Spirituality: The Exploration of Consciousness

TAMI SIMON: Welcome to the Michael Singer Podcast. Michael Singer is the author of two widely influential New York Times bestsellers, The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment, both considered modern classics on the spiritual journey. Michael Singer lives and teaches at the Temple of the Universe, the yoga and meditation center he founded in 1975, near Gainesville, Florida. Produced in partnership with Shanti Publications, the Michael Singer Podcast brings you select recordings from Michael Singer’s teachings at the Temple of the Universe. This episode is on Spirituality: The Exploration of Consciousness.

Sounds True would also like you to know about an extraordinary eight-part video course we’ve created with Michael Singer. It’s called Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action, an online course many people report to be utterly life-changing. You can find out more at michaelsingerpodcast.com. That’s michaelsingerpodcast.com, and you can save 15% off any Michael Singer program available through Sounds True when you use the code Singer15 at checkout. Again, that’s Singer, one, five. And now, Spirituality: The Exploration of Consciousness with Michael Singer.

MICHAEL SINGER: Jai Guru Dev. Jai masters. The link between psychology and spirituality is very deep. It’s very close. It’s not that one’s wrong and one’s right, it’s that psychology studies the behavior of the mind. That’s what it’s doing. How the mind got the way it is, why it does what it does, why different people’s minds are different ways. It’s not that different people are different, it’s that their minds are different. People behave according to what their mind tells them to do. Spirituality is what’s called transcendent to mind, but that shouldn’t be a mystical word. It’s very simple. We make it complicated. It’s very simple. You are aware that you have thoughts. There, that’s it. That’s how simple spirituality is. Are you aware you have thoughts? Right now, inside your head, I want you to make it say hello, over and over again. Quietly, inside. Is it doing it? How do you know? That’s spirituality.

I swear, we make it so complicated. How do you know that it’s doing it? I don’t know that your mind did it, but you know it did it. The answer is very simple. You are in there. I don’t want to get into who you are or how you got there or how long you’ll be there or whether you’ll be there after the body dies. I couldn’t care less. All I know is you’re in there, by definition, and you have a quality, it’s called consciousness, awareness. You are aware of things, are you not? I swear to you, that is spirituality. The word spirit means you. Don’t give it other meaning, don’t do anything. It is trying. You got to give it some word. We were trying to talk in a language. If something’s trying to refer to you in there, not what your mind is saying, that’s your mind, those are your thoughts, not what you’re seeing, that’s what you’re seeing.

Somebody’s seeing it. Somebody’s noticing the thoughts. Somebody is feeling the emotions. Somebody seeing what’s going on through their senses. What do you want to call that? Some people call it Self, your inner-most self, your essence, your soul, your Atman. I don’t care. They’re just words. I don’t need a word. Hi, you know what I call it? I’m a computer guy. I call it the end user. It’s the end user, isn’t it? You’re in there, you’re the one who gets all the information, the receiver of all the information. You’re the ultimate receiver, the final being. If your mind was not talking– very rare– but if it was not talking or creating thoughts, guess what? You would know, when you go deep into meditation and you come back, people say things like, “Oh my God, my thoughts stopped. My thoughts never stopped before. It was so peaceful. It was so quiet.”

How do you know? Is it the same you who notices that the thoughts stopped as who notices that there were thoughts? How do you know it was peaceful? It’s so simple. It’s ridiculous. We make it so complicated. You just happened to be in there, and you happen to be conscious. Therefore, you happen to see what you’re seeing. But we get misled, like our great philosophers who say things such as, “I think, therefore I am.” That is ridiculous. I am, therefore I notice my thoughts. Anybody who meditates and notices that the thoughts stop in deep meditation, they still exist. How do you know? Because you know they stopped. They’re thinking, “Oh look, my thoughts stopped.” No, that’s just a layer of mind, be careful about that. I don’t want thoughts about the thoughts.

That’s nothing, but there can literally be no thoughts, how do you know? Intuitively because you exist. How do you know he’s wearing a hat? How do you know she’s not? The same exact way, because I’m conscious. I see what there is. I see what’s there. Your thoughts can stop, but you’re still there. The example I love to use, do you see? I’m trying to show you where psychology touches spirituality. Do you see it? Spirituality is only, it’s not about what you believe. God, are you mis-taught, spirituality is not about what you believe. I couldn’t care less what you believe. Why? Beliefs are thoughts? Do you notice what you believe? Do you notice when people don’t believe what you believe? You got something to say about it? They’re thoughts, beliefs are thoughts, the thoughts that you hold on to so you have some stability of mind or purpose of life. It’s all beautiful, I don’t take them away from you. I don’t take your thoughts away from you. I just want you to understand you are not your beliefs. Can your beliefs change? You who noticed that they changed, didn’t change. Just that the thought’s change. “I used to believe this, now I believe this. I was this religion, I confirmed to this religion.”

Wonderful, mazel tov. Good. It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with it, really. I’m not taking it away from you. It’s just not who you are. You are spirit. You are consciousness. You are the one that’s back there doing nothing but noticing. That is what’s going on. Psychology is studying what you’re noticing.

One of my early awakenings, when I first noticed this, when I was young, 22 years old, whatever, back in 1970, ’71, I was studying Economics, I got my doctorate in Economics.

I wasn’t studying psychology or anything like that. I went into the stacks of the University of Florida. I remember that. I pulled down every single book of Freud that I could get my hands on. I said, “Holy mackerel, that’s what’s going on. You’re in here watching your thoughts. That’s what he’s talking about. He organized your thoughts into ego, superego, id. What a wonderful job he did. Did he talk about the fact that you’re in there? Never, whoa, whoa.” Prove me wrong. I read every book I could get my hands on at the time, and I love Freud, at no time did he ever indicate that he made that step of noticing that he was noticing. It was just, he studied somebody outside and he organized what they were talking about and how they were behaving. He did this wonderful thing and he’s right. You can categorize the thoughts that way. Maybe you do it other ways, but that’s a perfectly reasonable way to categorize them. We could talk about that. But the net result is how do you not know that you’re in there noticing this? Well, he didn’t, but you do, don’t you? That’s why you’re on a spiritual path.

Psychology studies what is going on in there. Spirituality studies who is in there noticing what is going on in there. But that is a level of awakening that some people have not. I remember when I first woke up, and I was so excited to notice that this voice is talking in there, and I would talk to different people. I once went to an older person who had no background in this, and I said, “You notice that voice talking in there, right?” He came back to me and he said that, “There’s no voice talking in here. I don’t hear a voice talking here.” In other words, he went inside and the voice was saying, “I don’t hear any voice in here. Do you hear a voice? There’s no voice in here. There’s just me in here.”

So, it’s not easy. It should be easy. It’s not easy to take that step back. Why? Now that becomes interesting. Now you touch why the two are so interconnected. Why people don’t understand that they are not their mind. We’re going to talk about that. But first I want to make sure you get what I’m talking about, when I say you’re in there. The example I really like, which is also psychology, at least psychology studied them, is dreams. You have a lot to learn from your dreams. Know what they mean and their symbols, that’s all psychology, it’s very important. It’s very good, nothing wrong with it. I’m not taking anything away from you.

