UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: The following transcript may contain typographical errors or other mistakes due to inconsistencies in audio quality, background noise, or other factors. We cannot guarantee its precision or completeness. We encourage you to use this as a supplement to your own notes and recollection of the session.
Tami Simon: Welcome to The Michael Singer Podcast, presented by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information about Michael Singer’s work, access to all prior episodes, and information about upcoming releases, we invite you to join us at MichaelSingerPodcast.com
Michael Singer: Jai Guru Dev, Jai Masters. There’s so many stages on your spiritual world. The more sincere you are, the more stages there are. It’s not happen right away. You can have experiences, but there are experiences you had I’ve learned over my years that put a whole lot of weight into spiritual experiences. Well, I guess they come and they go. One or two things happen. You get inspired. Well, that’s good. They get inspired to do the real work because the experiences just a gift of a momentary peak into someplace you’re not yet or you get frustrated, you get disappointed and you give up because you had an experience. You can’t get it again. Causes frustration and anger, all kinds of things, disappointment. So spiritual experiences are very nice, but they’re not the spiritual path. They’re not the spiritual path. So what is the path? Well, if you catch on, experiences aren’t everything and most people don’t.
They try for experience, they run all over the place. Try and get something, some shock to guru can give to them and have an experience and tell people how good I am. I had an experience. Then you go a little deeper and you realize, well, that was nice. I had an experience, but I’m not there. I don’t live there. I’d like to live there, but I don’t live there. And it’s like a drug you can get, keep running back to try and have an experience. Ram Dutch used to say, you can see the potential. We have to keep coming back to see the potential that goes for everything. So then you start to buckle down and you start to meditate or do spiritual practices more seriously. But if you do them very seriously for a very long time, but if you do, you realize that what you’re trying to do is get somewhere where you’re not.
You’re trying to rise above your personal self, rise above your ego, rise above your anger, your needs. You’re trying to rise above these things and they teach you, they teach you enunciation, they teach you this, they teach you that all different ways to try to rise above these lower aspects of your being. So you do that for a long time and long time could mean tens of years until you start to become extremely mature and very few people do on the spiritual path. What you realize is, wait a minute, why do I have to rise above something? Why does it have to be like that in here? Why are there fears and anxieties and self-consciousness and all that kind of stuff that I have to learn how to rise above and not get into discipline myself about and so on? Is that the natural state of my being, that I’m just imperfect?
I have to try to get to perfection. Great beings realize, no, that’s not how it is. How it is is that your natural state is the highest of all experiences and it never goes away. It’s your natural state and you don’t have to do anything to get it. What do you do to breathe? What do you do to have your heartbeat? What do you to have your cells divide? What’d you do to get from two feet to six feet tall? Nothing. What do you do to make the sunshine? What do you do to make what 32 trillion cells in your body wake up every morning even while you’re sleeping and talk to each other and do everything? What do you do to have a baby? And when you start getting wise, you start realizing, wait a minute, this stuff all goes on by itself. And why do I have such a mess in here?
Why do I need to do that? You don’t need to do all the things, just list it to you. Do you need to make the atoms, molecules bond together? You don’t fall to the floor. Do you need to hold all the physical universe together and all the stars and galaxies that are, huh? Tell me how hard do you work at that? Well, that’s much bigger than anything you’re doing to yourself. So you wake up and you start realizing, what is this doership stuff? Very, very zen, very deep. Why do I have to do me? But I don’t have to do the sun. I don’t have to do Saturn. I don’t have to do the cells. I don’t have to do the bonding of atoms. I don’t have to do the quantum field. I don’t do any of that. In fact, it all went on before we even knew it was there, didn’t it?
We did not invent the quantum field. We discovered it. It was there the entire time. There never were atoms and electron hundred protons and particles. It was always wavelets in this field. How can all of that all over the universe go on simultaneously and you don’t do squat? You know how little you do? You don’t even to know about it. How can that be? And yet, look how hard you have to work spiritually to be happy or to achieve something. That’s when you started to reach a deep state, which is what is going on here. That doesn’t make any sense that every bit of it can go on by itself and I got to do me. Why do I have to do this? What’s that all about? And you realize you did that. You made that mess in there. Well, let’s take it slowly. Does it have to be in there?
It does not have to be in there. Do you have to struggle and work and do all these to make it not be in there? Of course not. You have to find out why is it like that in there when everything else in the university needs to be taking care of itself? I got to sit here and kill myself to try, have a good day, have people like me and they got to work all the time. What is going on? And that’s when you start to see what’s going on. So let’s take them for example, very close things, very deep things. Do you care about what people think about you and don’t even bother shaking your head? Do you care whether people like you? Do you care whether people think you’re smart or attractive or special or anything like that? Okay, of course you do.
