There is only one consciousness. It has always been there. It has no age; it has no gender; it has no likes or dislikes; it has no preferences; it has no hopes; it has no dreams. It is just aware.
Michael A. Singer
Whenever I listen to or read great lines of wisdom that resonate within me as truth, I squibble down notes. (Been in school a little too long maybe, lol) As I was listening to Michael A. Singer in this podcast today (which may or may not be a recycled one), I wrote down the following lines. Some of it is directly quoted, most of it is paraphrased.
On What We really are
There is nothing solid inside of you...You are more ethereal than air...everything passes through...you are a clean being
Most of us see ourselves as the body and mind, as the this individual idea of "me" that we have built up over the years based on our learned experiences, our preferences, our likes and dislikes etc. We see tis me to be as "solid" and as "real" as the body itself. We have come to believe over the years that something is only real if we can see it, touch it, smell it, hear it, taste it. Therefore we fail to consider the "essence" of something, the formless, invisible nature of it. Who we are at the deepest level is this invisible, formless essence. Our attachment to solidity often keeps us from experiencing the True Self.
This True Self is awareness
On the Psyche
Every moment is the sum of its learned experiences. Your psyche is the sum of your learned experiences ( what you consider to be 'you or your life').
What we call "me" is just the psyche and it isn't who we are at the deepest level. Yet, we spend so much time, as awareness, staring at it, we come to believe it is all we are.
"If you touch it it will stick"
So, as our ethereal , spiritual, formless nature...all of life's experiences are meant to pass right through us. But they don't, do they? Instead of simply observing, experiencing, and letting go we reach out our physical hands and our non-physical mental hands to touch certain things as they pass through. The mind attempts to grab each thing and categorize it into certain storage chambers. Those that we want repeated and those that we do not want repeated. The only things that pass through, without us touching them, are the neutral events. Everything we touch sticks...forming our likes and dislikes, our desires and aversions, our samskaras and therefore our psyches- this idea of a personalized me. This me leaves very messy, clogged, and blocked insides.
"Anything you store inside destroys your life"
it stops you from "being here now"
We may erroneously believe it is just the so-called "negative" experiences we stored inside that makes our lives difficult, as we do everything we can to avoid repeating them or reliving the painful emotions they generated. But even when we grab the positive things our lives are effected because we will spend the rest of our lives clinging, or attempting to recapture and relive such experiences. It will be like chasing the dragon. Our focus and attention will consistently be on getting what we want...focusing on the future, reliving those memories of the past...we will not be fully here, in this moment.
Anything you push away stays inside of you....anything you resist persists
We also erroneously believe that when we avoid the unpleasant by pushing it away, we are somehow getting rid of it, when instead we are pulling it in and down. We are storing it inside. We are clinging to it. It does not go away, it persist inside us like an infection brewing under the surface. When you experience a painful loss and do not deal with it head on because your mind tells you you can't handle it ...the pain and the debris of that loss just gets buried inside you by your own hands. It will linger and arise to the surface whenever it has the chance. It, like all experiences in Life, is meant to flow through but your resistance allows it to persist.
Psychology is based on the fact that you can't handle it.
Psychology deals with the mind and mind's use of unhealthy defense mechanism of repression and suppression when we are dealing with reality. It, however, doesn't help us to accept reality. It helps to keep this self made and unreal entity called the "psyche" functioning. So its goal is to help unblock us...not to set us free, however, but to allow the psyche to flourish in a "normal" way. Remember, just because something is normal, doesn't mean it is healthy. To be heathy at the deepest level means to recognize the unwholesome nature of and let go of the psyche all together...which would mean going beyond the limitations of psychology.
Is the world more negative than positive? No. It is because you have a small list of what you call "positive", that you perceive more experiences as"negative."
It seems that we have so much more negative experiences and that we tend to store more negative stuff. That is only becasue we have very small, clearly defined lists of our expectations, what the world should be like to match our desires. Does that mean the world is negative? No. something isn't bad, wrong, shouldn't be just because we have defined it as such, just because it doesn't match what we want. The statistical probability that the world can match what we have on these lists is miniscule! The world isn't negative. It is just not matching our criteria.
No one can think like you do because they have totally different experiences...
The same goes with other people. They are not bad, wrong, or shouldn't be just because they do not match our expectations of what they should be like. They have their own short lists remember? What is the statistical probability that what is on their lists will match what is on ours. The problem is not them. The lists we make are the problem. Their learned experiences leading them to like or dislike, be attractive or repulsive, do or say certain things are unique to them, just as your learned experiences that make up your psyche are unique to you. The chances of the expectations and needs, and desires of us and someone else matching perfectly are very small. So yeah, other people are going to disappoint us as long as we are clinging to these lists of expectations, demanding others be a certain way so as not to disrupt our samskaras inside. We, in turn, are going to disappoint others.
everything that is happening in front of you has a history and that history has nothing to do with you
The same with life events. They are not personal. Life is not here to give us what we want . There were many causes leading to each effect that unfolds in front of us. It isn't about us.
What is the probability that that moment is going to match what is going on in your head?
You are a very great being staring at something that is not so great,That doesn't mean you are not okay...you are just staring at something that is not....the psyche.
We are not the psyche. We are the Observer of the psyche which is much greater than the psyche could ever be. This infinite, powerful awareness is who we are and it is so often narrowly focusing and concentrating on something that is not okay- this disturbed mess we call "me". That doesn't mean we, at the deepest level, are affected by what we are staring at. We are the light that is shining and just like the light is never contaminated by that which it is focusing on, we are not affected by that lower stuff we are paying attention to.
On True Spirituality
True spirituality is not about attracting, manifesting or getting what you want...spirituality is the ability to learn to handle life.
Spirituality is not about making the world be something it isn't so it suits us. It is about removing our attention from the personal messes we created and looking upward. It is all about accepting the world exactly as it is and learning to handle it. When we take this approach, we wake up each day to say, "Oh good morning world...I am back...I wonder what will happen today. Can I handle the reality that is unfolding in front of me today? Going to learn to...this is my practice.This is why I am here. "
Singer assures us when we take on this practice/sadhana we will go up. We will stop looking down and start moving up energetically. We will feel better and better, regardless of what is happening around us. Understanding that we, as the light that is shining, are not contaminated by that which we are shining on, will keep us up.
Like looking down at tumultuous water from a high bridge...every now and again the water gets so rough a few tiny splashes reach you and you realize, "Oh God, I use to be down there swimming around in that" Ram Dass (paraphrased)
We do not need to drown in these inner messes we created. We can clean up the mess inside so there are no sticky blockages and so Life, in whatever form it unfolds in front of us, can flow through...so who we really are can flow through, up and out.
The Yogi merges back into the depth of infinite awareness like the drop of water merges back into the ocean
We are not that which we have been erroneously shining on for so long. We are the light that is doing the shining. We are awareness. When we truly realize this we merge back into that awareness, like the drop of water which was always the ocean merges back into that. There is no separate "me".
You need to be willing to work your way out of yourself
The work we are to do here is to simply get out of our identification with this individual and personal self, this idea of "me", to realize who we really are at the deepest level
...let go of your resistance to dying to be reborn
We need to eventually do as Christ says, and die to be reborn.
All is well!
Michael Singer/Temple of the Universe (December 3, 2023) Shifting the Pull Downward to Upward. https://tou.org/talks/
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