But when you wake up in the morning and you say to somebody, “Oh my God, I had this unbelievable dream last night, this happened and that happened.” Don’t say that to me because I’m not going to help you interpret it, oh, I’ll listen politely because I learned to do that. What it boils down to, if you tell me that, I’m going to let you finish. If you ever will. I’m going to let you finish. Then I’m going to say, “How do you know?” You’ll look at me, mad, because, you know, I didn’t react to your dream. “How do you know that that went on? I thought you were asleep. I walked in, I was talking to you, you were sleeping. You didn’t hear anything I said, things were going on. The house got robbed. I don’t understand. You’re there or you’re not there.”

Do you watch your dreams? Do you notice your dreams when you’re dreaming? Do you see your dreams? Obviously, you do, or you won’t be able to tell me about them. Is it the same you who’s telling me about them? As who saw them when you were asleep, you said, “I had this dream.” Who’s this I? It’s the consciousness. The only difference in your dream state and your waking state is that your mind is creating thoughts. When you’re awake, it’s creating thoughts, you’re noticing them. When you’re asleep, it’s creating thoughts and you’re noticing them. It’s the same you, there’s not a separate consciousness in there. They wouldn’t bridge across so that you say “I had the dream.” You had it. You felt it. Everything’s exactly the same as when you wake, correct? So, slow down. You want to give all kinds of meaning to dreams and everything, I want to know who knows that they saw the dream. I want to know when you wake up and you say, “Wow, I slept so deep last night, I didn’t have any dreams at all. It was so peaceful.”

How do you know? Now we’re sitting here, you weren’t even watching a dream, what were you doing in there? Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras, actually the deepest yoga books written, very deep stuff, actually takes on that subject. He says, “You have a waking state in which the consciousness notices it was coming through the senses. You have a dream state in which the consciousness notices that the mind is creating the dreams that the mind is creating. And then deep sleep in which you’re noticing nothing. It is not that you’re not conscious. You’re conscious of nothing.”

If I hold an object in front of you, you see the object. If I take it down and you’re in black empty space, you don’t cease to exist. You see nothing. That’s deep sleep. The mind is not creating thoughts, therefore your consciousness is not being distracted by the thoughts, therefore your consciousness, Yogananda used to call it a semi-superconscious state. Because you’re not being distracted by the thoughts that the mind is creating while you’re asleep, you’re distracted by the thoughts the mind is creating.

That’s why you don’t feel very rested when you wake up in the morning. The consciousness did not go back to a deep state. It was still engaged in feeling and re-experiencing and reacting, whatever it is, to what it is seeing. Just like it is when you’re awake. Not so different, is it? But when the mind is not creating those thoughts, those dreams, they’re still thoughts. When the mind is not creating those dreams, then you’re not distracted by them, then you can fall back into, master called it semi-superconscious. Not into the state of self-realization, but closer to the state of self-realization. You fell back into self. Why? Because you’re not being distracted and being pulled out of self.

Over my years, I’ve learned that the word distraction is one of the most spiritual words you will ever use, because that’s what is happening. The reason you are not enlightened is because you’re being distracted. If you are sitting there trying to become enlightened, you’re out of your f– Well, you’re in your mind. There’s no trying to be enlightened. You are being distracted away from your enlightened state. Go stand in the middle of New York, put blinders on and say, “I want to find New York.” Take off the blinders, or better yet. Stand in the middle of New York, and walk by one of the stores, that has all those TVs in the windows and get sucked into one of the shows that’s in Paris and sit there and start screaming, “I want to be in New York. I don’t want to be in Paris.” You have been distracted by something. Therefore, your consciousness is experiencing what you’re distracted by. Instead of experiencing the reality what’s going on, that is what is happening.

When you’re in sleep, your consciousness, you, your awareness of being, is pulled into the dreams. That’s what you experienced. When you’re awake, your consciousness, awareness of being gets pulled into what’s coming in through your senses and what’s being created by your mind. Not so different. Let me tell you, the sleep state and the waking state are not so different. When you are not being distracted, do you hear me? When you are not being distracted. There’s various times that you’re not distracted. To different degrees. One is in deep sleep, where the mind is not creating these images. Therefore, you’re not being distracted by them. Next thing you know, you’re just there. You’re there. It’s very peaceful, very beautiful and very resting. Of course, it is because you’re not creating commotion about stuff.

There’s another time, deep meditation. In deep meditation, if you have you ever gone there, I hope you have, you just go past the state where the mind is talking, and then there’s nothing, the Buddhists call it empty mind. There’s just nothing. There’s just absolute quiet. It’s so peaceful. Like one minute, forget it, one second in that state will change your life, period. Because in one second, you find out you’re not who you thought you were. Notice, you’re not who you thought you were, because you existed without those thoughts. It was very peaceful and very beautiful.

But there are other times where you’re less distracted. Let’s talk about this, it’s very important. Ever get so enthused about a project or a movie or a TV show that you just become completely enthralled in it. And during that time, there are no thoughts being created. You’re just completely merged into that situation. You like that? Oh, it’s very peaceful isn’t it? Very beautiful, like everything opens up. Ever turn the corner and see a sunset that is so beautiful that it totally distracts you from the neurosis of your mind? It’s distracting you, but you’re distracted by 70,000 things at once, right? That’s what at one point in this is. It’s so deep, it is not true that meditating on a candle means anything, but yet Patanjali teaches that concentration is the first stage in enlightenment. Why? Because you are now only being distracted by one thing instead of 6,000. By having focused your consciousness, how does it feel to completely get emerged in the sunset? Ha ha. You come back and say it was like a divine experience. It was like standing in the face of God. Yes, it is. That’s exactly what it is. Why? Because your consciousness was not distracted by all your thoughts on all this and what happened in the past, and who you are and what you like and what you don’t, how many distractions you have going on at once?

Plus, all the different things that distract you through your five senses, a lot of distractions. You get pulled in a billion places. If one thing, and it could also be an intimate moment, you all like those things, where it just totally pulls your consciousness into what’s happening, into what you’re seeing. You’re not distracted by all these other things. It’s a beautiful experience, isn’t it? You’re all saying the same thing. It’s so important. Every single thing is saying the same thing which is you are in there, you are conscious, what is happening is your mind is creating a myriad of thoughts, whether you’re awake or asleep is creating a myriad of thoughts that scatters you.

I think in the Bible, when it says, “And if thine eye be evil, the whole body shall be full of light as I be dual…” Whatever it says, “How great is the darkness within you.” It’s like if you get pulled apart, your sense of self gets pulled apart into all the little pieces, you’re scattered, you lost. So, you’re pulled apart and you don’t feel any wholeness. You don’t feel any sense of self. You don’t feel anything. It’s terrible. It’s a terrible state, but that’s where we live. If there are times in which something distracts us enough from ourselves, not distraction from the other thing, just distracts you from what you were doing in there and you become one-pointed. That’s what we call entertainment. That’s what we like. That’s what we want, because it lets us rest inside and not be scattered all over the place.

