E120: From Ego to Eternity: Living Without Preference

Michael Singer:  Jai guru dev, jai masters. The spiritual path is the most beautiful and exciting thing that could ever exist. Why? ’cause you have two choices. You just stay caught where you are. You go through your changes. It’s that simple. What we tend to do is justify staying caught where we are. That’s just how we are. Why? It’s easier you get your head into a certain space and if things agree with it, if things go along with it, you feel better.

That we all understand. If you get what you want, you feel better. If you don’t get what you want, you feel worse. How’s that? Anybody knows? So what we tend to do is try to get what we want. Is that simple? The trouble is it doesn’t always work. If you haven’t noticed, two things happen. One is, first of all, you don’t know what you want, and that’s the truth.

You don’t know what you want. That’s why you’re trying to figure it out. That’s why you have trouble with decisions. You’re trying to decide what you want. You’re trying to decide what will make me happy, what will work for me, what will make me not sad. I don’t care whether it’s a non-negative or positive.

Same thing. It’s just a. Spectrum, and that’s what you’re doing all the time, and I’m not accusing you, it’s just what you’re doing all the time. You’re trying to find out what will make you feel better and what will make you not feel worse. Fair enough. That’s a human plight. Why It doesn’t work. It has never worked.

It will work for short periods of time. If you get what you want, you feel better unquestionably, but then you want something else and it’s not the way you expected it, then you think maybe it won’t be the way you thought it was gonna be. It doesn’t take much, and that’s the beginning of your spiritual path.

You’re now on the path when you understand that I don’t know what I want, I just know what turns me on right now. I don’t know what I don’t want. I just know what’s bothering me. I’m trying to get rid of what’s bothering me. I’m trying to get what I want. It’s sad. It is the essence of Buddhist teachings and what was Buddhist teachings.

All life is suffering. It doesn’t mean you broke your arm, doesn’t mean your husband left you. That’s how suffering is. Well, suffering what I just said. Suffering is thinking. You know what you want. Trying to get it. Finding out it’s not what you want, then changing what you want, then finding out you don’t have what you want.

Midlife crises, this every single thing all the time. It is tough. Therefore, all of life is suffering. Not some of it. Of course, there’s times where you get what you want and it seems exciting. It doesn’t last. It has never lasted. You always want something else or it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to be, but your mind doesn’t see that.

It just sees the current moment of what’s going on, and so basically you suffer. So he calls suffering. Not getting what you want. Getting what you don’t want, thinking you might get what you want someday and waiting for it and getting all excited about it, and then thinking that you got what you want, but it might leave you.

Mm-hmm. What’s it called? Oh, jealousy. Ever heard of it? What is jealousy? You don’t get jealous about what you don’t want. No one’s ever gotten jealous about what they don’t want. Oh, look, he got what he didn’t want. You get jealous when you think you want something or you feel you have something and then you’re afraid of losing.

Everybody afraid of losing what you think you want. Ever be afraid of not getting what you think you want. You’re just afraid all the time. That’s what’s going on in there is you’re trying to find something that will work for you. And when you think you found it, you get a all excited and when you lose it, you get a little depressed.

And if you think about losing, you get a little depressed. So. It is neat. It’s not hard to about spirituality is it? It’s like talking about you. So Buddha’s first noble truth was all life suffering. Do you know that? Or do you still think there’s some shining thing that’s gonna happen and you’re gonna find your goal?

You’re gonna find what you always wanted. It doesn’t work like that. It never works like that. In the short term it does. Why? Because your mind is so stupid that it thinks it got what I wanted. Seriously. It’s just, oh, this is it. Then somebody else is it? And then somebody else did. It’s always reaching for something is either reaching for something or running away from something.

Buddhist second. Noble truth was unbelievable. It’s all you ever need to know, and that is there’s only one cause of suffering. It’s not death, it’s not sickness, it’s not people leaving you. There’s one cause of suffering. What preference? It’s so powerful. It’s ridiculous, and I’ll prove it to you. If you don’t prefer something, you don’t suffer.

If you don’t prefer something, you don’t suffer. And that goes across the entire spectrum, even to the point where it’s scary if you love somebody tremendously and they leave you, but that’s okay. Yeah, that’s okay. That’s what happened there. That’s what happened. I don’t have a preference. The word preference is often, not often, most of the time translated as desire.

What is it differently, your preference than a desire? Absolutely nothing. You can’t desire something if you don’t prefer it to have a preference. That’s the deepest strategic preference. If you have a preference, you’re going to suffer. At some point, you’re going to suffer. Why? Because it’s not going to happen.

Why you’re not God. You are at some level, but not the level we’re talking about. You have decided what you want to happen. That’s what her preference is. I’ve decided what I want to happen or, but I don’t want it to happen. Same if I don’t want it to happen is a preference. If I want it to happen is a preference and I suffer.

