Moving from the Addict's "What If?" to the Higher Self's

 Can you do better with your mind?

Michael Singer ( Have this question down in my notes and assume that it comes from him. :))

Most of use the "what if?" question to serve the neurotic ego.  We listen to that part of our personal mind that wants to protect this self concept it convinces us we are. ..and we react to the life circumstances that have happened, are happening, and even to  what could happen... as we respond to the big "What if?".  "What if that mistake I made ten years ago  becomes known by all these people I am talking to now?  What if they all reject me because of it? What if my future is ruined because of it?" 

"What if"...is a dealers tool to get the addict using and to keep the addict using. The dealer will convince the addict that the answer to all their problems lies in the product they offer.  They convince the addict that they, as the dealer, will supply (at cost) what they need to feel safe, peaceful, and happy if they do what is needed. At first...they make access to the drug so easy. Then once the addict is hooked...they make the addict live off of the "What if I can't get what I want and need?" fear. The addict believes the dealer and will do what is ever necessary to get the drug.  The addict appreciates the dealer for leading them to the safety and the high they get in their substance. Then they begin their journey of  craving, seeking, and needing. Feeling so great when the thing is attained and in the system...feeling so sick when it isn't. Always compromising with the dealer, the addict is constantly pulled in this sick relationship.. Each high is only temporary.  It doesn't last.  It is conditional...only fueling this "I want, I need, I crave, I will do anything mentality". The addict lives with the fear, "What if I can't get what I want...what if I get what I don't want ( the pain of withdrawal)". It is a terrible cycle.

Well as Singer reminds us, we are addicted to our minds in the same way the heroin addict is addicted to their drug.  We listen, believe, and move according to the egoic mind's  "What if" mantra. We believe the dealer in our heads that tell us we need certain things in order to be okay...that we need to deny, or resist certain aspects of Life that keep us from feeling good.  The mental dealer convinces us that it knows best and we believe. We live in a perpetual state of "What if I can't get that thing I want to make me feel better inside?"  "What if this or that happens that makes me feel worse inside?" 

We are addicted to our mind and we care more about the thoughts in the mind and this idea we created than we do for our bodies. Michael Singer often uses the example of "Hamilton" to show how men used to dual to the death over an insult to their character-who they thought they were based on some mixed up concept of  "honor".  

We don't have to be addicts. We do not have to listen to the dealers. We should know by now how they tend to lead us into the craving cycle...how anything they offer us is so conditional and temporal...not lasting.  We are not the egoic parts of our mind.  We are not our thoughts. We are not the self-concepts we created.We need to counter the egoic mind's "what if"  with a more positive "what if" coming from the higher part of us.

Huh? 

Right now, as thought addicts, we feel so dependent on the egoic mind for protection. We feel like victims to life and our only option for semblance of control or happiness is to listen to and follow the mixed up directions of our thinking.  We really adhere to the sick "What if's" of the egoic mind. 

Recovery takes time...it will take time to break away from this dependency but in the mean time there might be something we can do.

What if we begin changing that "what if" to something more positive?  What if instead of applying the 'what if'  in front of all the terrible things that could happen to our bodies, or our minds...our self concepts, if Life doesn't behave the way we assume it should... we applied to it some deeper and more life affirming scenario.  What if we began with, "These Life circumstances are exactly what I chose for my growth.  I don't have to listen to any dealers in my mind. I don't have to live in fear of "what if" "

Anyway, I will get back to this in a bit.

All is well in my world.

Dr. Sue Morter. (2019) The Energy Codes. Atria: New York

Michael A. Singer ( April 7, 2025) You Are Not your Thoughts: From Mental Noise to Inner Peace.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP56tHfI0PA&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2

Answers from Birds?

 A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.

Maya Angelou

I watched the birds for a few minutes when I woke up.  There were flocks of Yellow Grossbeaks, a few Jays and some Chickadees filling the bare trees with their bodies and their song. They seem to intentionally make their appearance obvious to me, some mornings.  

It had snowed last night and their food was covered.  They needed someone to go out and swoop off the snow and refill the feeder.  D. offered to do so.  As he was getting ready, a pair of mourning doves landed on a wire outside my window and I almost swear they were looking in at me trying to tell me something lol. All spring and summer we hear the mournful callings of these lonely birds as they search for their mate ...but this morning I seen two happily sitting together staring in at me. What wisdom were they trying to share with me as I contemplate my own relationship, I wonder. 