Patanjali in The Yoga Sutras says if you can focus one-pointedly, he said, that’s not meditation. That’s just one point of concentration. If now you take the one point of concentration and you turn it back on self. Now that it’s not scattered all over the universe and it’s focused at one point, let go of that point and let the conscious come back to its source. That’s meditation. He says, when you are contemplating consciousness itself, you are meditating. Otherwise, you’re just concentrating. I’m just showing you how deep this stuff is, and how simple it is. It’s all the same, psychology is the same, and all the spiritual teachings are the same. If you understand they are about the seat of self. They are about, what is the nature of consciousness? Who are you? What does it mean to be you? It means to be conscious.

Now you look in a mirror, you see yourself. You say you see yourself. When you were ten, did you ever look in a mirror? Did you see the same thing? Didn’t see the same thing they look the same. Nope, they don’t look the same. Was you who looked the same as who’s looking now? Come on. It’s not a memory. You looked out through those eyes, you saw a ten-year-old’s body. You look out through the eyes now, you see a 50-year-old’s body. Then someday you’ll see a much older body. It’s the same. Did you have thoughts when you were in high school? Do you have thoughts now? Are they the same thoughts? Of course not. Is it the same you? Wasn’t it you who noticed the other? It’s like, “Wake up, you’re in there.” You are the self, you’re consciousness, and what you are experiencing varies. It changes all the time. You have different thoughts. You have different emotions.

There’s a different body. There’s different things that you see, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know what spirituality says, “So what?” You know what you would you say? “It’s everything. What I see is everything. What comes into my eyes is the most important thing in the whole world. What comes in through my nose, through my mouth, through the touch, through the sense of everything, my thoughts are the most important thing in the whole world. What I believe in, who believes it with me, my heart, oh my God it’s the most important thing in the whole world. If it feels love, or it feels not loving. It feels high. Oh my God. It’s my entire life.”

It is nothing. It is nothing. Let me tell you, I’m surprised you come back. It is nothing. It is just something you’re seeing. It’s just something you’re seeing. If I hold up a picture and it’s got a blue hue to it, hold up another picture that’s got a red hue to it, so what? Good. Enjoy the blue. Enjoy the red. If your heart’s open, you feel wonderful, good. If your heart feels heavy and something that didn’t go, good. That’s wonderful. Enjoy the yin and the yang of all the experiences that could possibly exist. But you can’t do that. And now we’re going to get into why the mind is the way it is. Now I’m going to tie together how spirituality ties together with the psychology. You can’t do that. Why? It’s not comfortable to you. You can’t handle things that are not comfortable.

Guess what? You can’t handle things that are comfortable. You want them to stay. You don’t want them to go away. You want to own them. You want to possess them. You want to take pictures of them and keep looking at them. It doesn’t mean you can’t handle it. Handle means that I’ll do anything about it. If you want the perfect example of what you can handle, take the white lines on the road, how you do with them? You know how many of those you’ve seen. Is that OK with you? You got stuff going? You’re freaking out? You stopping the car and look at them? There are things in the universe that are coming in and you are experiencing them, aren’t you? You experienced them. You deal with them properly if they are there, hopefully, if they’re double-line, you don’t cross, if they’re single-line you do. But some are yellow, some are white, has that freaked out recently?

No, it doesn’t mean anything to you because you in there, the consciousness, have nothing going about that. Therefore, if it changes, if they’re not painted perfectly, whatever it is, you still see them and you interact with them properly, but they don’t leave scars inside of you. They don’t leave impressions. You don’t remember them. “Oh my God. I saw this line. It was dotted.” Guess what? There’s a line in the Gita, the Gita is as deep as it comes that says, “He who sees a rock, clot of dung, gold, a Brahman, the saint. That’s the enlightened one.” They don’t mean that you’re blind, and you can’t see so well that everything looks the same. What they mean is, it’s all white lines. It all comes in and it is what it is. The Buddhists say that. You go to a Buddhist master, Zen master. First time you see them, they’re going to walk in the room and sit there and say to you, “Flowers are red, grass is green, water is blue,” and walk out. What?

Lines are dotted, lines are white, lines are yellow. That’s what they’re saying. What are you doing freaking out over what color the flowers are, over what color the water is, or over what color the grass is? It is what it is. Why are you doing something about this? What is the problem here? Why can’t you handle that you dropped down into a world that has colors? You dropped down into a world that has shapes. You dropped down into a world that has people. You dropped down into the world has nice people. You dropped in a world that has not nice people.

You dropped down into a world where people’s hair gets frizzy when it’s when humid out. You dropped down into a world where little pimples break out while you’re in high school. You dropped down into a world in which there are dotted lines.

What are you doing? The answer is, some of these things you can handle. Remember how we defined handle it is very spiritual. Handle means, I don’t have to do anything about it. That’s how I define handle, how you like that? It’s handling that I like it? Nope. It’s handling that I don’t like it? Nope. Handle means, I don’t have to do anything about it. She’s sitting over there. OK. It’s dotted lines. White lines, right? It’s like, it is what it is. I don’t understand.

It comes in through your senses, makes an impression upon your mind, and then goes away. It’s not going to be there forever. Things come in. They make impressions. They pass through in truth, for those of you are scientifically minded, I didn’t tell the truth. Things don’t come in. She didn’t come in there. I don’t have room for her. She stayed out there, didn’t she? An what happened was light refracted off of her, correct? But not all of it. Some of it made it closer through her hair through this or that. Therefore, light is bouncing back and my optical nerves, light-sensitive nerves sensors, picked it up, passed through the optical nerve and it repainted it within my mind, just like a flat-screen TV. You’re not looking outside, you’re looking inside. Basically, it comes in and makes an impression in your mind, that’s the one of the lower functions of your mind, to render like a flat-screen TV.

It renders what was outside, got coded, passed up, and then rendered and you see it in there. Well, what’s wrong with that? Nothing except for the fact that you can’t handle some things. That’s what it’s all about. Hear me? That’s what it’s all about, to return to the garden before you fell from the garden, is that everything is fine. Who said so? No, everything is fine. You’re the one who said it isn’t. Nobody said it. It just is. Things are and they come in and they make the impressions. You did not create this universe. You, kind of, just dropped in for a few years. It’s been going on for 13.8 billion years and you think, “I’m gonna pop in for a moment.” You have no right to be doing what you’re doing. Sitting there saying that this is OK and that’s not OK. This color is nice and that color is not nice. What are you doing? It’s none of your business. Colors aren’t your business, shape into your business.