Why? Because it’s not going to happen. Oh, what a terrible thing to say. No, it’s not a terrible thing to say. You do not run the world. You are not own the world. You’re not God at that level. It’s gonna rain when it rains, but I didn’t want it to rain Too bad. Somebody’s gonna be nice when they’re nice.

They’re gonna be mean when they’re mean. That’s just the way it is. Can people be different way? Can people turn on you? Can people turn on you? Have you ever noticed they can turn on you? They can be one way and all of a sudden they a different way. Doesn’t take much of it. Just takes mine. I decided this way.

Okay, you’ve all had it happen. If you don’t have a preference, and this is deep, we’ll talk about this, and this is the deepest I can talk to. The Buddhist teachings are the deepest teaching vulner. Noble truths are everything, but we’re not wanting to hear them, but wanting to hear how to attract yourself what you want.

That’s a big thing. Now you can attract yourself what you want, but if I attract myself what I want and you didn’t want it, now you suffer. It’s selfish. Why? Because then somebody else didn’t get what they wanted. Doesn’t matter, right? Maybe we all can get what we want, but wait a minute. I want him and you want him.

Well guess him. We’ll split it

and you find out that it doesn’t work that way. How does it work? Buddhist? Right? Grass is green, flowers are red. Water’s blue. Then they send you home. What kind of teaching is that? Everything. Things are what they are. If they are the way you want them, it’s ’cause you decided you wanted it that way. How many stars are in the sky?

I don’t know. Hundreds of billions in your galaxy. You’re a little tiny planet spinning around one of those stars. Have you thought about that? What’s going on? What’s always gone on? Life is going on. Flowers are growing and water’s raining and things are happening and people are being nice. And people are being mean.

And people are dying. Do people die? But I don’t wanna die. Oh, okay. Some people don’t wanna die. Well that is amazing. ’cause you’re gonna suffer. Well ’cause you’re gonna die. Every single thing that ever lived died. What it means. Flowers are red, grass is green. Water’s blue. It is what it is. Now, a child says why?

And the answer is because it’s because it is the way it is because it’s that way. There are forces in the universe that are unfolding and they’re unfolding in accordance to the laws. The dharna, right? It’s called the Dow. I heard that word, the Tao spelled funny. TAO, the Tao. What does that mean? Things are the way they are.

It’s not a problem. They just are the way they are. That’s a starting position of spirituality. I mean, again, I don’t talk against the law of attraction. There is a law of attraction. Period. If you focus on something, you meditate on something, you contemplate it and think you can attract to yourself what you want.

I feel sorry for you. No, I do. ’cause first, it’s selfish. What is not selfish? Understanding the reality of the universe. There are stars out there. There are black holes out there. There’s galaxies out there. They’ve been there for what? 13.8 billion years? How long it be here? How dare you think you’re in charge.

That’s just the most amazing thing in the whole world. That is what ego is. That’s ego. I get to have it my way. What everybody else, who cares? That’s not what matters. What matters what I want. It is the cause of every problem that exists in this world. It’s why imagine all the people living life at peace doesn’t happen.

’cause all the people can’t agree in any way, shape, or form. It’s why all the politics is the way it is. Why all the S is the way it is. Why every single thing is the way it is. ’cause people have preferences. Nobody’s gonna bother anybody else if they don’t have preferences. It’s ’cause you have a preference and you want things to be a certain way.

And how far will you go to get ’em that way? I don’t even wanna ask you that ’cause I know the answer. Have you ever gone pretty far, ever been embarrassed, look back, say, oh my God, how did I do that? Because you had a preference. Because you have a desire. ’cause you have a way you want things to be. And if you sit there and do that.

Other people getting hurt. It’s inevitable. Is it not? That’s what goes on the Dao. The Dao isn’t a way, it’s the way, but it isn’t a way. It’s not my way. You just understand that if you have a way, it’s not the way, ’cause it comes from your personal ego. Where do your preferences come from? Lemme ask you that.

Do you know where your preferences come from? They come from the programming of your past. There’s not a single preference you have that you didn’t see a movie, you didn’t read a book, somebody didn’t talk to you, you didn’t get excited about something, an event took place. Many events throughout your life, and they left you with these likes and dislikes.

That’s all they are. They’re programming. No, I came up with this myself. You did not. Psychology says that your psyche is the sum of your learned experiences, and it is. That’s not who you are. You’re in here, you’re conscious, you’re beautiful, conscious, being caught in your preferences. Do you have preferences?

Deep spirituality isn’t about not having preferences, not about suppressing your preferences. What if you have a preference? You have a problem. I’ve learned that 50 years I’ve done this. If you have a preference, you have a problem. Why? You’re not gonna get it the way you want it. You can dream about it, you can think about it, you can try and you can cause a lot of trouble.