How hard do you work to have that happen? Day and night all the time. For which people? All people. If everybody in the room loves you and one person is dissing, you care more about that person than everybody else. Do you understand that you have a problem and your problem is not that people might not like you, the problem is that you care. We discussed this the other day. I’m not advocating. I don’t care. I don’t care how you think about me. Yes you do. So that’s why you’re talking like that. Do you care whether the white lines on the road are white or yellow? Sometimes they’re yellows. You know that. Does that bother you? Are you concerned? They turn the corner, they’re going to be yellow. Nothing. You don’t care. That is a natural state. Do you care about the shape of every cloud?
Do you care what’s going on in Saturn right now? No. You don’t think about anything except for the things that you decide to think about and you make a complete mess of yourself out of them. Do you care what color I used to be part of my life? I did building and I would build houses for people and not a whole lot, but discuss no houses. And I’d go in and I’d meet with this beautiful lady and I built a house for her and I asked, what color do you want the kitchen to be? I said, normally white is a nice color. She said, yeah, white. So I unfortunately had to go into the building store and get this little color fan. You ever seen one of those? Do you know that there are three of those for white?
And this lady went crazy trying to pick the white she wanted and they all had nine names. Eggshell white this, white that white vanilla, white, somewhat vanilla white, less vanilla, white. It’s just turn that thing over and over and there was actually three of the entire packs that fell in the category of white. Now if you want, you can drive yourself crazy. Why? What do you care? Which white it is? Why can’t you just walk out and say, yeah, this one’s nice. Do this one. Is it true that every one of you would pick the same one? No. Is it true that tomorrow you’d pick the same one today? You know dharma lives it. There’s one I want. Well, come on. Yes or no, is it That’s what it’s like to live in there? Is it not? Why does that to be like that? To live in there?
You decided for it to be that way. God did not decide that and God did not make you that way. God created worlds of color so you could have fun. Not so you could be neurotic and drive yourself crazy. What happened here? What went wrong? And it’s very easy because it’s about everything. It’s not just about colors or choosing this or building a house or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or of a dress or all those are the same thing for the same reason. That’s what it means to get mature on this path. You look down in there and the little mind makes a noise. I went, I have to take a color. And you just look right past it and say, no, you don’t care about that color. You care that when it’s painted, the kitchen is painted that color and you walk into it, something inside you says, yeah, that’s it.
That’s right. That turns me on. And if it doesn’t, what does it cost to repaint? And you go through that. So you wake up, I’m talking about death. Now you wake up and realize it is not about the color. It’s not about the boyfriend or girlfriend, it is not about the car. It is not about weather. It’s about whether you feel okay inside. You want to feel okay inside, don’t you? You couldn’t care less about the color. Now quick the color will change. You just got married and you picked the color and your husband or wife hadn’t seen it as a big surprise. You’ve decided you liked that color. Are you anxious whether he or she will? What happens if he or she says, oh my God, I never thought you picked a color like that. That was the color of my mother’s kitchen. I hated my mother.
How could you pick that color? Do you like the color anymore? That’s how stupid it is. Okay? It is a decision you are making inside yourself that is driving yourself crazy and you wake up and you realize, why am I doing that? Why don’t just sit there and say A color is a color. They’re all very interesting and if somehow something inside of me gets more excited about one color versus the other, there’s something wrong with me that’s not natural. Don’t tell me it’s natural. You start to investigate things. What is a color? What is a color? By the way, things do not have color. That’s what I love. You live in an age where physics has advanced so far, but you will pay attention. Things do not have color. Not a single thing out there has a color. Light has color and different molecules and atoms, how tight they’re bound, et cetera, et cetera.
But with speed, they’re moving at When the light bounces off, it reflects some of the spectrum. The light spectrum that has color gets absorbed by certain things other reflects back, and when it hits your eyes, you don’t see the one that absorbed, but the particular spectrum of the light that bounce off your eyes, that’s what gives it color. It doesn’t give it color. It’s not color. It doesn’t have color. Approve it to you. Turn off the lights. You laugh, but it’s true. The light is on that things have color and while you see them because it bounces off of those, and so you start feeling, why am I making myself neurotic about nothing? Why don’t I just do something really simple? I like all colors. I all colors. Why not? Well, how do you choose? I don’t have to. I don’t have to. I say, okay, you have to do white, but there’s a fan full of white.
Pick one. Tell the builder, pick one, I’ll be fine and have it be fine. Why? Because you said so. You’re the one who said you didn’t like it. That is starting to become mature on the spiritual path. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. It’s one of the deepest lines ever written. The third, then patriarch, treat us on faith mind. And that’s the first line. You don’t need another line in all your spiritual teachings the great way. Enlightenment is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Why? Because the great way, every way is impossible for those who have preferences, isn’t it? Come on. It’s hilarious. We’re just not paying attention. It’s sort of like we’ve developed these preferences and they ruin our life. I said, no. If we get what we want, you get what you want. It feels good.