None of it’s your business. You’re just in here. You dropped down here, things come in, get picked up by your senses. Thank you, mazel tov, I’m glad you have senses, it is nice. You don’t want to not have them. You don’t want to just have no experience. You get to have this experience. It comes in, it renders within your mind, and it doesn’t stay there. If you saw a snake and you didn’t like seeing a snake or you saw a snake, it’s not going to stay there unless you stay there and stare at it or try to catch it or go back to kill it. It’s a thing passing through. Everything is passing through, the Buddhist, say everything’s temporal. They learned these things.

They understand how deep they are. It is all temporal, isn’t it? It just comes and goes. You see it? It is a magic show. Now you see it. Now you don’t. Guess what? Your ex-husband is not still there. That’s why he’s an ex, but he’s still in there, isn’t he? Ay, there’s the rub. What happens is, what is meant to be, and what a deep spiritual state is, is things are coming in, your mind is rendering them. You, the consciousness, are experiencing them. Why? That’s the nature of things. Things have a nature that nature comes in. It expresses itself within the mind. Very good job of bringing it in there and you experience it. Good. That’s why you’re here. You get to have an experience. You saw a lion, you saw a snake, you saw a giraffe, I’m trying to teach you every single experience you have, you’re better off because you had it.

Every single experience, you have you are a greater being because you had that experience. Well, what if you never saw an ocean, never in your life. That’s OK. But obviously when you see the ocean, you’re a greater person than you were that had never seen an ocean. You had another experience. It affected you. You became a whole, you could conceive things better. Every single experience you have makes you a greater being. “Makes who a greater being? My mind, I have more knowledge?” No, it has nothing to do with that. It’s because it pours into the self. It pours into consciousness. It’s something you became conscious of. If you’ve never seen a snake before, I don’t want to go hiking with you. You’re going to be weird, right? If you’ve seen snakes before and you understand, they’re not going to bother you, unless you bother them. You watch where you step. You’re a knower of snakes. You’re a knower of oceans. You’re a knower of divorces. You’re a knower of marriages. You’re a knower of young. You’re a knower of old, oh boy, that’s how you get wise.

Things come in, you experience them and you become comfortable with them because you’ve experienced them. That is your life. That’s the gift that was given to you, is all of these events are going to keep unfolding in front of you throughout your entire life. They come in and they let you experience even the same event is experienced differently when you’re ten and when you’re 90 years old. It’s an unbelievable thing that’s been created here. It comes in, you experience it, it pours in, it’s like rivers, all the rivers and streams of the world pour into the ocean, all of the objects of sense, pour in through the sense and pour back into the ocean of self and the water becomes greater.

Oh my God. It’s hard to even talk about. All I know is you’re a better being, because of everything you experienced, unless you can’t handle it. That word handle is very important. “What do you mean I can’t handle it? What’s that all about?” That’s a deep subject. We’re now talking about the evolution of the soul. Very difficult thing for you to understand. You in there. Yes, you are fully enlightened, period. You are it, you’re God, you are, consciousness is consciousness, period. Take a drop out of the ocean, it’s the ocean. Take a drop of focused consciousness, it is consciousness. The consciousness, the universal, the absolute, has focused down, like you watch a TV show and get sucked in, has focused down on your thoughts, your senses and your emotions. Just like watching this one TV show. But nowadays there’s a thousand TV shows going on at once. It’s unbelievable with cable. But you watch one. You don’t see the others.

That’s how you think of the divine. It’s watching. The consciousness is watching your thoughts, your emotions. It always coming through your senses. I mean watching completely. It’s just totally focused on that. Very good, it’s so beautiful. In the scriptures, they talk about Atman and Paramatman. That’s Paramatman is the absolute and Atman is the focused. When the conscious focuses down to a particular object, which is you– your thoughts, your emotions, and so on. Then it watches that completely. But when you do that, you have limited yourself. What happens is, when things come in, experiences come in and they hit your emotions, and they hit your thoughts coming in all together, there’s a variety of vibrations. Buddhists called the nature of things.

A rattlesnake is different than a butterfly. Gives off different vibes. A butterfly flying by and landing on your arm is very different than a rattlesnake curled up [HISS] and rattling. I don’t have to teach you that. You just try and experience it. Everything gives off its energy. That energy comes inside of you. There’s this entire spectrum, just like the light spectrum. There’s an entire spectrum of energies that can be experienced. Are you OK with that? Who’s the you? The consciousness that’s experiencing them. Your being, you. Are you OK with those vibrations? The answer is, “I’m OK with butterflies, but not rattlesnakes.” Ay, there’s the rub. Now you listen to me. That’s where psychology starts. There’s no psychology in the real world. There’s just the mind doing its function of rendering what’s coming in. You have the ability to intellectually create thoughts. That’s not what psychology’s about, psychology is not about the fact that you learned about atoms and how they split. No psychologist studies that. They are about the fact that you have likes and dislikes and you’re upset and you’re depressed. You got all kinds of emotions and personalities.

That’s very different than pure intellectual thought. If your intellectual thought is a computer, you have a computer built in there, that’s wonderful. Every one of you have a brilliant computer, the human mind. It’s what you did with it that’s the problem. What happened is, it comes in and then something happens that you feel resistance to. Can everybody relate to that word? You feel resistance to it. It wasn’t comfortable. That’s it. What did you do with that resistance? I said, if you could handle it, you don’t have to do anything, but you couldn’t handle it. It wasn’t comfortable. Therefore, you did something. This is the birth of psychology. It is the fall from the garden. Is you said, not in words, but you in there, the self said, “No, not on my watch. You didn’t say that to me. You did not say that to me. I did not see that rattlesnake. My parents did not get divorced. No, I don’t want a new daddy. I like my daddy.” Understand that? You have to say it. Just the primal vibration of not comfortable. So what do you do? It happened it’s there. It’s coming in, right?

TAMI SIMON: You’re listening to the Michael Singer podcast, produced by Sounds True, in partnership with Shanti Publications. Sounds True has also produced with Michael Singer an extraordinary eight-part video course, Living from a Place of Surrender; The Untethered Soul in Action. You can find out more at michaelsingerpodcast.com and save 15%, when you use the code Singer15 at checkout. Now, back to Michael Singer on Spirituality: The Exploration of Consciousness.

MICHAEL SINGER: Coming in is an interesting thing. If I stand in front of you, 20 feet away, and yell at you, but then I start walking toward you, it gets less and less comfortable, doesn’t it? As I get closer and closer. “I don’t want this all the way in. I don’t want the rattlesnake all the way in. I didn’t like it. I don’t want that vibration inside of me. Ick. I don’t want it.” In there, this is everything, if you going to understand this, and you do it all the time. In there, I have a power, it’s called will. You made your mind say hello over and over again. How’d you do that? You have a power. You have a power, volition, will. It is, someday, you will find out, but for now, I will tell you, will is the power of self. When consciousness concentrates, just like putting the sun through a magnifying glass. It creates concentration. That concentration is a power. It creates a power in the universe and that power is the power of will.