That boils down to what does it mean to not have preferences to suppress them? No, you’re not allowed to suppress them. Well, how do I not have preferences? That’s the deepest state. How do I not have preferences? You start to understand your psyche. You understand your ego. You understand how all this happened.

You understand how you ended up where you are, which is you had situations in your life, something bad happened when you were young there. Psychology, is it still bothering you? Yes. Does it come back up? Yes. Something good happened at some particular point in time. Do you want it to happen again? Yes. What a preference is that you’ve had.

An impression made upon your psyche that is influencing your life is deciding the decisions that you make, where you’re going, who you’re with, where you’re married, where you divorce, and so you come down to the bottom, which is what I do about this. What I’m really, really interested in working with the deep teachings, you start letting go of yourself.

That’s what boil down to. What does that mean? You’ll notice at different times. You think different ways that all of a sudden you think this would be nice, then you think that would be nice. Then you say, I don’t want that to happen. You actually let go of that. You actually look inside and say, as long as I am doing what I want, I’m lost.

Well, what then do I do? You let go of yourself. The whole spiritual path about letting go of yourself, you let go of yourself. You let go of yourself. Well, what’s left? The self, mayor Baba said, man mind. His mind equals God. If you’re in here thinking what you want and what you don’t want and what you want to happen, what you don’t want to happen, you get all excited about it or get depressed about it.

That’s you. That’s your psyche, that’s your ego. That’s what that is. The ego. What’s the ego is a collection of thoughts that you gathered during your lifetime. Some stronger than others. Some of them didn’t make any difference. They went right by you drove by a tree. You drove by a car. Things just came and win.

They came in, they went, they came in, they went, but not everything comes in and wince does it. Something gets stuck. Now that, that’s a neat thing. I had a ion with this the other day. Is there anything solid? Inside of you that could glue it or get stuck or cement or super glue. The answer is no. No, there is not anything solid inside of you.

It is empty in there, not like you’re spaced out. Okay? It’s the empty mind. It’s the empty mind. It’s just basically life is happening. You’re there, you’re present with it. You’re in harmony with it. How do you be in harmony with it? By being in harmony with it? So it comes in, it passes through. That’s the great state.

The masters get to, it comes in, it passes through, comes in, it passes through. So be here now. There’s nothing happening except what’s happening. There are no preferences. No concepts, no views. No opinions, no hopes, no dreams. That’s drama Buddhism. That’s empty mind. What’s life like? Ecstatic. Why would it be ecstatic?

Because you don’t have preferences, because however it is. You’re in harmony with. It’s unfolding and you’re part of it. You’re not separate trying to make something happen. Life is unfolding, life is happening, and you’re in complete harmony. Imagine that. Imagine being completely at peace with every single thing that is for the rest of your life.

That is what spirituality is. I’ve been quoting you from the Gita at one point in the Gita, Arjuna talking to Krishna, and Krishna tells him there are these great beings. The enlightened ones don’t use that word lightly. Arjuna says Krishna, what’s he like? An enlightened being talks sits. He walks like any other man, and Krishna says to Arjun, you don’t know him like that.

He walks, he talks. He sits like any other man. If you would know him, know him as us. Joy is not overjoyed and sorrows not over. Sorrow. Letting goodness come into will and when it will depart, he walks as a stranger, Sojourner in the midst of the qualities of nature, just as all the rivers and streams of the earth pour into the ocean, but the ocean doesn’t overstep its bounds, so the world of sense pours into the yogi and leaves him as it found him at peace.

Serene content. Enlightenment. Can you imagine being at peace at that level? That’s what it takes. To grow on this path, but it doesn’t happen all at once. You don’t all of a sudden have that. No, you have this thing called the path. You have this life that you’re living and at different times you have different preferences at different times.

You have concepts of what you want and views of what you want and hopes and dreams, and you have all kinds of stuff in there, don’t you? And it’s all mental. Do you have a little voice in there telling you what’s going on in there? Anybody in there talking to you? I like this. I don’t like that. I wanna do this.

Oh my God, I wanna do this so bad. I’ve always wanted to do that, right? That’s your psyche. That’s not who you are. Under no conditions ever is that voice talking to you, who you are. You’re the ones listening, but it’s hard to listen. Why? ’cause we have preferences. We have dreams, we have preferences. We think things are gonna make us happy, and so we go with them, which is fine.

I always thought that I, I didn’t always, I took a while, not many years for me to catch on. If anybody asked me what should I do? Should I do this and say, you decide. You have to decide because you’re gonna do it anyways. You understand that your mind is in a space. It gets into a space, and it depends on how strong that space, and sometimes there’s conflict, isn’t there?