What if he ages? What if your husband doesn’t like it? What if you decide you don’t like it as somebody you just did? All of a sudden the political party, you don’t use that as their main color. It’s changed really quick, doesn’t it? Okay, what are you doing playing that game of ruining yourself and then deciding, I can feel okay if the world is the way I ruined myself about, I just, oh my God, this color, I saw a movie and the dress was so beautiful and I want with something like that, look in the store it has, well, I can’t afford, I want, what are you doing? It’s a color. It’s a dress, it’s a fabric that’s not renunciation. There’s such a difference for mature spiritual being. Renunciation is, I like that. I want that, but I’m not going to do it just in the name of God.
Poor God, you’ll never love him. How could you love him? Look what you’re doing. He’s the one to make sure you don’t get what you want. No, it’s not renunciation, it’s wisdom. That’s what happens at the high level. You become a wise being that says preferences. It’s easy to have preferences, but I used to live with ’em. I changed the Zen patriarchs starting line. He gave me permission, by the way. Alright, his is the great way is not difficult. Those have no preferences and now the true line that will help you grow tremendously. The great way is not difficult for those who prefer everything. Surprise me and you’re happy all the time, happy with the weather, happy with the color, happy with the husband who burps, happy with this, happy with that, happy with the people that don’t like you. Why they have preferences. Poor thing.
They’re still caught in preferences. They’re having a very good time. I’m full of love and unless nothing can touch me, the less you buy into this game of I have preferences. If I get what I want, I’m happy. If I don’t get it, I want to disappointed. If I get what I don’t want, I’m miserable. If I don’t get what I don’t want, I feel relieved. It’s called a truth table quadrant four quadrant truth table. If you get what you want, you’re happy, but if you don’t get what you want, you’re disappointed. But if you get what you don’t want, you’re miserable. But if you don’t get what you don’t want, you’re relieved. What a game to play. You can’t win because it only lasts a minute anyways. You’re devoting your life to play in that game. I’ve often taught you, let’s say you pick something, pick anything type of car like a 67 Mustang with blah, blah, okay, I’m way out of my way to earn the money and to get this, how many things are going on in your life that are free, that could be turning you on just like that car and you gave all that up to burn enough money and do this and buy this stupid car, which soon will get in an accident or break down or you won’t like it anymore or your wife won’t like it.
Oh, okay. Can you change your mind? Have you ever changed your mind? Have you ever changed your mind? Then what are you doing playing that game? A mature spiritual person does not play that game. They don’t renounce. They’re not afraid of feeling good, they’re not afraid of feeling bad. They’re just open to realize it’s much more fun to honor and respect reality than to try to make reality match me. Do I need to say that again? It’s much more fun to honor and respect the unfolding of reality as it unfolds in front of me than to try and think ahead and figure it out and plot and plan and then manipulate and control everything so that when it unfolds in front of me, it’s what I want. And how often does that happen? Very little. Even if you try as hard as you can. So you wake up and you realize that’s a game you don’t need to be playing.
Now I realize it can take years and years and years and years to reach that realization yourself, which is what matters. You’re not renouncing or following a teaching. You just, wow, I didn’t do that anymore. Well, it doesn’t work. It’s not wrong. It’s that good. It’s not bad. I used to use this example. Ever seen a hamster running in a cage running that little wheel? Where are they going? They’re trying baby. They’re moving. They’re running all the time as fast as they can, but they’re not going anywhere and believe in a pet store and there’s all these cages of hamsters running around trying to try to get somewhere and all of a sudden one hamster, one of ’em takes a look and says, why am I doing this? I’m not getting anywheres. But if you don’t do it, the wheel will stop turning. Yeah, it will.
So that’s why can’t I enjoy the wheel not turning the same as I enjoy just killing myself to try and get up the hill, which I never can and none of the hamsters and the pets have ever done that. No one’s ever even thought about that, right? So there’s real maverick, a rebel sits there and slowly because he’s scared, but you slowly face, that’s something you’ve never faced before, not running as fast as you can to get nowhere. Now if somebody told you stop running, you would never do that. Everybody’s running away. You’re crazy. But you get there yourself, you start noticing with reality this is not getting anywhere and you dare to stop and you stop and you look around and it’s not all spinning and not all dizzy, not all worn out. Then an amazing thing happens. It dawns on you.