All is well!

Falling Back into Resignation or Moving Forward into Power and Acceptance?

 ...we see life as happening to us and believe we can't have an impact. We are completely unaware of ourselves as influencers and creators and therefore feel a strong sense of fatalism and resignation. We believe we are unable to do what we want because of opposing outside forces that seem to be beyond our control. ...We may simply be going through the motions, believing this is what we have to do, because this is the way life is. 

Dr. Sue Morter, The Energy Codes, page 28

A pretty gloomy way to start an entry? Maybe...but it is this passage from the book that opened me up. I read it and instantaneously I was shouting out to my cats, (who at this point are very worried about my mental health and therefore my ability to continue to provide them their back scratches, meals and snacks at the times they have me scheduled to do so), "Yes! Yes! Thank you! Thank you!".

You see, there was one word in there that made all the difference...that showed me where I really was on this waking up journey.  

Let me explain ...

Do you remember what it was like to stumble over a very long and complicated math equation...never quite being able to get the answer and not sure what you were doing wrong (well...that was the story of my life when it came to math but..).  You thought you were following all the steps correctly but you just couldn't arrive at the right answer.  Someone comes along and erases all the stuff down to the first or second part of the equation. They show you where you were making your mistake and tell you to start from there...and there is this sense of "aha! I see now."  Well,  it was like Dr. Sue Morter erased this equation I was working on for years down to where I was making the mistake and I can now see a way to the correct answer. How did she do that? She used the word...one word... that pened up the equation for me. What was that word?  Resignation. I read that word and I could suddenly see that I was mixing up "acceptance" with "resignation". That was the one thing that was not letting me move forward.

Acceptance is not Fatalistic Resignation

I do believe in the need for acceptance of Life as She is. I believe we need to open and allow what unfolds in front of us to pass through.  I see so clearly how resistance to what is, is the biggest problem in a human's Life. We need to learn to let go and accept! That acceptance, that allowing, that embracing Life without resistance is not, however, the same as fatalistic resignation. I was confusing the two. I was thinking I was advancing quite far  in this living equation because I seemed to be resigning to whatever Life threw my way  but no matter how hard I worked at this equation doing it this way, there was never any  proverbial check marks or gold stars...just a lot of "Try again". I couldn't get past the sense of  "suffering". 

Why? Because I was resigning to this tagline:

"Life is happening to me, and I have no control over it. This is just the way life is." page 28 

I became aware that was confusing the beautiful power of acceptance with victimhood and giving up. That meant realizing that I was not as advanced on this journey as I thought I was.   I thought I was especially advanced because I had recognized my attempts at redeeming the "little me/ ego/ or what Sue Morter calls, "The Protective Personality" as being fruitless and counterproductive to my mission. So, I gave that up. I didn't, however, give up my sense of helplessness. I was not going to arrive at the correct answer the way I was going. I see how necessary it is to come back to this point before I can go farther. 

Three Stages: Victimhood, Self- Help, and Creatorship.

You see, Sue Morter explains that there are three stages to waking up (to answering this big life equation) . Two stages are on the back side of a coin and one is on the front side. The first stage, on the back side,  is called "Victimhood" and is centered around this fatalistic resignation and what I see as "learned helplessness". It is a stage of languishing and "stuckness" where I am realizing I still am. Sigh.

The second stage, on the back side of the coin, is the "Self-help" stage.  This is a stage where I spent most of my life trying to redeem my little self ...

"Instead of being resigned victims we get the idea that something could change; we could be happier or healthier or more respected and honored. "...if we do this or that and keep working hard. 

Sure, Life is still happening to us in this stage ...but we convince ourselves if we work really hard we can fix it and us.  We feed and build the ego here.  I see this as the stage where "Redeemer Ego" flourishes and we have a psuedo sense of approaching success (which is peace, freedom, happiness)...never quite get it and if we do it is conditional and short lived...but hope pulls us along. It is a very problem centered stage. It is also a stage of resisting what is. 