It looks like that and it looks like that. And it looks like that. Ever go back and forth. I’m talking to is deep. That’s what it’s like to be human. It’s a difficult thing to be, and so you start catching on that, okay, I need to let go of myself. What does that mean? You don’t know it first. You don’t know what it means to let go of yourself, and little by little you start to catch on.

You can’t get slapped by life. Do you get slapped by life? Why? Because you’re not in harmony. If you are in harmony, why do you do drugs? Why do you do alcohol? Why do you do all kinds of things to make yourself feel better? Because you don’t feel well. Nobody does that stuff because they’re happy. And so you don’t even judge that.

You don’t judge that. Just understand. That’s tough though. Why? ’cause you have your preferences. You have your concepts, your views, your opinions, your hopes, your dreams. So what do you do? It starts small. I teach this all the time. How do you do this? I, I have preferences. How am I gonna not have preferences?

You start by practicing not having preferences. Well, how do you do that? I don’t know. It’s raining out. I don’t want it to rain. I want it to go play tennis and it’s raining. Are you okay with that? No. Be okay with it. Why should I? I’m not gonna answer that question because you’re gonna suffer if you don’t.

I always teach you the weather is your guru. If you would use the weather as your guru, where do you see how much you’re gonna grow? Why you can’t control the weather? It has nothing to do with you does it, but it seems that it has something to do with you. ’cause it’s not what you want. That’s the essence of it.

There’s the core of the spiritual path. It’s not what you want, but you have no right to have it not be what you want. All you’re gonna do is suffer. I use two things all the time and people yell at me for doing it. The driver in front of you ever not be okay with the driver in front of you? Do you talk to them?

Anybody ever talk to the driver in front of you? Does it do good? Okay. That’s where your work is. You start very small, really small and start noticing that preferences cause problems. People have road rage ’cause of how the driver in front of ’em is driving. They tailgate, they beep. Start there. Start there.

Believe it or not, that will take you there. You start with the driver in front of you. You start with the weather. The weather is going to be what it is. It has nothing to do with you. You have no right to even have a preference. It makes no sense. All it does is make you suffer. I prefer that it be this way.

I’m sorry. It’s not that way. I can’t handle it. There’s an next I can’t handle it. Can’t handle what? It not being the way I want. Ever been there? I can’t handle it. I, I like that. Let’s talk about that. Can you suffer? ’cause you can’t handle something. ’cause you can’t handle the reality What’s unfolding? If I love you, I don’t want you to suffer.

Especially for no reason. You don’t get to suffer because it’s raining. You don’t get to suffer. ’cause the schizophrenia is not driving properly. You don’t get to suffer ’cause somebody said something that you don’t like. Can you handle this? Somebody says something you don’t like. Do people get in moods?

What if somebody’s in a mood and they say something you don’t like? Can you handle that? Can you handle that? Or do they have to say they’re sorry or they have to prove that they won’t do it again? All of that is suffering, is it not? Do you want to suffer? I don’t want you to suffer. I don’t want you to suffer.

Bud didn’t want you to suffer. He taught how not to suffer, but it was big. He took big steps. I’m taking baby steps. If you can’t handle the weather, you don’t send a chance. You hear me? If your mine can’t handle the weather, if it’s in there saying, oh my God, I don’t wanna rain. I don’t have to rain, I didn’t wanna it to rain.

You are suffering. So if you don’t wanna suffer, then don’t do that. How do you not do that? You learn to let go. That’s what I learned my entire path. All these years. You learn to let go, to let go of what yourself. But I have things I want. Yeah, I know you do, but I prefer, I know. See, you won’t let go of yourself.

’cause you have preferences, you have fears, you have hopes, you have dreams. And I’m not letting go of those. I know you’re not until you have to. And it takes many, many lifetimes. And that’s what it’s all about. So you come in, you understand that I’m gonna start practicing letting go of myself. What does that feel like?

It doesn’t feel good at first. It doesn’t feel good. It feels like I’m missing out on something. I’m giving up on my dreams. And so you look at that and you say, but it’s always changing. I meet somebody I think differently. You can fall in love instantaneously or get repulsed by somebody or something, right?

It’s just so easy. It’s ridiculous. It changes all the time. Your mind changes all the time. Ever had your mind in a given space and all of a sudden something happened and all of a sudden in a different space. Of course it happens. Alright? It’s just messy in there. So what do you do? You start working on yourself.

You seriously start working on yourself. How do you let go? Okay, here I am. I have a preference. That’d be a big one. There’s a mosquito flying around, buzzing around my head.

I don’t like it. Is it causing you to suffer? A mosquito is causing you to suffer. Now, what do you do about it? That’s a whole different situation. You start by saying, I can handle it every time. I can handle it. But your mind doesn’t say, he says, I can’t handle this. You don’t ever say, I can’t handle this ever.