When you focus on something and put your energy into it, your Chi, your Shakti, all of which emanates from self, these things are not below, they are emanating. The sun is the cause of all light. The self is the cause of all inner power, all Shakti, all Chi, spirit, call it whatever you want. When it focuses on something, it pushes out toward that. When you focus on that rattlesnake inside, not outside, already came in, started rattling in there. OK, I don’t care if it was out there. But I experienced it. It’s rattling in there. I resist it. I don’t want it coming all the way into me. How about you? There’s no way in the world I am letting that vibration any further back than it already was, further in than it was.

I use my will. My power of will to push the rattlesnake away. I hope you don’t. But no, I can’t push the rattlesnake away. I can push the impression that the rattlesnake made upon my mind. I don’t have to let it into self. There are some things you want to let into self. “You love me. How do you know?” “Oh, hold me closer. Whoa, really?” You don’t want to do that with the rattlesnake, do you? There are things that you wish you could be more open, don’t you? OK? Don’t you feel like you want to just let it all the way and emerge with it? It’s a deep spiritual state. I’m sure you live in this stuff all the time.

Other things, “I don’t want that thing coming inside of me.” So, you push it away. There it is acceptance, resistance. That’s what you’re doing in there with your consciousness, with your will. When you push it away, I do this in the course. The course with Sounds True, I encourage you to take the course. I get one hour here, it’s nine hours long. We do all this very deeply. What you do when you push it away, where does it go? It really happened. I can’t make it not happen. If you’re bothering to resist it, it already happened. Right or wrong? I can’t undo it. I can’t make it not happen. It happened. It comes in. I’m not comfortable with it in here. I don’t have to think about it. I’m just not comfortable. I don’t want it in my face, literally all the way in my face.

I have the right to keep it at a distance. I use my will to resist it. That is the birth of the science of psychology. Because that is the birth of the personal mind. What is a personal mind? You have a brilliant mind. It can do anything. If what you’re doing is yourself, that’s the personal mind. “I like it, I don’t like it, I remember what he did to me. Oh my God. I wish this would happen.” This is personal stuff. You’re basically using your brilliant mind that learned about splitting the atoms and flying to the moon to figure out how to make everything be the way you want. You got that one down? That’s the personal mind. That’s the ego mind. That’s the mind Freud studied. The personal mind, like I said, he didn’t study that engineers are out there figuring out how to get spans of bridges. He didn’t care about that. That’s just intellectual, pure intellectual thought. It’s this stuff. This mesh you made in there because you built a personal mind. You made your mind focus on yourself. Basically, when you resist, when you sit there and say, “I don’t want to experience this.” And you push it away. I’m telling you that is the birth of psychology.

Why? Where did it go? Yes, the rattlesnake crawled away. Did that go away? When the rattlesnake crawled away, it did not go away. It was an impression that got made inside and it got burned into your mind. It got rendered there because you didn’t let it go. You couldn’t let it go. Then it would’ve gone away. Rattlesnake gone, fuck them. Rattlesnake gone, fuck them. Butterfly gone, fuck them, butterfly gone, fuck butterfly gone. It’s called be here now. Don’t you doubt, that’s what that means.

There’s nobody in there resisting the experiences. Therefore, they are like the white lines. They are coming in and passing through. I’m growing from them because I had the experience. I didn’t negate the experience. It’s the opposite. I experienced the experience, fully. It became part of me. I became a whole new being, but if I don’t do that and I use my will to resist it, it stays caught in the mind. Very much like the original Plasma TV screens, they used to say, “Don’t buy them. Because if you pause, the image will stay on the screen.” Some of them still have problems. As you could have the image burned into the screen and now you go watch something else. You’ve got the news in front of the movie you’re watching.

OK? You held that thing inside of you. Now the rattlesnake’s gone. It’s been gone for six months. You’re walking out in the woods, which you used to walk a long time ago, no problem. All of a sudden you hear something. Guess what it is? It’s a rattlesnake, isn’t it? “Whoa, wait a minute. Didn’t you used to be a rattlesnake. How did that become a rattlesnake?” You see a rope, it’s a rattlesnake. You go to sleep, it’s rattlesnakes. What is that all about? You stored it inside of your mind, and because you stored it inside of your mind, it left an image there. Why? Because you kept it there.

It does not naturally stay there. It requires your will to hold it there. When it comes back up, you push it back down. When you remember that your parents got divorced when you were six, you get uncomfortable and you [grumbles] you know what you do in there. That’s it man. This resistance to the experience creates the personal mind. Now you stored rattlesnake. You stored divorce, you stored this, you stored that. Now all of a sudden, that’s what you think about. That’s what your thoughts are created about, et cetera. Then you develop, and it’s hard to live in there. Why would it be hard to live in it? It was hard to experience the rattlesnake. It was not comfortable. I admit it. It was not comfortable. All of a sudden not comfortable. Let it go, you don’t want to just keep it there, but you do. You take this thing you don’t like, and you store inside of you for the rest of your life. It’s weird.

You start collecting all of these bad experiences. Well, now it’s hard to live in there. It didn’t used to be hard to live in there. There used to be the most beautiful experience with the garden of Eden. You’re just in there experiencing, growing, experiencing, oh my God, you wake up in the morning, “I wonder what I’ll experience today.” Let’s be these little children, it’s the most exciting thing that could ever be. You’re enthused. You’re involved. Everything blows you away. Oh my God. You’re so turned on. That is what is meant to be. By the way, that is what is, until you ruined it. But you didn’t really ruin it. You ruined yourself. Why? Because you said “No, I don’t want to have this experience. No, I didn’t see a rattlesnake. No, this didn’t happen.” By resisting it, you kept it. Now, obviously, it’s hard to live in there because you collected the things that bothered you, didn’t you? Every single thing that ever bothered you, is still in there.

White lines aren’t in there. That’s how I use that example. Not every white line you ever saw is in there. At least not bothering you, not doing anything. But those things that bothered you, you kept those. That is called a negative samskara. That’s what it’s called in the ancient scriptures. You store that. Now there are positive samskaras that are just as bad, but you have a lot of trouble with that, so I’ll just stay with the negative ones. Why would a positive samskara be bad? Because you met somebody and they were really nice when you were in junior high school. And before you had your first argument, their parents move them away and to you, it was like, “Oh my God, this guy Ben is the perfection of every relationship that could ever be.” And you’ll spend the rest of your life looking for Ben in every person you meet, exactly the same as a negative experience.