So, I realized somewhere along the line that stage two is not the stage to be in.  I realized I didn't want to feed an ego.  I also realized that resistance was not the way to go.  I knew acceptance of what is was the true way to go. I didn't, however, recognize this truth as a powerful high energy human.  I still don't completely. My mind keeps telling me that Life is still happening to me and I believe it.  So instead of moving into acceptance of what is in a state of free flowing shakti recognizing its power (which is stage 3 of the coin on the front side), I slipped back into stage one mistakenly thinking I was moving on because I was accepting Life. I was settling into a limited experience of helplessness again. Peace...in the form of a certain freedom from at least some of the suffering... was my polestar. I was not accepting Life as it is from a state of realizing who I truly was.  I was slipping back into a state of resignation as a powerless victim and using some of those tools I learned in stage 2 to "make the best of it". Sure, there is less angst here, less resistance and struggle than there was the first time I was here, or than there was in stage 2...but there is still a sense of suffering and a "life struggle". I am not touching shakti. I haven't solved the equation.  And I won't here. 

Not Yet There

Sigh. That was a big realization for me. There are times I conceptually and intellectually step into the third stage. I see a melting away of my 'Protective Personality', albeit slowly. I do accept  the circumstances of my life and find myself less and less labelling them as "good/bad; right/wrong/ or should/ should not be." I do often find myself in profound gratitude for life and all its mysteries. I know that I am not my mind or body....but...

I lack the trust and faith that Life has my back. I don't embody or holistically ascribe to the tagline:

"Everything that happens in my life is always in my favor, and I created it on some higher level of my own consciousness for the purpose of discovering my own magnificence." page 32

I have yet to get to this point:

...we must go beyond knowing intellectually that we are energy or spirit, and actually embody our energetic or spiritual nature. We must literally bring our energy to life in the physical body and identify as that energy. page 32

My life doesn't yet  reflect this knowing.  There is some stuck and twisted up energy reflecting itself in my circumsatnces. I need to switch out the resignation for a higher energy form of acceptance. I see that now.

I am grateful to have the top part of my equation erased so I can see where I have erred.  It is good to be honest with ourselves and to recognize and know where we are at, so we can take the next best step on to the right path to where we want to be.

All is well.

Dr. Sue Morter ( 2019) The Energy Codes.  New York: Astria.

What I learned from a Michael Singer Podcast

 

You are a being of Light!...It is not mystical! It is real!

Michael Singer

OMG ! I loved when I heard Michael Singer begin his podcast today by saying that he didn't like  the "Law of Attraction." I knew instantly ...I would get something from this video. I knew it would speak to this that I am beyond the "me" today.  And it was exactly what I needed to fall back a little farther, away from ego,  into this "I am".

I discovered recently that my awakening process, albeit a slow one lol, involves the use of my intellectual mind. For some reason, I cannot just "feel" truth ...I have to understand it and know it first. Words, concepts, teachings  are a part of that process for me. (Not sure if that is because I spent so much of my life learning in and out of the educational system or because I spent so much of my life teaching in one way or another). As limiting as these things might be they are pointers to a greater truth within me that can only be felt and experienced. So, I bombard myself with these pointers...seeking, seeking; finding teachers who make sense to me...and then filtering teachers and teachings from my life experience as I process the direction these pointers are taking me. I am very selective. 

Though I begin with concepts I don't follow the pointers unless "I feel" what is being said, unless it resonates with something within me.  When a concept, idea, or teaching resonates in me...I feel and I experience it viscerally.  When I have an "aha moment", learning something I already knew but forgot, I  literally vibrate a bit from my solar plexus outward.  It makes sense to my gut brain I guess. I find myself straightening up saying to the air in front of me, "Yes!  Yes! Thank you! Thank You!" 

As I was listening to Michael Singer this morning, I felt that vibration. For sure...he is a teacher for this that I am beyond the "me". I knew that from the first chapter of "The Untethered Soul".  I guess his intellectual and practical approach matches my intellectual and practical approach.  I feel we are on the same wave length, if that doesn't make me sound 'grandiose'. Still, I know he 'teaches' me from a place I have yet to touch, because I have so many "aha moments" with him....that lead me closer to that place. Today was one of those days where I fell  back a little deeper into the "I am". 

 I also felt a twinge of that 'spark'...if you want to call it that... the other day when I was listening to Dr. Sue Morter speak to Andre Duqum in a podcast. I found myself on my feet shouting, "Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you!  Thank you! Thank you!" My cats thought I was crazy. I could feel that vibration in my gut...that feeling so much like 'hope' but more powerful and less ego related. I orderd her book.

