ever got it before. That’s what letting go is letting go isn’t let go of the outer world. Letting go doesn’t mean change these emotions, that kind of stuff. I would like that you understand that sometimes you’re going to feel embarrassed. You say something stupid and people laugh at you and you stand there and you’re embarrassed. Is that okay? Of course it’s okay. What’s the difference? There’s 8.3 billion people going on. I wonder how many got embarrassed at that times. And by the way, get off the planet now. What are you embarrassed about? You kidding me? The whole thing blew up to Smither Marines approach that if tomorrow the entire planet blew to Smither Marines, a couple of planet will changed their orbit and nothing else in the universe will even know you are here.
Aren’t you embarrassed that you burped? So basically it’s going to happen because you have this ego, you have this concepts. You built this thing inside your mind that said things have to be a certain way. Relax. You relax, not it relaxes. You relax in the face of it. You’re capable of doing that, but it takes practice. It’s the ultimate non-resistance. It’s the ultimate. So that instead of pushing it away or freaking out inside you say, I’m in here. That’s out there. Even though it’s inside to you, it’s out there to your consciousness, your emotions, your thoughts are at a distance. Someday they’ll be so far away. Where do you see it? You’ll be sitting back here and you’ll notice there’s a thought. It’s three miles away. You can bring it up if you want to, or you’ll see an emotion, an embarrassment, and it just comes and goes because you didn’t buy into it or get involved in it or resist it or fight it or not like it or it.
You’re just in there noticing what’s going on. So you relax and it passes and little by little you start noticing you can handle things. Why? Because you bothered learning how to. You learn a sport, you learn an instrument, you practice, practice relaxing in the face of your ego, in the face of these weird things you built inside that are running your life. Now, somebody says, what do you do when you feel embarrassment? The answer is, I don’t care. That’s a nice, I don’t care. I don’t embarrass, I don’t care. I don’t care what he said. I don’t care if I burped. I don’t care what they think that means you do. But imagine if you didn’t. Imagine if you were wise enough and deep enough to understand you’re on a tiny little planet and okay, some people like you, some people don’t. George said he doesn’t like you.
Oh, okay, who cares? What do you care? George is the sum of his learned experiences. How can you own that? It has nothing to do with you. Why does George not like you? I don’t know. Who cares? It’s called being liberated. You free yourself from yourself and everybody’s capable of it, but we just don’t do it. Instead, we go out there and buy into our weaknesses and try to manipulate everybody so that they don’t ever not like me. So nobody ever says anything bad so that everything be the way that I want. I don’t want you to live like that. You don’t have to live like that. You’ve got a few years on the planet and when you die, doesn’t matter if I like you or not. So you’re creating this tension and anxiety that you have to live with Life. Life is not anxious.
It is not tense. It is not right. It’s not wrong, it’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s just is. It’s very zen. When you can accept that you’re a blessing on the earth, you can bring down God’s light because you don’t have to bring down your garbage. Things don’t have to be a certain way. It’s a hard discussion, the opposite of the way every single person lives, and the opposite of what you’re taught. You’re taught how to win friends and influence people, how to attract yourself, what you want, how to get what you want, how to look the way you want, how to be successful. The truth of the matter is, when you’re done with you, where do you see how successful you’re going to be? I’m going to hire an employee. Here’s one. Whoever cares about money, cares about success, cares about getting the corner office cares about this, cares about that.
They care about the job. Now, one thing I just said, care about doing the job right? I just care about the fruits, the results, getting what I want. Why are you coming to work? I want to buy a Ferrari or whatever you want to buy, and now here’s an employee that comes in here and says, boy, I can’t wait to do the job. What can I do? Can’t tell you right now. Well, good. Whatever it is, I enjoy doing it. I love working. I love putting my heart into the work. I love creating. I love expressing. I wonder who you’re going to do good as you let go of your personal self. It all takes care of itself. Something very beautiful comes out. The Bible says, I’m not a Bible guy. Alright, you’re got his favorite quote of the Bible was, seek you first and king.
Kingdom of God’s righteousness and all things should be added onto you. All we talked about all night was about seeking first in kingdom of God’s righteousness. Live for something higher than yourself and you’ll see because you bring such beauty into the world, the world’s beautiful hope. It’s okay that I talked about those things. You’re a beautiful being. Every one of you, you’re way beyond beautiful. You’re the highest thing ever worth the face of the earth, but you made a mess in your mind by holding on to these things that you liked and didn’t like. Now you’re not okay. And so now you have to go out here and make everything be the way you want. So again, if you care at the personal level, you’re in trouble. If you don’t care at the spiritual level, you’re a very beautiful being and you bring a blessing down to the earth because you’re not busy living for yourself.
Tami Simon: You’ve been listening to The Michael Singer Podcast, produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information on Michael’s body of work and all back episodes, please join us at MichaelSingerPodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. Sounds True: waking up the world.
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