Go to Hawaii, have a great time. Don’t go back. Don’t go back to a restaurant you really liked a lot. Don’t bring all your friends. “Although the last time the portion was bigger, there’s always a different thing. They weren’t playing this loud music.” You will store the impression, but you won’t push it away because of resistance. “I’m not resisting. I liked it.” You will do it the Buddhist call clinging, you will hold onto it because you liked it and you don’t want it to go away. That stays inside. Look what you’re doing. You’re building the cycle. It’s cycle-cology. Isn’t it? So, what you’ve done is you stored everything that ever bothered you and you stored very few, but you stored the things that were extremely positive. You clung to them. Now you’re looking for it to happen again. Or you’re looking for it to not happen again. How about that? Then what you did because you can’t live in there, and it’s difficult to live in there because it’s difficult to live in there because you got all this stuff, is you start to use your intellectual mind, again, use your mind to store all this stuff. Now use the intellectual mind to say the following. This is what I felt. People think I talk against the mind. I do not talk against the mind. It’s your fault, not the mind’s. The mind’s a brilliant, beautiful thing. What you did, you then went to your mind that you stored all this stuff in and you said, “Oh, mind, Guru-Ji, God, figure out how everything and everyone needs to be every moment so that I’m OK when I have all this stuff in here. How does my husband have to behave so he doesn’t hit my stuff? How does the restaurant have to be so it matches what I expect it to be? Just make a model, make me a model of how it needs to be for me to be OK.”

Everyone got one of those? And then give it a name, my hopes, my dreams. They tell you, those are spiritual. They’re spiritual as opposed to being depressed. They say, when you’ve given up your hopes and dreams, you’re dead, then you’re depressed. When you don’t have them, because you don’t need them, because you’re fully experiencing the moment that exists, that’s a better state. “What are your dreams?” “I dream that someday it would be the way I want.” You think your dream is someday it won’t be the way I want?

I hope someday will be the way I want. You made up this whole model, it’s called your personality, your self-concept. You made up an entire model inside your head. It’s neither right, nor wrong. It’s just, the entire process is absurd. You stored all this stuff that’s not even happening anymore. “He made me want to cry.” Your parents got divorced thirty years ago. They’re dead. What are you doing? Every time you hear the word divorce, you cringe. You refused out children because you don’t want to end up getting a divorce and make them go through what you went through, and you think that’s spiritual. “Look how selfless I am. I’m not having children because I don’t want them to suffer like I did.”

I once met a very high spiritual being back in the 70’s. He was from India, and he was talking to me and he came to America and he just said to me, in one quiet moment, he just looked at me and said, “Mickey, I just don’t believe that the people over here do with their minds.” Guilty as charged. You understand that? You’re in there doing that. You’re building this model that says, if the weather’s the way I want, if people are the way I want, if the job’s the way I want, if the car’s the way I want, if my face looks the way I want, if I age the way I want, and I don’t want to. If every single thing matches this model that I built inside this, the same mind that took us to the moon, that split the atom is what you’re using to do this.

You have a brilliant mind. It’s just on you. It got messed up, you’re just focusing on you. That’s the ego mind. Why, it’s all about you? What you want? What you don’t want, what you like? The third Zen patriarch, the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, he means like, and dislike. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the slightest distinction however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, hold no opinion for or against anything. To set aside what you like from what you dislike is the disease of the mind. There’s an enlightened Zen Master teaching you, one of the deepest things ever written, but that’s way out there. But it’s the truth. It’s the truth because I’m telling you, if you have stored this stuff inside of you, you have made a mess.

Don’t then go to the mind that you broke and go to the broken mind, say, “Oh darling, broken mind, what do I need to do to make you OK?” If what it says to you is, “Get rid of all this stuff you stored inside of me.” I will start pranaming [bowing] to that mind, you have a guru mind, you have a great mind. You understand that? But it doesn’t say that. It says, “Let’s move to a place where the humidity is low enough so the hair doesn’t frizzy. Let’s earn enough money so that we can travel all the time because I don’t like what it’s like here. I don’t like it at all. Let’s take our husbands and wives to the therapists so they can learn to be the way they’re supposed to be.”

That’s what it’ll tell you, wouldn’t it? Telling the truth, that’s what it tells you. “Let’s figure out how not to age. Let’s figure out how not to get any lines, varicose veins or anything.” “Why?” “Because I don’t want to, I don’t like the natural process of aging. I don’t want to die of course I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die, I have to figure out how not to die. Or at least I don’t want ever talk about it. Don’t talk about it.” What are you doing? Flowers are red. Water’s blue. Grass is green. That’s what’s going on, but you can’t handle it. So, you made a royal mess of everything. Every moment of your life is a mess, because you stored this stuff inside of you. You don’t want to think about it. You don’t want to experience it. You don’t want to talk about it.

You don’t want anybody to behave in a way that brings it back up. You start to realize what happened. You started resisting and you’ve resisted your entire life. Now you resist based on this stuff you resisted. It gets very complicated. You’ve got all this stuff stored in there. Now you use your intellectual mind to wrap around the whole thing to build what I like and what I don’t like. I’m telling you every bit of that is built on that garbage. There’s not a single decision you’ve ever made, in what you like or dislike. It just hits your stuff right or wrong. Go try some clothes on and turn in the mirror. Very spiritual experience. Not. Just turn in the mirror, see what happened. “I’m trying to see how it hits me.” That’s exactly what you’re trying to see.

If it hits something that reminds you of something nice, a period. “Oh yes, when I was in Hawaii, I wore something like this, really was neat. That’s when I met George.” You’re buying that thing. In any way, shape, or form, “My mother wore something like this.” Well, do you like your mother? If you like her, you bought it, if you didn’t like your mother, you’re not buying it.” You are not making these decisions. They are reactions to the garbage you stored inside of you. Now, like I said, this outer model, the shell that you put around all that stuff, is your self-concept. How I need it to be for me to be OK? That includes everything you believe, that includes who you’re married that includes everything. How I need it to be so that I’m OK.

“If I’m going camping tomorrow there better not be clouds in the sky.” Wow. Who are you? “They’re better not be clouds in the sky because I’m going camping tomorrow.” How terrible a statement is that? What do you think you are? God? Yes, pretty much. That’s the problem, you want to know why? You all complain about the world’s a mess. 7.5 billion of you are doing exactly that on the planet at the same time. No two of you agree how it should be. No wonder it’s a mess. Now it just becomes the whole thing’s about, how do I get it my way? I’ll use flowers or guns. I’ll be really nice to somebody or I’ll be mean as I could be. Are you getting the drift now of what’s going on? If you live inside of that, you live in hell, but every once in a while, it’s good. Yes. Because, every once in a while, you get the world to line up so it doesn’t hit your stuff.

That’s all that’s going on. It’s supposed to be beautiful all the time and don’t you dare let somebody tell you about it. You have to know the negatives and be the positive. That’s not true. It’s supposed to be absolutely overwhelmingly ecstatic, every single second of your life. If they’re not telling you that it’s because they don’t know. Every master told you that, including Christ. It’s like, the kingdom’s within, it’s like inside of you behind all that garbage you who did it are the most beautiful thing that ever lived, you just made a mess. What it’s about, is you work your way back. Spiritual is about getting rid of that garbage. Why? Because it liberates the soul. Now you’re free to be yourself. You don’t need a self-concept. You don’t need a way you want it to be and you get to interact with the way it is.

I got to find my way back to the garden. I got to find my way back to the garden. You remember that song, I’m Stardust, I am golden, I am billion-year-old carbon. I got to find my way back the garden. [Woodstock by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young] That’s what you got to do. You got to find your way back to the garden. How? Like undoing what you did, that is distracting your consciousness. You want to find something distracting? Let’s make a movie of everything that ever bothered you. I think it would be distracting. You won’t change that channel, will you? You are distracted by the things you stored that you liked a lot. You’re distracted with things, you stored and you didn’t like a lot. You are now in there distracted completely, totally. Then you’re out there trying to manipulate to make it be OK.

It’s not easy. You got to work your way back. I’m sorry. You work your way back. How? It’s your business. “I got to go in there and I got to deal with mommy and daddy?” No, you do not. You don’t start that way. You want to play the piano, do not start with Mozart. You start with scales, right or wrong. You may not be a great pianist, but you can get much better. You want to play tennis? Don’t go play McEnroe. Don’t do that. Get one of those machines that lobs the balls across. Practice. It’s the same thing here. You are still every day doing the same thing that caused this mess. It’s not just that mommy and daddy got divorced is that Sally was walking with somebody who you don’t like so much and Sally is supposed to be your friend and it bothered you. Didn’t it? It’s about the fact that the driver in front of you is driving 15 miles an hour below the speed limit. And you like to drive five miles above the speed limit. Bothered you, didn’t? It is about the fact that you need to get out of the car, deliver something, it starts raining.

It’s about the fact that it rains on your birthday. “It always rains my birthday. It’s crazy.” Stuff bothers you, doesn’t it? Answer me. Really little stuff. It bothers you. Guess what? You store that. If you drive down that street and there’s somebody driving slower than you want to go and you’re in a rush. Not only do you bother yourself about it, you might not go down that street. “I’m smarter than that. It’s 8:15. I’m not driving on the street again.” Whoa, you’re serious as a heart attack. You’re not playing around, are you? If you see a car that looks like that car ten years later, when you’re in Boston. Your heart goes, and it happened here in Florida. You stored that, OK? Wow. Far out.

If you see something on TV and you didn’t like it, you now don’t like it out here. It was fictitious. If you have a dream and it bothered you, three years later, you’re bothered by something that reminds you of the dream. That’s weird. You have to see that as weird. How can you be OK if that’s what you’re going to do. You decide, “I’m going to practice, not doing, I’m a practice, it’s only practicing letting go. Why letting go? Because that’s what you didn’t do that all of this, you didn’t let the rattlesnake crawl away inside even though crawled away outside, you didn’t let these different things happen. You stored them inside. Letting go is what is spiritual, letting go means, “I can handle it. I’ve practiced handling it. Therefore, I know not to resist.” One of the chapters of The Untethered Soul is the spiritual path of non-resistance, now you see it?

You’re coming back to the soul where it all happened. Come back to the seat of self and stop pushing things away that already happened. Why? It makes a mess of you and everybody else. And so, little things start happening, and you start practicing letting them go. “It’s raining!” How do you do that? I used to teach no techniques. I really was very proud of that. You want techniques, go out there, there’s a smorgasborg of techniques out there. There’s methods of meditation, and there’s this and there’s that. There’s little machines you can hook up to your ears. Oh my God, there’s so much stuff. Wonderful. I’m not knocking it, but wonderful. Find things that help you practice, right? A coach, your tennis coach, the thing that lobs the balls, they are all the same. Find something that you’re willing to work with that will help you learn to let go.

How do you know I’m letting go? Because if you practice it, meditation, this and the other thing, and then something happens– the driver in front of you is driving slower than you want to go– and you catch yourself. That’s what goes under the guise of mindfulness nowadays. You catch yourself resisting. I kept it in very simple words. You understand resistance now, don’t you? Do you resist? You catch yourself resisting. Now you understand the fruits of resistance, don’t you? It’s a mess, isn’t it? It screws up your whole life and run your whole life. You decide right there when you catch yourself resisting, “Do I want to do this with this? Do I want to add another one in there that will come back and bother me?”

You know I am not exaggerating what’s in there. When that driver drives too slow in front of you, you talk about it to lots of people all day, and then you go home and you tell your husband. So you catch it and you say, “I don’t want to do this. I want to practice letting go.” Well, this is an opportunity to practice letting go. The driver’s driving slower, pass them, I’m not saying not to pass them. It was legal to pass them, and it’s safe, pass. It’s not about reconciliation. It’s not about Tapasya, I don’t believe in that stuff. It’s about being able to handle reality. That’s all that’s asked of you. Now it’s happening. You come in, you catch when it hits all your stuff, “Yes, my mother used to drive like this. Oh my God. My grandmother could drive better…” All kinds of garbage is going on inside of you.

Because the poor little car in front of you is not driving the way you want. “Ahhh! Help!” It’s how you practice. How? I’ve given you, now because you make me, three techniques by giving you general, just general techniques. One: positive thinking. Ever heard of it? It’s not what you’re thinking. Positive thinking is, right then right there, your mind is being negative. “It is not.” “Oh yes, it is.” “Well of course, it’s like she’s driving 15. Look, there’s a street sign that says 60. She’s going 35. I’m not being negative. She’s driving right now.” That’s negative, OK?

You can’t handle the fact that the person in front of you is driving. You’re sitting on a planet in the middle of nowheres, and you can’t handle the fact that somebody’s driving in front of you is not the way you want. Start with positive thinking. Just replace your negative thoughts with positive ones. It wants to sit there and say, “How could they do this?” and you sit there and just start making it, you made your mind, say hello when I told you to. Make it say, “This is nice. The poor person, maybe they’re hard of seeing, or they’re older and they’re enjoying their drive. I want them to enjoy it. I don’t want to send out bad vibes.” Yes. That’s positive thinking.

Or, “Someday I’ll be old too.” I don’t want somebody yelling at me. But the thing, or, “Hey, look, I was supposed to be somewhere. I have no control, I enjoy. Thank you.” You just find a way to say some nice things instead of totally immersing your consciousness in the negativity. But people come to me and say, “But I don’t feel that, I really feel…” I don’t care. “I told you to start with…” I don’t care, if you don’t let stuff go, don’t get into it. Yes, you won’t feel it, but at least you’re giving your consciousness another place to rest instead of becoming absorbed in the negativity. You practice positive thinking.

The other one is more powerful. It falls under the guise of mantra, but mantra is just a word. What does it mean? You can make your mind do what you want. There’s a willful mind, and there’s a habit-formed mind that comes from all your garbage. Willfully, start practicing. Not just positive thinking at that moment. Start practicing, training your mind to say something over and over again. You want to use a Sanskrit Mantra– Om Namah Shivaya, Om Guru Om, whatever you want, I don’t care, it’s your business. Or, I used to say, “God, God, God,” that was very simple. Or you’re going to say God Christ Guru. Just say something that is positive and neutral. And say it over and over again. When you’re taking a shower, when you’re meditating, when you go into meditation, when you’re driving your car alone, not talking to somebody, there’s lots of moments that you’re not doing anything besides listening to your garbage. It’s not doing you any good at all, to think about what mommy did when you were six. You start training your mind, instead, to say this over and over again, “God, God, God, God, God.” It will learn. You have a very brilliant mind. Then what? Then what will happen is you’ll be driving behind that car and you’ll catch yourself [grumbling].

But you know what? In the background, God, God, God, it does, the mind is capable of multitasking. You’ve trained a layer of your mind. Hey, ever get a song stuck in there? I want you to get this stuck in there, really stuck. Now you have a choice. Do I put my consciousness on the negative spewing mind? Or do I just settle back into the mantra? That’s the power of mantra. Guess what? You’ll learn to choose the mantra. Why? One, it doesn’t take you anywhere that ruins you. The other is, “Oh, whoa, I forgot how nice this is.” There’s this calm that comes over you just by hanging out with something higher than the negative formed mind, which is the expression of the garbage.

Then ultimately– and then we’re going to stop– the highest technique that I have found, and it is in line with what the great ones have taught us. But I found it personally, in the work on myself, is surrender. What does that mean? I am sitting on a planet spinning in the middle of nowhere, right? This is positive thinking, somebody’s driving in front of me. That isn’t what I want. Good. Why don’t I just relax? There is a part of me that’s resisting, there is a part that’s being negative, there is part that is resisting and there’s a part that wants to do something. This is a part that wants to get out and road rage. I don’t have that, but people do. Go speed in front of her, and ram on the brakes. “How would you drive like that?” Oh, here’s a good one. Relax. What do you mean? You in there, it all came about because you wanted to do something about it.

What? If what you do about it is relax and now cry. I don’t know if you understand me? You get to do whatever you want. Don’t you ever doubt that. You don’t want to smoke, stop smoking. You don’t want to drink, stop drinking. You are the most powerful thing there is in there. You’re the one who made the mess that makes you want to drink or do drugs. You can’t do it right away, but you practice relaxing. Here is something that has come in, it is not comfortable, driving uncomfortably, weather is not what I want. Relax. Just relax. The tendency is to resist. Come to the place, the core, where that is and relax, like yoga. When you get into an asana and it’s not comfortable, they tell you, relax through it, relax into it is the highest asana. When you’re back at the place where the resistance is coming from, you can feel it.

It’s very uncomfortable. Just relax. If you relax, you don’t engage. If you don’t engage, you gave it room to pass. I’m telling you little by little, you’ll get into practice that every time this stuff comes up, it’s an opportunity to let it go. You’re not afraid of it anymore. I want it to come up. I don’t want it in there. I want to have a nice life. I want to feel peaceful. Just keep letting go. Two things happen. One is the stuff has an opportunity. You gave it room to release. It was in there because you resisted, this time you didn’t resist. Guarantee, the minute you don’t resist is coming back up, I’m warning you right now. If you don’t keep pushing it down there, it comes up. You don’t need a therapist. You can, you don’t need it. You just stop pushing it down there, wait until you see what comes up?

Everything, in just the right order. You can always handle it. It’s the most perfect thing in the world is how could that be? Does your body have an immune system? Ever study it? Pretty unbelievable, isn’t it? I see, it creates white blood cells, they go in there, they attack this stuff and it flows out through the liver. Whoa, there’s a whole built-in system. That’s your physical body. It’s gross compared to your higher bodies. Your mind knows how to cleanse itself. You don’t need anything else. It’s just, you won’t let it happen. You start relaxing and leaving the natural process of purification to take place, that stuff’s coming up. The mind doesn’t want it in there, that’s why it keeps trying to throw it up.

Let it, and then two things happen. One what’s in front of you that you’ve been pushing down, comes up. You learn to relax, learn to be comfortable with the driver in front of you. Learn to be comfortable that Sally didn’t say hello, learn to be comfortable that somebody didn’t behave the way you want them to, learn to be comfortable when it is raining when you want to go camping, little by little. The next thing you’ll be comfortable with the fact that mommy and daddy got divorced 30 years ago. Comfortable enough that when it comes up, you can handle it. It’ll always come up with pain. It was stored with pain. It’s coming up with pain. Don’t try to paint it. Don’t try to dose some of the pain. “I want to put a patch on. Is there a patch for that? There’s a patch for smoking, I want a patch so that when the stuff comes up, it doesn’t hurt.” No such thing. You learn to be comfortable releasing. You stored it because it wasn’t comfortable.

Now let it go. That’s the evolution of your soul. That is literally you are becoming a greater being because you can handle things. So you keep relaxing and releasing. Two things happen. One, that stuff becomes less, when it’s less, it doesn’t distract you as much. Two, because you’re leaning away, you’re leaning away from the stuff, you’re actually leaning back into self. At some point, mark my words. Maybe early, maybe late, you will start to feel an energy well up inside of you from behind not in front, where you feel things now from behind, your Shakti just starts coming up inside of you. It’s ecstatic, and it is joy. It pulls you into it, calls you and pulls you into it. Well, that distracts you. You want to be distracted by that. It starts pulling all your consciousness into it.

Your entire path is, I don’t have to do anything, all the stressful tough techniques and all that junk. Just let go of yourself and release yourself to that flow of energy. It will pull you into it more and more. The great ones, at some point, you realize, “Whoa, where’s it coming from?” The great ones are the ones who let go completely. They all said the same thing when they came back, is they merged. Is that it ceased, the great consciousness that had focused down on their thoughts no longer did so. All of a sudden, I am the universe. I am everything. That’s enlightenment. Say the word properly. You understand that. You may have had enlightened experiences, but you’re not enlightened. You are a very great being, a very great being, about as great as anything ever was.

Who taught you this? Christ, “the kingdom is within you.” It is within you. You, who is in there watching, you are the greatest thing. I hope you see, we went a long way today. Do you see the foundation of psychology? Do you see why it’s a mess? Do you see why we have so much trouble? Did you make a mess in there? Do you honestly think that it’s going to go away because you get what you want? That’s like buying– a kid’s throwing a tantrum. Don’t give him what he wants. Well, you’re in there throwing a tantrum, aren’t you? You don’t get things the way you want so you throw a tantrum, don’t you? On the inside. You’re just feeding into that.

It’s about purification. It’s about cleansing. It’s about this willingness to relax to every single thing that comes up inside of you. You’re not trying to get things the way you want. You’re trying to let go of the reason that you separate want from not want, it’s called the non-dualist teachings. It’s the highest of all the great teachings. So, you keep relaxing and releasing. It will all happen by itself. There’s nothing else you have to do. But you can use techniques. Meditation is good, mantra is good, these things are great. But it’s about liberation. It’s about freeing yourself from yourself and all the rest happens from there. Work on these things. Jai Guru Dev.

TAMI SIMON: You’ve been listening to the Michael Singer Podcast produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. Sounds True has also produced with Michael Singer an extraordinary eight-part video course called Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action. You can find out more at michaelsingerpodcast.com and save 15% when you use the code Singer15, that’s Singer, numeral one, numeral five at checkout. The music you heard is the song, Giving It All by Be Still the Earth. Thank you so much for listening. Sounds True, waking up the world.