Why am I even staying on the wheel? There’s a whole area down there. There’s not limited to the wheel. What if I jump off the wheel? This is spiritual growth. Do you understand that? That’s a very mature spiritual being. Dares to go wise than fair to tread. You have to. Otherwise you stay the same as everybody else, which is suffering. That’s a Buddhist said. Nothing I just taught you is any different than Buddhist noble truths. All of life is suffering. Why? I just told you? Because you have decided what you want and what you don’t want. If it happens and you just struggle all the time, don’t you? That’s why there’s so much anxiety and insecurity and tension and all this things, all the crazy emotions that humans have. So all life is suffering. I love the Buddha. What is the cause of suffering? I took half hour to get there.
He takes one line, he said like when he came back after his deep meditations, he told his brother, disciples, I didn’t go with him. He said, I have found the cause of suffering. He said, we know the cause of suffering, old age, poverty, illness. Come on man, we got a long list. He said, no, there’s just one cause of suffering, one cause of all suffering. That’s what Buddha taught. It’s like a noble truth. There is one cause of all suffering, the cause of suffering, they generally translate as desires, but what is a preference than a desire? In order to have a desire, you have to have a preference. Okay? That’s a deeper word, right? Third, chose that word. The cause of suffering is preference. We just talked about that, didn’t we? If you didn’t have a preference, you would not suffer. You’re going to die.
No, I don’t want to die. You’re going to get old. No, I don’t want to go. Okay, suffer because you’re going to die and you’re going to get old. You might someday in a car accident. Oh no, I don’t want a car accident. Well, then you suffering scared. You worry. Every single thing that you can’t accept as reality openly, you will suffer and it will cause you to suffer and you don’t have one or two. You got thousands of them. Things that you don’t want to be a certain way and things you wish would be a certain way. Once you’ve done that, you suffer. So the Buddha taught all life is suffering. The cause of suffering is preference to end suffering and preference. Now that becomes a touchy point and that by the way is eightfold path, right? How to end desires. Okay? I draw my line at that point.
Why? The more mature you get, and this is not me, other very great beings have written in these areas. If you try to get rid of a preference, you will struggle with your preferences. In fact, somebody once wrote me, is it not having preferences, a preference, as funny as it is, yes, and you’ll suffer. You’ll suffer. If you have a preference that have no preferences, human preferences are fairly common and all of a sudden you’re struggling because you have preference and you don’t like yourself. You don’t learn what to do, go run around. It’s deeper than that. It’s always deeper than anything your mind can think, why not? How do I get rid of preferences? I don’t want you to ask that. I don’t want you to ever look at it. It’s too much suffering. I’ve been through too much myself. I want you to ask, why do I have preferences?
Not how do I get rid of preferences? It’s always underneath the root British teas at the root that you find the truth. What is the root of preference? All your preferences, every single one of ’em have the same root ready. I’m not okay. I want to be okay. That’s why you want one color. That’s why you want a certain husband. That’s why you want a certain finance. That’s why you want people to think a certain way. That’s why you care what people think about you. You understand that? I’m not okay, you willing to admit it. I’m not okay in here. Therefore, my mind has developed preferences that say if these things happen, I will be better. Well, that hamster found that’s not true. Tried every technique to get further up with that thing, but he finally found out, no, no, if I’m not okay, I can’t run away from that.
I have to look and see why am I not okay? And what the mind wants to say is you’re not okay. You didn’t find a husband yet. You’re not okay. You’re not a wife yet. You’re not okay. You’re not at the right finances. You’re not okay. You’re not at the right job. You’re not okay because your hair’s too long. Your hair’s too short. You’re getting old. You’re not okay because people don’t bow down when you walk in the room like rock stars. They’re trying to say that what you think will make you okay is the reason you’re not okay. That’s what the mind wants to say. If that happened, I’d be okay. Therefore, that’s why I’m not okay. I teach it as follows. You ate terrible food. You eat terribly. Your blood is just terrible. You get stomachaches all the time, okay? But you have the solution.
You have a lot of alga. Cells are pepto bismol in the house, and so one day your friend comes over and you’re running around the house like a maniac and they ask you What’s wrong? I can’t find the pepto bismol. That is not what’s wrong. What’s wrong is you ate food that made your stomach sick and the thing that compensates for that, you can’t find what’s wrong. I’m lonely. I need to find somebody. What’s wrong? I don’t have findings that make me feel secure. What’s wrong? I’m not excited about going to my job. Same thing you’re saying every single time. What’s wrong is I can’t find the Pepto Bal, anybody following me? I like that Pepto Bismol talk. Isn’t that what you’re saying? You’re not okay and something can make you feel better, but that’s not why you’re not okay. That’s an attempt to compensate for the fact that you’re not okay. Why are you not okay now you’re ready for spirituality. Why am I not okay? My heart is closed.
I’m scared. I’m trying to compensate for the fact that I don’t feel love, that I don’t feel strength, that I don’t feel whole, that I don’t feel peace and et cetera. I don’t feel those things, so I need to find something that made me feel better. No. Find out why you don’t feel those things and that’s when your deep spirituality, years and years and years of deep growth catch on where you sit there and say, wait a minute, I can feel okay if things happen the way I want and I can change what I want anytime I want and then I feel okay like this. It could change. You feel love Somebody who does something you like, oh, it’s gone. And so you realize, wait a minute, I’m doing this. I’m deciding whether I want and what I don’t want and when they feel high and so on, and you get to the bottom line, if I go through all of it is you are closing yourself.
You close your heart. I don’t know if I can trust you. I got hurt last time. I know I feel the tendency to love, but I’m not doing that. We’ve only dated a couple. Got real good, keep your heart closed. You are closing yourself at a very deep level and you have to have everything exactly. Your ego wants it for you to be willing to open. Then you say that’s what opened you. No, no, no. You just stop closing yourself and you eventually get to the point where you realize it’s all about not closing ever over anything. What if you stayed open all the time? What if anything that happened here? You want to get blessed. You want a car, you want dish, you want a husband, you want a wife, you want children. You’re asking for the wrong thing. You want to answer something, you get one wish.
God comes down. You get one wish, one boon. I want to feel a state of ecstasy all the time no matter what happens. That’s a little harder than getting a car a little harder than a good relationship. I want to feel a state of absolute love and wellbeing all the time no matter what happens. Not that I want something to happen that makes you feel for a moment, it’ll come and go. I want to feel that, or you are capable of feeling that. That’s when you become a truly, truly deep, mature spiritual being. When you realize, wait a minute, that’s all that’s going on. I am closing my centers. I’m closing my energy flow. I’m closing my heart. I’m closing my mind. What religion are you? I liked you before you told me that, right? Do you close? I close. I close my mind. I close my heart.
I close as I mentioned, close to the higher stage you never even touched. I go into a very deep meditation. That’s wonderful. I love it. Come back from very deep and it’s so quiet, so still for so long I meditated two hours. It was so perfect. Now come back. How long does it take for you to come down? How long does it take before something bothered you? How long does it take before a phone call or a non phone call or somebody said something, somebody didn’t say something or you thought something, how honest you want to be? That’s what I care about. I don’t want to come back down. Then you have to find out what’s bringing you down, not what will bring you up. Even though you things bring you down. You cut the tethers and you notice I have stuff inside of me that I collected over the course of my life. There’s stuff in there that when things happen outside, hits that stuff and either opens me or closes me and the ratio is about a thousand to one.
How many things open you for? How many things close you? You hear me? And because that’s in there, I can’t be free. I can’t be open all the time because this stuff closes me. Well then don’t ask for something that will open. You ask for getting rid of the stuff that closes you and now you’re a mature spiritual being. Somebody once said a very great Buddhist teacher, he said Spirituality is never about getting anything. It’s always about losing everything. What if that stuff wasn’t inside of you? You know, got stuff inside of you. What if it wasn’t there? What would you worry about? Nothing. Well close you. Nothing. You go through life, there’ll be storming out. It’s kind of fun. It’s that whatever it is, you’re get an old boy. It’s neither here, the old white because you’re not looking for anything. You’ve already got it, but you can’t have it.
When you’ve closed yourself with all this stuff you collected and now you’re at that stage in your growth and now you’re not going to like me. How much of that stuff you got in there? Are you kidding me? Every minute of your life, almost things have happened that you stored in there that you don’t want to happen again or that you do want to happen again and they are determining your entire life. You won’t go with something that might lead you towards some of that. Hit your stuff and you’ll go toward that which opens you up. So this stuff you stored in there is running your life. Your parents were divorced. I’ve met people now. I’m not getting married. I don’t get married. I’m not into marriage. Why? You have a right not to meet a marriage. That’s wonderful. But let’s see. The reason why when I was young, my parents got divorced.
It broke me to pieces for years. I never forgave them. I’m not going to have my kids feel like that about me. I’m not getting married. Whoa. Is it okay to not get married? Of course. Okay, for that reason, no, that’s not a pure reason is it? That’s garbage you stored inside yourself that you didn’t handle well when you were young and now you’re five years old that’s running your life when you’re 30. You got stuff like that in there and where do you start looking? You’re going to find out There’s a lot of it layer upon layer upon layer, and then you try to process and develop your life that matches your stuff so you don’t have to have it hidden and you think you’re doing okay, you’re not doing okay, and if you have to meditate the hours every day to get above that stuff, so you’re going to have a decent life.
I’m sorry, that’s how meditation’s for meditation’s for noticing. You have this garbage inside of you that comes back when you stop meditating, good, get rid of it and your whole life changes its entire purpose. My purpose is not to get momentary high. I had enough of that. My purpose is to live in the highest part of my being at all times that nothing can touch Christ called it the peace that passes all understanding unconditional love, not conditional love, unconditional peace, unconditional wellbeing, unconditional compassion. There’s no condition that can touch it. How? Because there’s nothing inside of me that’s making it not happen. Therefore, it happens. The sun is shining all the time. No sun as it’s cloudy. That’s not the sun’s fault. The sun is always out there exactly the same for 4.5 billion years, shining exactly the same if you allowed clouds to come in front of it so you can’t see it, don’t blame the sun.
You have allowed these blockages that you stored over the course of your life to block your energy flow, to block your shakti flow, to block the unconditional beauty of your being. You’re so great. I can’t even talk to you about it. I feel funny talking to you about it. You don’t understand how great you are. All the great ones taught you that. Christ taught you that. He said, as I sit with the throne of my father, that’s a state of consciousness as I sleep with the throne of my father. So you should sit by my throne and these things which I do should do these and even greater things. It’s not think I’m a very great being, but I got lost. You got lost in your personal stuff and what did he say? You must die to be reborn. What does that mean? Exactly what I’m teaching you all night.
You have to let go of that garbage you stored inside yourself to where your natural state of pure light, pure love, pure unconditional wellbeing can shine without you doing anything. A truly spiritual light and me does nothing. There’s nobody. Nothing is just, and you go near, there’s this light pouring off of them. Most of you’ve never been in the presence of somebody that high. They can’t even talk about it. I don’t like to talk about it. Then you want to have it happen. It’s just another experience, right? I’ve been in rooms with great beings. The room’s about five times. It’s this size. You walk in that room, at least it doesn’t happen all the time, but if you’re open, it’s like a magnetic field, like two poles of a magnet pushing against each other. If you about a hundred, 200 feet away, you can’t walk toward that person.
That’s how strong that or is, and every time you take a sip, it gets stronger and stronger. What’s going on here? Nothing. There’s a real being not a human being. They died to be reborn, and what’s there is what’s inside of you. Exactly what’s inside of you effortlessly. That’s the part I like to talk about. No one will talk to you about what do I need to do? You need to be willing to let go of what’s holding you down. You’ll go up automatically. You don’t have to try to go up. You have to let go of what’s holding you down. How do I know what’s holding me down? It kind of lets itself known. If you’re willing to pay attention. When you stop taking the Pepto Bismol, you kind of look and say, well, why do I need to Pepto Bismol all the time?
Oh, I have a stomach ache. Well, why? I’d have a stomach ache. I ate Twinkies and Coke for dinner and lunch, right? There are reasons that you’re closed and they’re your responsibility and you know what they are. How do you know what they are? You’re avoiding them all the time. You worry about them. You get protective and defensive. Okay, so what is a spiritual path? After enough years, you can be taught, you can learn through somebody else’s wisdom. After enough years you catch on. My work is inside of me. It’s not about some concept or some view or some opinion or behavior. It’s about I got garbage in here. I know I do and you know, do I don’t want it in here? How bad More than people want to have children, more than people want to be married more than people want to have relationships, more than people that want money more than people want to be rich, more than people that want to be loved more than people that want to be famous.
That’s how much I want it, and you better want it that much otherwise you’ll make your choices the other way. You’ll try to get some pepto bismol, but eventually you catch on. I can’t be me with this stuff in here. It’s running my life. It runs my life, it ruins my life. How do you get rid of it? Not all at once. You cannot get rid of it all at once. It doesn’t work like that. What you do is I teach it all the time. I hope you get it. If you want to learn the piano, do you grab Mozart and start playing? No. You start with the scales, but no kid wants to do the scales too bad. You better learn the scales and the better you get at the scales, the better you’re going to get. At every piece of music you try to play, I say, I want to learn a sport.
You just go there. Play against the best tennis player in the world or the best baseball player or pitcher, anything. No, no. You get a ball throwing machine. You practice, you get a coach. You do this thing called practicing. You don’t sit there and say, I can’t do it. Of course you can’t do it. Of course you can’t let that stuff go. You never learn how to. You only learn how to push it down there. When it comes back up, you push it back down, don’t you? And you don’t like people who hit your stuff, do you? And you really like people that tiptoe through their tulips and don’t hit your stuff. Okay? You got it all backwards and so you start practicing letting go of that stuff. It’s the essence of everything I ever taught you is the essence of deep spirituality. Your life, not this today or tomorrow or your entire life is about learning to let go of that stuff and not put any more in.
The more you let go of the freer you are, you have to be afraid of things happening. You’re afraid of what people say. Let’s say your spouse comes home and they’re in a bad mood and you’ve been working on yourself. You handle the mosquitoes and you handle the hot weather and you handle the dryer in front of you. You just kept letting go. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ve given you so many techniques for learning how to do that. And then somebody walks in the house and they just go, bam, charge ’em through the house. They don’t even say, hello. How are you doing? Terrible. Why? Big deal. I don’t know how to tell you one. There’s 8.3 billion human beings on the planet earth right now. One of them walked through the house without saying hello, and you couldn’t handle that. That’s hilarious. That’s ridiculous. And so you start changing your retirement attitude about what you’re about.
I’m about not. I’m about the person. He or she loves me so much that they won’t do that. I can trust them. I love that. I can trust they’ll never do that. Or they trust you won’t hit my stuff. No, you’re going to go about your business and you’re going to hit my stuff. So what if you hit my stuff? I’ll use an opportunity to let go. And you get that way about everything, every single thing. But you start small, you start, I always teach you start with the weather. It’s my birthday. Why is it raining on my birthday? It doesn’t know it’s your birthday. And you start practicing catching yourself and letting go. You just don’t play that stupid game with your mind and your heart. You sit there and say, I’m okay. I’m okay that it’s raining today. That’s very big of you.
You’re not going to change it. So you just decided, am I going to be okay? No. Okay, fine. Don’t be okay. The answer is do you want to be okay? Would you like to be okay all the time? Then practice being okay all the time. It’s exactly like the piano or the sport you have to practice. It’s not just going to happen. And when you practice at that level, whatever you learn is permanent. If you learn the scales and it can play twinkle twinkle, you can play twinkle, twinkle, it’s never going to stop. If you learn to let go of the weather from bothering you, you’re just kind of fun with it. It’ll never bother you again. The wind is blowing it. Mess my hair up. I like it. Look like Einstein, right? You’re welcome to think any way you want. Are you not? There’s nobody else in there that keeps stressing.
You are the only one in there. It’s a single occupancy apartment. What are you doing? Allowing it to be caustic in there? That’s your house. That’s where you live. Would you leave your house with roaches and all kind of junk and say, I’m okay. The exterminator comes in once a week, he’ll take care of it. No. Stop storing that stuff in there and I’m telling you it works. It absolutely people write me from all over the world and say, you know this works until they say it’s not working anymore. Why? Get something bigger got hit. You hear me? Something that they weren’t so ready to let go of and they feel pain and they feel suffering and they feel anxiety. Why? You stored it with pain. That’s why you stored it because you couldn’t handle what was happening. So you took all that energy and you stored it inside yourself and now you’re wondering why it comes up with pain.
If you had handled it to start with, if you sat there and say you’re mature enough kids and say, fine, now I got two fathers and two mothers. It’s fun. I got step ones and step two, I got stepfather number three. My mother married a lot and you made fun of it then it’s not a problem is it? But you weren’t able to do it when you were young. Can you do it now? Can you change your whole attitude about what went on in your life? When I was little, we had an outdoor party from a birthday when I was five and it rained. I hate the rain. I’ve always hated the rain. Why it have to rain on my birthday? It didn’t rain before. What are you doing at five? Okay, I don’t expect much more. But at 55 you’re still freaked out over the rain and you’re like, birthdays.
Why don’t we just say no, I don’t need that in me. I can handle that. But it comes back up. Feels exactly the same as when you were five as Freud, but now you’re able to handle it. That’s your spiritual growth. That’s more important than anything else you can do. As if that stuff starts coming back up and you know what’s in there, you’re willing to say, relax. That’s what I found. It’s called relaxing, relax. But people write me back. They say, but it won’t relax. I tell it to relax. It won’t relax, it’s not going to relax. It’s nature is tension, anxiety, pain, anger. That’s what you stored. You relax, you who is experiencing it, don’t resist. This is the whole spiritual path, the deepest path. Don’t resist surrender. You just relax in the face of the discomfort. You get real about your growth and you sit there and say, you are welcome to come up in here.
I want you to come up in here. Yes, I might cringe. I might try to resist. Don’t listen to me. Just keep coming up. But if you relax, you’re not suppressing, you’re not pushing it back down. Relaxation is the opposite of tension. Resistance requires tensing. Relaxation requires letting go. So you’re in there becoming a letting go machine. I know it should be behind your comprehension to think you can do this with every minute of your life. You want to grow spiritually. That’s what you do with your life. You cleanse. That’s called cleansing. Cleansing. There’s garbage you stored in there that’s closing you down, that’s ruining your life and when it comes up little by little, you learn to relax through it and you’re going to find out you can’t do that. You can do that. You can handle the weather. You can handle what somebody said you don’t want to, but you can.