I was getting ready to "test the teacher" like I did with so many others. At the same time I heard Michael Singer say, "Why do you want to play with energies. If you can't handle your life now, how are you going to handle all that energy flowing through you?" (or something like that.) I felt myself questioning and cautious. Still, I was going to test the teaching and teacher by reading the book. 

My practical intellectual mind has to be convinced first.  So, as I began to read I found this mind soothed by the great writing, the clear articulaton of concepts, and the teaching itself. I began to underline. I underlined and underlined and underlined stuff that clicked. I began to "feel" the truth of what she was saying. It wasn't new stuff...just a new approach to understanding it.  I even had an "aha moment" that cleared up sooo much confusion I have had about something for so long. ( I will share in another entry). I felt my belly vibrating and myself saying to the air, "Yes! Yes! Thank you! Thank You!"

What cemented it for me was when I opened up Michael Singer's podcast today and he was speaking to the same thing I was reading in the book. Serendipity! It was like a sign from him and/or the universe, if you will, saying, "It's okay! This teaching and teacher are okay! They showed up exactly when you needed them to for a reason.  They will take you a step deeper away from ego and into Self ( Soulful Self). " 

And I am filled with this "hope-like " feeling again.

Spoiler Alert!!

Wow! Anyway I am just going to quote, summarize, and paraphrase  what I heard in the podcast today.  Please listen to the podcast for yourself before you go on any farther! 

Michael Singer began by introducing the "law of attraction" and his feelings about it.  Then he relayed two stories of serendipity. 

The first story: Michael Kane wanted to read from a very rare book instead of a script for a part he was playing in a school play. (The play was written from this book). He was looking for the book everywhere in London, going from store to store, and couldn't find it. It was very rare. One day, after an exhausting search, he went down to the subway station waiting for the tube. He sat down on a bench and looked down and there was the exact  book he was looking for. 

The second story: In 1973, Michael Singer picked up a hitch hiker in his VW van and took him quite a distance.  On the drive they spoke about the picture of Yogananda Singer had on his dash. Eventually, the hitch hiker was dropped off .  A decade or so later Michael Singer had to travel to Boston for work.  Hungry, because he hadn't eaten all day, he found himself that evening searching through Harvard alley for a vegan restaurant...He searched and searched but there didn't seem to be any food options that would meet his needs...until out of nowhere he looked down an aisle to see a sign "Today's special brown rice and vegetables" . He went there and was served by a fellow who for some reason kept staring at him. At the end of the evening the man approached and asked if he was "Mickey Singer". (At this point Michael Singer would not have been known to the public as he is now). When Singer said yes, the man proceeded to tell him that he was the guy he had picked up in 1973. He told him that he was in a very dark place during that drive but after their discussion on Yogananda, he had gone on to purchase "An Autobiography of a Yogi" and that it had saved his life. 

So, the rest of the following is what I gathered from listening to the podcast. He seemed to be saying that the law of attraction is real; it isn't mystical; but we can't use it to serve ego. He then went on to say there is so much we cannot see but that doesn't mean it isn't there...

"This is not the only plane"...

It is an infinite universe...our instruments are just limited in what they can measure. ...we cannot see past the electromagnetic spectrum with our tools...but there has to be other planes...they are just more subtle

Sri Baba could manifest piles of ash from an empty jar, reciting to those who witnessed... " I will give you what you want...a miracle...so you give me what I want...your ego." 

Most of us are taking the infinite spaciousness of consciousness and staring at little me stuff...we are contracting it...

Stop staring at you, you start to feel more of the universe...you are a part of it." 

Stop staring at your stuff. 

Most of us are married to the physical plane so we dont feel the higher energies...we dont feel the shakti...that energy is higher than the physical plane 

There are four forces science talks about: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force,  and weak nuclear force....but there is also another force science doesn't talk about "will power"...volition...which is also capable of changing the physical plane by using a power higher than the physical plane.

You are a being of light!

Healers don't do the healing...they get out of the way so the high energy can come through.

"It is not mystical!"  It is physics and meta physics...we just do not have the instruments to measure it yet

There is God manifest and God unmanifest. The field before it vibrated/manifested is the unmanifest God  ...Brahman...With the vibration "Om" It becomes God manifest. Yogis knew this long before science did. They understood the ripple, the vriti....that all matter comes from a vibration on the stillness. Then quantum physics discovered the same thing at Cern...