I can handle this. I can handle this. Start small. So, but it’s neat. People think that that’s surrender. I’m surrendering to mosquitoes buzzing around here. Do I have to leave it there buzzing around? No. Do I first have to let go? It’s not that I don’t swat at it. It’s not that I don’t do something that’s your business, which you end up doing with a stupid mosquito.

But there’s this moment. That you let go and say, I can handle this. I can handle the, okay, I handled it, I let go deal with it. So it’s not about not dealing with things, it’s about dealing with them from a place of peace. I’ve decided, okay, this’s ridiculous there. Bye-bye. I, I had a friend used to go back to God.

So I’m not telling you, I would never, ever tell you what to do about anything except first come to peace. Just first let go of yourself. Let go of the fact that you can’t handle it. ’cause if you can’t handle it, you’re gonna suffer. If you can handle it, you’re gonna deal with it. Do you understand the difference?

Surrender is different than people say, when I wrote, wrote the book, oh, you say yes to everything. That’s ridiculous. Of course you don’t say yes to everything. You just let go of yourself first. You first look inside and see, I can’t handle, this is bothering me. If I don’t do this, it’s gonna bother me. If I do, it’s gonna bother me.

I’m in trouble. Let go. Let go. How my experiences relax. Relax. Just relax. But I don’t wanna relax. I know you don’t wanna relax, but I can’t relax. Yes, you can. And here’s the difference. There’s the deepest thing I could ever teach you. It is not that. When you feel the tension, you feel the anxiety, you feel the need, you feel the hope.

You feel the desire that you try to make it relax. You don’t make anger, relax. You don’t make sexual drive. Relax. You don’t make fear. Relax. You don’t make hope. Relax. You relax. You relax. In the face of it, it’s like you’re in there and you’re gonna see the tendency to get tense. The tendency to grab either grab four or push away.

That’s what you’re doing. Something comes in, it’s not comfortable. Why is it not comfortable? ’cause I want it. I want to keep it. So it’s not comfortable ’cause I might lose it or I don’t want it at all and I push it away. That’s what you’re in there doing all the time. You don’t realize it because it’s so big.

You can’t get your arms around it. You’re always in there resisting or clinging. As a Buddhist turn, clinging. What does that mean? I want it to happen. I’m holding onto the thought. I’m holding onto desire. I’m holding onto the preference. I don’t want it to happen. I am pushing it away. I’m protecting myself from it.

I don’t wanna go through this. You’re always in there doing one of those two things, either repelling or grabbing. In the end, they’re both the same. If you grab for something, if you push it away, it stays. Let’s do that. Why do things stay in your mind? Why do things come back from your childhood? ’cause you held onto them?

You have will you have this thing called will you have power inside and you are the ultimate power inside. In fact. You are the only one in there. It’s a single occupancy apartment. You’re the only one living in there and you have free will. Alright? The trouble is that what you end up doing is what your mind wants end up doing, what the impressions left upon your mind that are carried forward throughout your life.

You end up doing those, but you used free will to do it. I’m gonna do this anyways. You have free will. What is will? I’ve described that to you before and I don’t know that anybody gets it. You go deep enough in meditation once you don’t understand what will is, okay. Are you conscious when consciousness focuses?

Can your conscious focus? Can you stare at something? Can you get involved in something? Can you get lost in something? Can consciousness focus on something? It’s always focusing on something until you get very high. We’ll talk about that in a minute. Your consciousness is distracted by thoughts and emotions and the world.

You hear a noise, boom. Conscious goes there. You have a thought, boom. You have a train of do. Do a train of thoughts, having a caught in a train of thoughts. Ever get caught in a thought, ever get caught in a thought. Just all of a sudden you have this thought and it’s like, what am I gonna do? I, and all of a sudden you’re thinking about that thought.

That means you’re focusing your consciousness. It got distracted by a thought. It got distracted by an emotion. It got distracted by the outside world. Can you get caught there? Can you, for days, years, I’ve met people that thought a certain way for a prolonged period of time. And then all of a sudden start thinking a different way and it just changed.

Can it happen? Answer me. Just get distracted by a different part of your being. You have different parts of your being in there. Don’t you just get distracted by a strong enough and you’re a different person. It’s hard to talk about this, isn’t it? No, it’s wonderful to talk about this. All it takes is a thought.

All it takes is meeting somebody. All it takes is somebody giving you an idea and next thing you go run with it. And there, there you are. It’s really beautiful to understand what’s going on inside. Is it not like that in there? And they try to say, well, how do I know what to do? That’s how you know what to do.

Let go. But but what do I hold on to? Nothing. Nothing. That’s what empty mind is. It means that’s not happening inside of you. You’re not getting lost in your thoughts. You’re not getting lost in your emotions. You’re not grabbing for pushing away. But normally we’re in there grabbing and pushing away, and so what happens is something comes in and we hold onto it.

Why it felt good. We don’t hold on. We push it away. We suppress it. That’s Freud’s word. There is suppression in there. What does that mean? It means it came in. I was not comfortable with it, period. And so I pushed it away. That’s what suppression is. Who pushed it away? You did. Who’s you? Your will. You focused your consciousness on it.

You cannot push it away without focusing on it. You cannot grab it without focusing on it. It’s all about the consciousness. The core of your being focusing on something, and when it does that, it’s very powerful, and that’s what suppression is. He talks about suppression, repression, denial. Those are, I’m in here.

I can’t handle it, so I’m pushing it away. The other is desire, hopes, dreams, constant views, preferences. Now I am wanting it. Now what do you do when you want it? You hold onto it. Oh my God. She kissed me. Oh my God. She kissed me. I’ll never forget that for the rest of my life. Oh look, she’s kissing other people.

What? You’re either grabbing onto it or pushing it away. That’s what you’re doing in there. A spiritual being does not do that. A spiritual being. Little by little catches on what? That’s crazy. A thought comes in my mind. I go with it. That’s just, just a thought. Where’d it come from? My past had an experience.

I had fun with that experience I didn’t like, and it just, it left this impression a samskara. It left an impression in my mind that is so powerful that I’m now going with it. It’s now gonna become the path of my life. I love you, but now I love her. I thought I wanted to do this, but now I wanna do that, but then I wanna do that.

People do that. They change constantly. They can’t get anything done. They get distracted by their thoughts. They get distracted by their emotions, always. That’s what a human being is. A human being is this sad thing that’s distracted all the time. That is the human predicament, and you can’t even decide what you want.

You see it, it goes back and forth and all over the place. ’cause you have all these different impressions that got made during your entire life. You love somebody. Oh my God, I’m so attracted to you. We’re going on a date. Oh, on a third date is so wonderful, right? You go there and you go to a certain place to eat and he slurps his soup.

Uncle George Slurped his soup, and I did not like Uncle George. He always pinched my cheek, or oh my God, he slurped his soup just like Uncle George. I love him. Have I exaggerated? Isn’t that amazing? Wake up. Wake up. That’s all that’s happening. These impressions are being left in your mind and in your emotions.

The heart and the mind, and they’re strong. They’re very powerful. Very powerful. Why? Because you’re trying to be okay. I wanna be okay. Of course you wanna be okay. And so what you do is grab onto what happened in the past that made you feel okay. And you grab onto what happened in the past that made you not feel okay, and you keep those things and you build in your mind this structure called your ego.

What is the ego? I. A psychological structure, a collection of thoughts and emotions that you held onto throughout your life and made a you out of it. I’m like this, I like this. I don’t like that. I’m this kind of person. I’m not that kind of person. And then you try to get what you want. I know it’s too deep, but we’re talking about, but are you willing to talk about it?

That’s what it’s like to live in there, isn’t it? You’re trying to be okay. How? By making happen again. What you thought made you okay last time by not happening again. What made you have problems last time? And then you built this structure and it’s called your self-concept. A concept is something that’s not real.

It’s a concept. That’s a self concept. That’s what your ego is. And then you live inside of that. And the problem is you get really stuck. Why? Because if you get what you want, you’re turned on. If you don’t get what you want, you’re turned off. And who doesn’t wanna be turned on? And so you’re out there grabbing and struggling and manipulating and controlling and doing every single thing you can to be okay.

Spirituality is about, the starting position is I’m the highest. Being that I’ve walked the face of the earth, I’m always okay. I’m never not okay. If I feel not okay, it’s ’cause I stored not okay inside of me. I stored inside my mind that I’m not okay. I stored inside my mind that people don’t like me. I stored inside my mind that I can’t handle this.

I stored inside my mind that I’m scared. I stored inside my mind and my heart. These impressions that got made during the course of my life, I’m now distracted by those so much that I don’t even know who I am. That’s what spirituality is, self-realization. All of a sudden, someday, I hope you find out who you are.

Who am I? You’re the being who’s in here. That’s conscious. That’s who you are. But the trouble is you built this structure around yourself, in your mind and in your heart, and now you say, that’s who I am. And the person who likes this, and the person doesn’t like that. I don’t like what you did. I don’t like what you said.

I like what you said. And you’re just bouncing back and forth. Spirituality is about getting out. You’re capable of getting out. You’re a very great being. You’re the highest being ever walked, the face of the earth. That’s what’s in there. Consciousness is the highest thing there is in the universe.

Consciousness is God. Consciousness is what God is. Awareness of being universal everywhere is at all place at all times. That’s what consciousness is. And then that consciousness, it’s distracted by what you stored inside your mind and it keeps you bound. What do you do about this? I told you, you first take a breath and you catch on.

That’s what’s going on. That’s what’s always going on. It’s not that this is different or that’s different. That’s what’s going on inside of me. I have this problem. I stored this stuff in here and the stuff that I store that I like, I go running after the thing that I store that I don’t like. I go running away and there you go.

Back and forth. So what do I do? You start small. You start with the weather and sit there and say, alright. What right do I have not to like the weather? What right do I have not to like the weather? That’s crazy. Why did I give myself that? Right? It doesn’t do anything to make you suffer. So what do I do?

Work with yourself like the weather, but I don’t like it. Learn to like it. Learn to like it. How? Positive. Thinking’s, nice mantra’s, nice. All your spiritual practices are about working with yourself, not going with yourself. Working with yourself. Letting go of yourself. Letting go of the part of you that thinks it has the right to like and not like.

That’s when it gets deep. When you start understanding who gave me the right to like and not like the world is unfolding, it’s enormous. It’s going on everywhere. I try to tell you, do you understand the moment you’re having right now, period. You’re having a moment. How many are you missing? How many other moments are going on all over the earth?

Forget earth, all over the universe that you’re not experiencing. So you’re experiencing one out of 700 billion zillion quillian things, and that’s what you pick up. You’re only picking up the moment you’re experiencing. How much is it compared to what is nothing. Therefore, you know nothing. That’s when you wake up.

You talked about becoming nobody. That’s what he’s talking about. You stop thinking, you know, anything, you stop thinking. It’s like stop thinking. Alright. There was a, a guy named Sufi Sam back in the sixties and he had a saying, you get more sting from thinking and you came from drinking. Alright? And so you come down, you understand you have work to do, but the work is real.

The work is never what you want it to be. It is sitting here saying, can I handle that? It is raining right now and you’re gonna have trouble. You have trouble handling. It’s raining. Does that make sense? How can you be happy? How can you be anything if you’re not in harmony with reality? And so you start sitting there saying, okay, I’m gonna learn to be in harmony with what is not with what I want, not my dreams, my hopes, my fears.

Those are just things that got stuck in my mind. In my heart, and I know I can’t let go of them right away. You can’t. You can’t. They’re too powerful. Some scars are extremely powerful. You’ve stored stuff in there that you can’t get rid of. It’s been there your whole life and you know it. You’re running away from it or you’re running toward it.

It can go, you can work with this. You can become liberated. You can become a great being, but you have to start with the small stuff. And so you start with, I told you, I remember literally I used to live out here alone and it was hot in the summer and I didn’t have air conditioning in the house, and I didn’t have an air condition in the van and nothing.

And he would complain, even though he is meditating six hours a day, he complained the rest of the time, right? I finally sat him down and I said. What’s the problem? What’s the problem? It’s hot. Why is it hot? The sun, he’s smart guy. The sun’s hot. And what is the sun? Mickey? And he said the magic words. He said, A star.

What? It’s a star. Are you telling me you’re close enough to a star to feel this heat? Is that what’s happening? Stars are pretty special things, aren’t they? They twinkle at night. No, they also shine in the day. It’s just a star and you’re close enough to the star to feel this heat. That’s pretty far out, isn’t it?

I said, think about it. There’s 300 billion stars in your galaxy and one of them is close enough to you to where you’re complaining about the heat. No, you shouldn’t be complaining. You should be rejoicing. It’s like, my God, how far away is that star? 93 million miles. Thing’s 93 million miles away, and you’re not getting in awe that you feel this brightness in its sun.

You start working with yourself to raise your consciousness not to get what you want. To let go of this concept of wanting and needing and hoping and dreaming instead. Now what is it? Every time I step outta a car, every time I feel that sun, I bliss out. Wow. 93 million miles away. And that’s one star.

Wait a minute, that’s 93 million miles away. Where are the rest of them? Do you know where your next nearest star is? 4.2 light years away. That don’t mean anything. Okay? I always teach you this. I can’t help myself grab a light beam. Boop, grab it with your finger. Hold it above the earth. Let it go for one second.

It circumnavigated the globe seven and a half times. Is that pretty fast? Go that speed for 4.2 years, you’ll get to the next star. Why do I teach you this? Are you kidding me? Why don’t you think about that? They said how hot it is. That’s your next star, and there’s 300 billion. How many galaxies are there?

The estimated 2 trillion. 2 trillion galaxies. Where’s your next galaxy? Next major galaxy in Andromeda. How far away is it? Andromeda. 2.5 million light years. So at that speed we just talked about go for two and a half million years. You’re never gonna get there two and a half million years. That’s your next galaxy.

How can you be having a problem? How do you have a preference? How do you have anything? It just should be like, wow. Wow. All the time. Why? Because you don’t think about that. You ignore the entire rest of the universe. You ignore the entire rest of the universe. You doing with your mind? Now, do you understand?

This is spirituality. You wake up and realize, what am I doing with my life? I’m wasting it. I’m wasting it. There’s this whole universe, and guess what? You are it you. Christian answer, Orah as a high beings, let’s get this right. We talk about this, right? Okay. Let’s say you let go of yourself. Let’s say you let go of yourself.

What does that mean? You let go of thinking about yourself. You make me cry. You let go of thinking about yourself. You’re so small. And all you think about is yourself. What do I want? What do you think? What can I get? What they think you are like caught in your mind. It’s just a fishbowl. Where’s the rest of the universe?

I don’t know. I don’t think about it. Well, maybe you should. It’s called elevating your Mind. There are great beings that have had the amazing experience that’s called enlightenment. What does that mean? Well, you’re gonna describe it pretty clean. When his guru touched him and gave him shati fuck. You don’t have to have, don’t you dare believe you’re capable.

You’re a great being. You’re whole and complete within yourself. Things can help you, but you can liberate yourself. You can free yourself. It’s all said and done. You are a great being. When Sho touched him, he’s mind his own business. All of a sudden, he merged with the universe. He merged with the universe.

He just, he became the stars. He felt his entire body expanding out of the speed of light in every single direction. All at once. His body was the stars in the galaxy, and that’s not a high state. There’s a higher state than that. That’s called Sabi, k Saudi. Where you merge with form, you merge all form.

Near Balpa is when you went beyond form, you merged back into the cause of creation. You are a great being. You are selling yourself rather short. It’s incomprehensible. I met somebody once. His name was Edgar Mitchell and he founded Ions Nstitute of Nordic Sciences. He’s an astronaut. He came and visited me, came and visited us, and he had that experience.

When he was coming back from the moon, he was looking out the window of this craft that he was behind, whatever, and he merged. He told me he just. His entire being and he said he’s a scientist, right? An engineer. He merged with the universe and he came back and devoted his life to saying, how does that happen?

How can my consciousness be the universe? How can it be formed? What’s the relation between consciousness and form? They studied this stuff. I don’t want you to study it. I don want you to be it. That’s the difference. Yes. Intellectually, it’s very interesting and fascinating inside you. Who’s in there?

You’re the greatest being able to face the earth. That’s what’s inside of you. That’s your consciousness, but it’s staring at you. It’s staring at what you want and what you don’t want, and what you like and what you don’t like, and your hopes and your dreams and your constant, your views. It’s staring at your mind.

That’s just your mind. It’s just the mind. Everyone’s got one. You have one. You have hopes and dreams and constant views and opinions and preferences. Those blah, blah, blah, blah. There. Everyone’s got one. That’s what, 8.3 billion of you running around. That’s why we don’t get along. We all had different impressions, so you get to the point we understand.

I started a discussion by saying, let’s talk about spirituality. That’s what we’ve talked about. You are a great being. You’re not this little begging little creature that’s trying to have things be the way you want or not be the way you don’t want. You are not that. You’re consciousness and that consciousness.

There’s just consciousness is a thing. It’s called awareness. It’s the most important thing in the entire universe. If you weren’t aware, you’re not here or you don’t exist, you understand that awareness is what gives meaning to life. Now, the question is, what are you aware of? A great being is aware of the self, is aware of who they are, the nature of self, and you are a great being.

But what if I’m depressed? You’re not depressed. You are not depressed. You’re staring at a depressed psyche. You God staring at this little thing that you made out of yourself. Just put it all together and glue it together. I’m depressed. I’m not happy. I want something. I want something. I’ll never be happy.

I get what I want. I have hopes and dreams and confidences and views. Fine. You’re a human. I’m sorry. Alright. Does anyone understand what we just talked about? Free yourself. Free yourself of yourself. We talk about this. What is freedom? Freedom is not freedom for yourself. It’s freedom from yourself. You wanna be free.

Let go of yourself. Just dare dare. It’s hard. It’s hard. You won’t do it all at once. Don’t worry about it. But you can work on it every day. Every day. Let go of another part of your ego, of another part of this conceptual thing that you built in there that thinks it knows what it’s talking about. Alright, I.

I love connecting with you at this level, right? You are a great being. Christ taught you that as I sit by the throne of my father, so you shall sit by my throne, and these things, which I do, should do these and even greater things. Sounds like you’re a great being the highest that could exist, right? Wake up.

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@michaelsingerpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. Sounds true. Waking up the world.