So it’s not about not resistance, it’s not about behaving, it’s about letting go. Then you don’t put any new in from today. I teach you things are going to happen today that hit your stuff, aren’t they? People won’t say what you want them to say. Won’t behave the way you want to behave all the time. You don’t want more in there. That’s part of your maturity state. You get the point where you realize, wait a minute, it takes one second to resist it and push it away and sings there the whole time from then on, doesn’t it? You see a friend, they don’t say hello. Next time you see them, they’re not so much a friend. You may even avoid seeing them. You so silly. You call a friend when you really need them. They don’t answer. If they were a friend, they would’ve answered and see, wake up.
I don’t want this going on in me. So what I’m going to do is when it comes up, I’m going to relax. Just relax and let it hurt. Let it pass through. That pain is a pain that ends all pain. Next thing you know, you’re going to find out that anything you can handle, that level of disturbance, it doesn’t just work for that thing, it works for anything that generates that level of disturbance and all of a sudden this stuff’s just coming up inside and you’re just letting it go. How’d you do today? Wow. When you wake up in the morning, you should be a different person than woke up yesterday because you let go of stuff. There’s less to worry about, there’s less to be concerned about. There’s less to need to just every day you’re cleansing, you’re letting go. That is the highest spiritual path that you can take that path of purification and what’s beautiful.
Some people write me, what do I do? I have a business and how do I be spiritual in my business? I want a relationship and I thought that relationships weren’t good for serious spiritual growth. You got it all. Wrong relationship. Bring up your stuff. Have you noticed you’re not getting into a relationship without bringing yourself up? Okay, and business brings up your stuff and work brings up your stuff. All kinds of stuff brings up your stuff. Does it not? Good Life is your guru. Life is your teacher. You think life’s your enemy. You pray that life won’t bring you anything that bothers you and always good things should always be happy. Alright? Eventually you catch on. No, no, no, no. You got it backwards. Life is your friend. Life is your teacher. It knows exactly where your stuff will get hit. Why? Because if it’s there, it’s going to get hit.
Life’s not purposely hitting your stuff. Like who in? Alright, you have the stuff there, it gets hit, okay, and you just keep letting go. I want to have a deep talk with you all. I’m serious. Earth is a place that souls are sent to evolve. How you doing? If you’re out there telling the world around you, behave, be the way I need you to be, so I’m happy you’re not evolving. You’re saying exactly the same. You’re saying the stuff I have blocked in here is what limits myself being okay. I want to keep it. I want everything to match what I want. I made a statement once that nobody likes, right? Getting what you want is so overrated is ridiculous handling reality. Oh, now there’s the goal. If I can handle reality as it unfolds in front of me, not only am I okay, I can help everybody else.
I’m not out there trying to make life be the way I want. I’m fine. I’m fine. So that to me is deep spirituality and eventually if you work with yourself with sincerity, you’ll find out that all you have to do is allow life to unfold. See what it’s hitting and let it go. See what? What’s hitting. Let it go. What about protecting myself? You’re going to find out if it’s physiological. Yes, you protect yourself, but psychologically, what are you protecting? You’re protecting the garbage you built inside yourself that can’t handle life. Why do you want to protect that? That in truth is what? Christman. By turn the other cheek, he doesn’t mean somebody’s slap you. Don’t protect yourself. Just if something bothers you inside, don’t make a thing out of it. Let it go. You don’t want it to be a thing. You want to be okay, don’t you?
Then don’t make a thing out of it. Don’t ruin your life by saying life has to be what you want it to be. Just basically sit there and say, I am game. I am here every morning I wake up. It’s to let go of the stuff in society of me. That’s what needs to be liberated to be free. Ti your liberated soul. You don’t have to worry about anything. It doesn’t mean it’s all the way you want. You don’t have a want and then you become a servant of life. That’s what you understand right now. You’re serving yourself. You want everything to be the way you want, want people to be. The way you understand that everything has to be your way. When you’re done with your way, all of a sudden you look outside, what can I do to help? Next thing you know, you’re truly a being of giving.
Alright, well, I hope you understand. I know it’s difficult. It’s deep. It’s the opposite. What culture teaches us, decide what you want, go take it. Then I have to fight for it. I have to keep it. I have to worry about it. There’s nothing but tension involved in that life, and eventually you wake up and say, and it was beautiful having to quote Christ, I’m a nice Jewish yogi. I read the Bible once in my life 50 years ago, but it seems to me he said, seek you first. That kingdom to Ghana’s righteousness and all things should be added onto you. In other words, seek something higher than yourself. Seek what we just talked about, the liberation, and you’re going to find out that all of life unfolds unbelievably, it’s amazing, but not because you asked it to. As you stop messing it up, stop manipulating and causing all the ripples and trouble that we caused in our lives and everybody else’s life. Okay? Thank you for listening.
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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