Man minus mind=God...Meher Baba

When you stop staring at yourself there is God...

It is just different vibration rates and consciousness is the cause of the vibration

It is all God...including you

What is the quantum field?  God!

There is nothing higher than consciousness.

Most of us live off our ego.

Humility is not something you make yourself be...

Liberation is not having a big ego...it is about not staring at your ego.

Freedom in not freedom for your self...it is freedom from yourself.

Even scientists answer the question "What was there before the big bang?"...The universe is infinite...was and always will be...

There is law of manifestation and law of attraction? Yes it works but be careful...

If we operate from ego...we attract something the ego feels it is missing. We use it to build ego...

The cause of every single thing that is what is wrong on this plane is becasue of the ego...

Seek thee first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things will be added on to you..Matthew 6:33.

Don't seek from the ego

A great being has no hopes and dreams.

There are no psychological needs ...we just believe there is...

You have been gifted with a mind and that which comes into it without your effort...we don't think...thoughts come in...

You have everything but screwed self up by not appreciating it...

The truth of the matter is you are a great being but you dont feel like it because you are limiting your Self by staring at your ego

Recognize and appreciate all that you are.

Wake up! You are way greater than this...

No one sees what you see...the meaning of your life is to offer this unique perspective to consciousness

These things you call mystical are real....

Be the one who notices it, instead of the one that says "I  have to chnage it." 

That is what real power is about....the power to accept.

Anyway this was the podcast I "felt" and "experienced" today. 

All is well!

Michael A. Singer ( April, 2025) Beyond the Law of Attraction: The True Nature of Reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NhbJkRmZys

Exploring "The Energy Codes"

 Since the beginning of our days on earth, we humans have looked for ways to engage with our true, limitless nature as spiritual beings (our Soul or Soulful Self) and transcend the small, limited, fearful, and pain-riddle identity (our ego, or Protective Personality) where we spend so much of our lives. 

Dr. Sue Morter, The Energy Codes, page 5.

Hmm!.  Taking a bit of caution with me as I explore the question, "Do I want to play with these energies within me.  And if I do, who exactly is "qualified" to guide me?" ...I am beginning to read and study "The Energy Codes".

I am not sure if I will go beyond "looking into" this methodology. I am not sure the author is "qualified" ...but I am willing to read and explore what she has to say with an open mind. So far she seems intelligent, articulate, and wise...her writing is tight and succinct. I like what she has to say and I like how she says it. We will see.

All is well. 

Seeking the Unspeakable

Seeking the Unspeakable

I have been seeking some form of satori for many years.  Not for the high, high energy flows, the Siddhis or even the Bliss....I was just looking for peace. 

Still...I have been looking into yoga energy in hope of having it clean me out. I thought, "Hmm...it would be so cool to be free of all this junk in me, to be at peace all the time, no matter what is going on.  Satori might help with that." 

Well, Michael A. Singer made a statement from the below video that left me thinking and understanding that what I really want from this state is "escape" from this world as I know it.  I am seeking a way out of this "what isness" this human I call me is experiencing because it is often too uncomfortable for the psyche. 

He asked something to the effect.

"How are you going to handle all those high energy flows if you can't even handle  this everyday stuff?"

That made me think and agree. That is what brought me once again from Yoga to contemplation of the Buddhist philosophy.

Spirituality isn't about escaping "what is".  It is about embracing it. We find peace in that.

What is it like to have satori?

It is like ordinary everyday except  about two inches off the ground. (D.T. Suzuki)

..marvelous power and supernatural activity...drawing water and carrying wood (Layman Pang)

What is Zen?

When hungry eat...when tired...sleep.

The goal of action is contemplation. Alan Watts

Hmm!

All is well.

Michael A. Singer ( March, 2025) Mastering Life: The Art of Handling Everything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlNkggVrXGM&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2

T.H. Inspiration. (October, 2024) Alan Watts for When You Need to Stop Thinking.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVerqpMjYYg

Handling It?

 You either handle Life or you don't handle Life.

Most of us are not trying to deal with reality. We are trying to feel better and are doing whatever we can to make it feel better in here.  We use defense mechanisms...we push away, avoid, deny, repress, suppress, displace, project etc etc....we resist!

Spiritual growth is all about learning to handle it.

All is well

Michael A. Singer ( March, 2025) Mastering Life: The Art of Handling Everything.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlNkggVrXGM