Michael Singer: Living From a Place of Surrender — Insights at the Edge

welcome to insights at the edge produced by sounds true my name is Tammy Simon I'm the founder of sounds true and I'd love to take a moment to introduce you to the new sounds true foundation the sounds true foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser in kinder world by making transformational education widely available we want everyone to have access to transformational tools such as mindfulness emotional awareness and self compassion regardless of financial social or physical challenges the sounds true foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need including at-risk youth prisoners veterans and those in developing countries if you'd like to learn more or feel inspired to become a supporter please visit sounds true foundation org you're listening to insights at the edge today is a rebroadcast of one of my favorite episodes I hope you enjoy you're listening to insights at the edge today my guest is Michael singer Michael singer is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller the untethered soul and the surrender experiment in 1971 while pursuing his doctoral work in economics Michael experienced a deep inner awakening and went into seclusion to focus on yoga and meditation in 1975 he founded the temple of the Universe a yoga and meditation center where people of any religion or set of beliefs can come together to experience inner peace through the years Michael has made major contributions in the area of business the arts education health care and Environmental Protection which sounds true Michael singer has created a new eight-week online course called living from a place of surrender the untethered soul in action and you can visit sounds true calm for more information in this episode of insights at the edge michael and i spoke about why he believes that surrendering to the moment is the highest spiritual practice there is we also talked about how to recognize in our own experience when we aren't surrendered and how to take a witness position and relax any sense of holding we also talked about surrendering and the decision-making process how to surrender to the weather whatever it is and how to bring surrender to the issues we care about like environmentalism and civil liberties here's my conversation on living from a place of surrender with Michael singer Michael you've written a book called the surrender experiment and now with sounds true have created a new eight-week online course living from a place of surrender and where I'd love to start is for you to describe to our listeners what it means to you to live from a place of surrender very good like with most spiritual topics they get very deep but let's see how simply can keep it if we pay attention we will realize that every moment around us there is a world that we do not create that's been there for 13.8 billion years and you know there's trillions of cells in your body that are doing they're supposed to do all of nature everything and you wake up and you realize I'm not doing any of this I didn't make my body I didn't make my mind sink I don't make my heart breathe be thou make my breath breathe etc etc yet I have this notion that I have to make things happen yet all throughout the universe things are happening everywhere and I'm not doing them so why exactly am I the one that's in charge what's unfolding in front of me and what you realize at some point is that you're not the moment in front of you that's unfolding is no different than all the zillions of other moments that aren't in front of you that are unfolding in accordance through laws of nature the laws of creation and so you start to practice saying I don't want to check inside of me first to see what I want and what I don't want I want to pay attention to what the universe is creating in front of me just like it's creating Everywhere's when I'm not and let me see how I can participate in that be part of that instead of interfering with it with my desires in my fears that's living from a place of surrender I want to ask you some questions about the practical application of that viewpoint I noticed when I was reading the surrender experiment the question that kept coming up for me is so many people as representatives of the universe in the moment want something from you I'm imagine I know in my own life lots of people seem to want things from me and if I just surrendered and said I surrender to your request to do this or that I would be so overbooked I mean don't I have to check in and say hmm does this work for me does it not work for me there's a beautiful question of course I expect you to be deep in you are it has nothing to do with that it's a whole paradigm shift it's not a question that has the universal falls in front of you including people like of a lion jumps at you but do I just surrender and let him eat me right that's not what it's saying what it's saying is you check outside first you look with a place of clarity and what clarity means is I'm not being disturbed by my psyche by the impressions got left on me personal things based on my past experiences so I look outside and I see a lion is jumping at me well obviously I have an obligation to serve my body all right I'm the center of will I am going to do every single thing I can just like anybody else to protect my body if 15 people come up to me and they start demanding things of me because they are coming from their places of needs and desires I am NOT gonna look inside and look at the part of me that's freaking out and say I don't want to do this oh my god is uncomfortable there's too many people because that doesn't know what it's talking about it's just a bunch of noise I'm gonna look outside and see what is the path that of right action what is the path through this that respects everybody and respects the reality of time the whole point is it's not that you're not interacting with what's happening is that you're not interacting based upon your own preferences your own desires and your own fears you're still interacting you will make much better decisions because that eventually that your desires in your fears every single one of them are impressions left from the past whatever is happening now reminds you of something it wasn't comfortable or imagining was comfortable and so you're really making decisions now that are out of harmony with what's happening they're just in harmony with your past experiences you had which have nothing to do with right action or good decisions so this got this idea of letting go of yourself first and then listening seeing and interacting in the highest possible way with the universe's unfolding in front of you doesn't mean you're saying yes to every single thing or no to every single thing that people are telling you you're you're listening to it with a deeper place inside of you than your personal desires and fears no in talking about how we have each been conditioned by what's happened to us in the past in the online course living from a place of surrender you talked about this predicament that we're each in and you talk about these some scara's which is a term from yoga philosophy and I wanted to talk about this and your understanding of some scara's but even more importantly how do we release ourselves from the conditioning of our past it's a beautiful question and that's really what the course is all about really is some scars is just a Sanskrit word it's using the yoga word because that's what's been used for thousands of years it just basically means when an event happens to you and you either really really don't like it excuse me or you really really do like it you don't let it go if you don't like it you push it away because you don't want to experience it and that is typical psychology suppression repression what resistance call it what you want all right you just push it because you don't want it coming so close to you and when you do that it stays inside of you because you didn't let it go and likewise when things happen to that you really really like you don't want to let them go so you do a Buddhist call cling you cling to them you hold on to them inside so you can feel them again experience them again in your mind and so on so those are what some scorers are these pieces that you've held inside of you from your past and what happens is they keep coming back up and they keep interfering with your ability to see what's happening now because they get stimulated by the rate they react if you will to the moments that are unfolding in front of you and the next thing you know you're not experiencing what's happening in front of you you're experiencing your reaction to what's happening in front of you so eventually you will find that this is quite disturbing and it keeps you from living a full life and fully experiencing life the question of how to let them go it turns out is very simple doesn't mean it's easy but it's simple is they will come up periodically on their own and what you'll find is that you have an opportunity to either push them back down cling to them keep them or to let them pass through it's that simple but nobody will do it and that's why we have all these techniques all the techniques everything meditation mantra there's that everything are all about since you're not willing to just let it go when it comes up let's develop some practices that keep you busy that help you focus on something else etc etc so that these things have room to come up but when it's all said and done you need to let this stuff go whatever works for you but you need to understand if you're one of a full life you can't be running around running after these reactions that were left and they're from the past so that is that is the essence of what the course teaches is how to do that how to use every moment of your life to let go of the garbage you collected inside of you mm-hmm Michael I wonder to make it concrete for our would you be willing to give an example from your own life when you saw something coming up and you thought oh this is clearly some conditioning from my past and here's a chance to let go of it I will I talk about this in the surrender experiment I talk with a very powerful moments in my life where my conditioning for the moment was resisting what was going on but I had made a pledge to myself that I was not gonna let that run my life so I tell a story that I had moved out to the woods to meditate or make a very spiritual move out to the woods to meditate and I was doing very very intense practices and solitude etc etc but I still was on my doctoral program in economics University of Florida and I was on fellowship so I was teaching a class three times a week I'd go in and instead of this intense solitude I'd be in the class and one day the chair of the department came up to me and said that I had been asked to tutor the president of a local Community College through his doctorate by the governor of the state of Florida and I had no contact with these people that I was a tough student and so they looked at my record and said this guy you can you can help him through he can ride on your coattails and there was nothing inside of me I wanted to do this I just wanted to get back out to the woods to meditate my mind was driving me crazy was saying I'm not gonna do this and I took one look at that and just saw I don't want that noise running my life I have no idea what this is about it doesn't fit what I want I'll say that right now doesn't fit my concept of where I think I'm going but it is unfolding in front of me and I ended up saying yes to that and it set a direction of my life that literally by the time was all said and done led me to doing this class 40 years later right just was like getting on a magic carpet following the flow of life instead of following the noise inside my head so there is a practical example but it was not easy because I had committed myself I was going to do you know be in solitude and never come out until I'm enlightened whatever that is and basically this brought me back into the balance Sur taught me service way of life as opposed to my concept at that time that if I meditate enough that's all my life is going to be about let's say someone's listening right now Michael and they're working with some kind of decision you know should they go left or right and some people have said I think you should go left and they have a voice inside that says I'm not sure about that how did they sort out what's really of the most service what life really wants as I said you ask very deep questions it's the question of decisions is very deep and people when you're on must surrender always go to that but I have a decision to make don't have to make decisions what I teach on that and it's of course just the answer is always go deeper is instead of looking at the decision you're trying to make ask yourself why what are you trying to get from this decision what your motive what you're gonna find out is every single time it is either I'm trying to make a decision that will make me feel better make me happier in the future you know let me achieve a better state inside myself or a more content and more excited more enthused you know feel higher et cetera or I'm trying to make a decision that will save me from having to experience something that I don't want to experience well which way can I choose this so it's the path of least resistance so you find that the motives behind your decision is supposed to getting all involved in the decision you step back and say what am I trying to achieve and you're gonna see that it's either a desire or a fear you're trying to achieve a desire by moving to New York I'm moving to California which won't work for me right you trying to make your mind be psychic to figure out which one will make you happier versus I'm trying to avoid a situation that I don't want and then you take a look at that and you realize what I'm really trying to decide it had to be happy inside how to be in a better state inside myself well why don't I say that honestly there's not really about this decision it's about how can I find a more beautiful state inside myself and that's where it leads to yoga that's where at least everything leads to spirituality because it says the state you're looking for is inside yourself I don't know wolves I got to do with where you live or what your job is really you're Mary it's got to do with how you're doing inside yourself why don't you work on that a little bit instead of trying to put the burden on your mind of thinking that some decision you're going to --- etermine the quality of your life so at least come back to that center that deep center inside that undercuts all this then you're gonna find out that you don't put the pressure on yourself with that decision and often it will unfold naturally doesn't mean you don't make a decision not in decision but you'll find that if you make get rid of the noise inside of you you'll be able to see more clearly what is actually happening and what is maybe a better way to serve a better way to balance the energies as opposed to how can I make myself happy with this decision or how can I avoid my fears with this decision it does and you've used this word serve a couple of times and I want to check something out with you it seems like part of how you discern what's needed in a situation and correct me if I'm wrong here is what will be of the most service is that correct it was very beautiful honestly I don't think like that okay what happens is it's not a thought what happens is if you've worked enough on yourself you don't need anything you're not looking for anything it's just sort of like the joy of interacting with life is what feeds you so you don't have preferences like that and at least they're not running your life okay so when you find yourself in a situation where you're not trying to get something from the situation the very natural thing is if anything there is calling to you for support for help whatever since you are not fighting with it because you're trying to get something from it you will find that you naturally interact with it in a way that maybe others call service but you didn't see it that way it's just you know you're not getting something for yourself you're not busy trying to take something with the situation for yourself from people places things because you don't need anything so you're suppressing or announcing it's just that you don't have work on yourself to where you're being said from inside so then you come into that moment and you're gonna find out that every single thing you do is to serve is to help others as somebody once said to me that the way to live your life the highest life you can live is that every single moment that unfolds in front of you is better off because it did mmm what more do than that all right so if you want to call that service we can call that service but you know as well as I do service needs a lot of different things that different people all right yeah the purist in the sense that you're not you're not giving anything because you really don't need anything so once you stop taking you become a giver it just happens very naturally what's interesting to me too is that you took my question about service you were like it's not conceptual like that it's not some conceptual analytical place and this is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about Michael because you're a very very creative and prolific person not only having written these two best-selling books that people are familiar with but you were the CEO of a billion-dollar public company and other accomplishments a very accomplished person how do you sort out in yourself and separate the creative flow inside of you that wants to make things from that voice inside your head that has all kinds of ideas about things how do you separate those two beautiful questions and I know you're very deep so I can answer you at the deepest level I don't separate them at all there's no duality in any way shape or form I find that it's always coming from the same place if you are willing to let go of your personal self doesn't mean it's calm leave me all right but you're not listening and you know if it makes noise you let it go and if it's not making noise it just hangs out there all right so there's nothing about you that is making decisions or doing anything based on that then where you're sitting is in that you're sitting closer to the self you're sitting closer to the core of your being and that is where all creativity comes from creativity doesn't come from the mine creativity pours into the mind and then the mine analyzes it and so on the creativity comes from the self it comes from the deepest part of your being from your Center so if you're sitting in that place and letting go of the noise inciting that would pull you out of that place I don't care who didn't even business you're doing relationship you're doing meditation you're doing you know nonprofit service they're all exactly the same every single moment you're coming from the exact same place which is I'm not listening to my personal self you're letting that go and then what's left is this inspiration it's both inspiration and creativity is this talent of inspiration creativity that's always flowing inside of you and it connects with what's unfolding outside it knows exactly it's almost as if they're coming from the same place I always think feel that that's what allowed cement by the DAO that there's a way in which the unfolding of the world in front of you and what is going on that a depth of your being are coming from the same place and they are really the same thing and you just surrender to that and you allow this fount of beautiful creative inspiring energy to interact with the beauty and how ugly it is with the beauty that creation exists in front of you so I don't make that distinction it's not a matter of balancing them they're one mm-hmm so it sounds like this creative fount in you uses your mental processes and that's of course fine but there's a different feeling as it expresses itself then this voice inside the head that you refer to that you're not listening to that's beautiful the mind is like a computer it can be used to do anything normal people all right which we don't all want to be normal by the way normal people the mind is almost always talking on its own to express what's wrong with them I want this to happen why did I do that I wish I didn't do that stole it he goes super-ego stuff that Freud separated out is just the mind talking about different things all right it's just that mental dialogue being broken into this type of dial like that type of dialogue and that's hybrid dialogue so when you are not listening to that when you have let that go to whatever degree right great masters I've transcended her completely there were all different stages but to the extent that you have let that go then your mind is not making that noise and all of a sudden it becomes clearer and once they clear because it's a very high state but clearer and when it's clearer then the lower part of your being is not having to use the mind all the time to release the energies you store it inside and all of a sudden the mind becomes a tool that you get to use your higher self gets to use and all of a sudden it's open enough to where the inspiration and the creativity that's pouring from the depth of your being pours into the mind and the logic that the mind has the ability to do the analytical processes take the creativity the ideas that have poured in and turned them into things that can manifest on the physical plane so you know you you have a dream of helping this that the other thing whatever it is but you need to schedule things all right that's not coming from what I want what I don't want oh my god I did it wrong before so I'm afraid to do it again or this right instead there's just this creativity falling into the mind and you will find that the mind is very lucid and very fluid and all of a sudden it's coming up with analytical answers that are more concrete so that they can be brought down to the physical plane the mind is a tremendous tool but the problem is our mind is being used by our some scholars are being used by the the suppressed and lower parts of our being that need to release so they're filling the mind with all this personal noise now what does it feel like Michael on the inside when you're in a place of lucidity like that at that type of clarity that you're describing it feels like the rush of holy waters it feels like man does not live by bread alone my every word to leave at the mouth of the Father it feels like there's this upward rush constant upward rush of energy of Shakti of Chi that's feeding all your centers and flowing up up to the higher centers and as it goes up it purifies and cleanses and fees so that you feel a state of elation the state of total well-being and then all the different faculties of your being can work properly your body can be in health your mind can be sharp and clear your heart can be open and filled with love and the higher parts of your being can be guiding all of that mm-hmm you know you use in your book the surrender experiment this phrase the upward flow and you referred to it here and I'm curious do you do certain yoga practices to help that upward flow when you don't feel it or is it not like that for you I don't generally talk about my particular practices because they're so personal that doesn't necessarily help anybody else all right there are lots of practices and I support all of them they say if they're helping you and you're doing them right there's pranayama and there's mantra and there's new agey practices you know putting things on your head and electrodes and kind of lights and this and that anything that you are willfully using to help raise your consciousness above this personal noise it's beneficial and what it will do is it will train you to get in the habit of not listening to the lower self but paying more attention to the flow that's inside of you of course all of yoga all of yoga is about this upward flow it is all about cleansing the chakras cleansing those centers right and allowing the suppressed or blocked energy to flow freely up and that's what it will do and so you know we all experience it like when you fall in love there's this upward flow of energy you fill up Orion to your heart you fill your mind gets quiet and excited all right the problem is it required an external situation to match your patterns in inside your mind so that you were willing to open enough to allow these energies to flow all that's called conditional well-being all we're talking about is if you will let go of these blockages as you store it inside of you then things don't have to match them for you to open all of a sudden the rain is beautiful the Sun is beautiful the cold is beautiful the storm is beautiful everything is beautiful because you're not blocked to it it all has its beauty and when you do that then the energy is free to flow so to me that's the highest technique and that is the technique I teach the technique of life of using life see that you're close to certain things and also that you're open to certain things that can help you see how beautiful you can be that somebody comes up says something nice to you and you feel great for the rest of the day well why didn't you feel great to start with because you were closed right so why were you closed and you just work this through of letting go of the blockages that you stored inside of you so that's the highest technique because then the energy will go up and never go down right it just continuously flows up sometimes it's stronger than others of course but it is always feeding you and it will take care of itself the Shakti will always wants to go up and she will push out of her way whatever is in her way the problem is we push back we don't want to experience the garbage we stored inside of ourselves so but as far as techniques pranayama breathing this that they're all wonderful anything if I see anybody doing anything on a willful basis to not be listening to this garbage they store it inside themselves I honor them and I respect that we do everything I can to support the technique that person is doing well one of the things I want to highlight that you just said that I also picked up from the course with sounds true is that you believe that surrendering is actually more powerful even than disciplined spiritual practices that surrender is the most powerful practice is that true because that really got my attention as someone who's done you know months and months and months of meditation retreats myself I thought here's someone saying life itself surrendering to life is an even more powerful practice it is the highest state when it's all said and done and you get to that edge right where you feel energy pulling you in and you're approaching the high states and the only one thing that's gonna take you across and that surrender is this the complete letting go of your will of your concepts of your views of your practices everything it's just a melting into the absolute and melting into the higher so that is in the end the highest state and everyone is taught that Christ taught that Buddha taught us that they all thought that is you need this completely let go of yourself Christ says Christ said you must die to be reborn they're all the same teachings alright the question is what you ask is okay now I'm not there I'm not at that edge to fall in right so are you saying to me I'm repeating question you asked me are you saying to me make Michael that that basically from the beginning even that surrenders the highest technique and it is here's the problem is you're gonna require those discipline techniques in order to surrender if you're not meditating if you're not doing the mantra if you're not doing different things that keep you centered and what's gonna happen is somebody gonna say something somebody's gonna do something the drivers gonna be slow in front of you and you're in a rush and all that noise is gonna come up inside and you're gonna get lost in it so the techniques that the discipline techniques are for you to achieve a center that is strong enough so that you can surrender but surrender is the highest place letting go is the highest state once you learn to do that it all takes care of itself all by itself how might someone take a personal inventory or some way of examining oh these are the places in my life where I'm not surrendered they come they come up automatically every day of your life you're I always so people it's kind of nice okay fell in love you had a good meal you went to a good movie you're just feeling better okay you're feeling somewhat better than you were I beg you to pay attention to what takes you down because that's where you're not surrendering there are things that take you down right somebody you love somebody they're saying just the right thing everything all the sudden they say one thing are they blink at the wrong time right or they sneeze when they're saying they love you oh boy it clothes the ri --- emselves and you just keep letting go and it will have changed so quickly I get letters you know all over the world people read the untethered soul and and people who said that no they really are all it's spiritual and they they weren't able to do practices before and they can't meditate but they read that and they did what I just said they let go when a driver was in front of that was bothering they decide I'm gonna let this go right I had a lady tell me just blurt an email from South Korea or somewheres right and said that she didn't understand the until this over she read it but she read it and that sometime later she was in a toy store and somebody cut in front of her scribers and they cut in front of with all their kids and she started screaming and freaking out and she remembered the book daring her to let go and there's the first time in her life she let go and she said from that moment forward a whole lot changed great it just changed day after day just kept letting go and she became happier and her marriage was better and it's the truth if you don't hang out with that part of your being nothing but good things happen okay well let's take some more concrete examples you gave the example of driving in a car and getting stuck in traffic and I think people could relate to that and say oh that's a good place where I could let go of my aggravation that's not helping but let's say something happens in your life like a death of someone who you really cared about and you feel just terrible how is that an indication that I haven't let go or am I just grieving okay we are human we live with a human and there are absolutely very natural feelings and expressions that match what's going on in our lives that's very different than a samskara which means you're really just feeling the reaction of a past excite so if you love somebody and they die there's a there's a loss of a sense of tremendous sense of loss as a whole rearrangement of the energy flow inside of you and it is naturally tremendously uncomfortable all right your heart hurts and you go through what you hold a grieving process this is fine this is natural the question is are you willing to go through this or are you resisting it so the letting go in this case doesn't mean oh I should be happy and giggly right that's absurd what you should do is realize the question I always have somebody if they come and say my Harford's all right I don't do what I want but if somebody asks me my heart hurts I asked them the same question every time how do you know how do you know you're doing terrible how do you know your heart hurts how do you know you're grieving how do you know you feel this sense of loss because I'm in here okay you who's in there is watching the heart go through these perturbations go through these changes is that okay with you it okay with you that this is the music that the heart is now playing and the answer has to be yes so the letting go in this case is a letting over the resistance to the natural experience that's taking place what do you think the obstacles are the main obstacles people face in letting go I'm not sure if you've worked with so many different people and seeing where people get stuck the main obstacle is the unwillingness to experience what it feels like to go through withdrawal what is the obstacle for a person getting off of hard drugs or getting off of alcohol all right they could be very committed they said I want to do it right but there is that tendency that you have habits you have you have tendencies and to let these go require a certain commitment and a certain amount of strength of center of will that I really am committed to this and then you go through this process of withdrawal this process of purification it is uncomfortable but you have to want the result more than you're afraid of the discomfort so I always tell people it's not about whether you like something or not it's a question whether you can handle it don't ask yourself do I like this or not ask yourself can I handle this can I handle this and it's a rhetorical question because you better be able to because the alternative to be able to handle something is you can't handle it and I don't want to be around nor do you all right so you just that we talked about that Center of will the center of volition you sit in there and realize I got junk inside of me I've developed patterns that are not healthy just like drugs and I mean I'm not saying that you're doing drugs right but it's it's like a drugs like alcohol you have these patterns of reactions that are just got formed inside of you when you weren't paying attention and now you need to let them go so the obstacle is your unwillingness to go through what it takes to let it go the moment you decide I want out I want to let this go and there's two reason to let it go one is the non negative because it sure requires you a lot of trouble all that noise in there and the other is the positive both are fine I want to let it go because I want to have a reasonable life I want to let it go because I want to have one life to live I want to experience the highest I can possibly experience I want to explore the depth of my being I want to know what Christ meant when he said my father and I are one I want to know where Buddha went with nirvana whatever level you feel the positive right and both of those the inspirations are non negative and the inspiration of the positive should give you the drive the inspiration the intention that you need in order to say I'm letting go I'm letting go because the alternative is absurd the alternative is to give my life to the lowest part of my being Michael do you ever find in your own life currently things happen and you're like oh I'm getting dragged down into something I'm losing this high place of center I need to go meditate for a bit something like that does something trigger you I told you I don't see the great benefit I've been doing this for a long time I love to guide people to leave them I'll see the great benefit of talking about those kind of things I'll do it abstractly and say is there a state in which that stops happening yes through it okay that going it's not gonna happen things will come all up right but you're so far away from it ROM dust used to say it was like standing under bridge watching your life go by you know the water and water standing in the water underneath the bridge I'm not going to touch you it's still flowing and it's going so there are many many different states and I like to defer to the Masters to two perfect beings of beings to reach the highest states right anybody looking at me look at them right and basically but clearly clearly the personal self can be released and when it's released younger trigger anymore it doesn't mean something doesn't hit something but it's not anything they're strong enough to even even distract you from the pull that's going up the pole that goes up is stronger at some point than any pull that can pull you down and the pole is so beautiful going up that you want to experience it you want to like fall into it it's like love beauty so why would you leave that in order to go down to the two disturbing things and then you just keep letting up but it doesn't mean you don't deal with the things in your life you just deal with them from a place of clarity in place of center so no matter you know you're in my books no matter how disturbing something can be you still have to deal with it right but you don't have to resist it you don't have to go you don't have to leave the seat of self in order to deal with something you can do it from the seat of self and you're always better off doing that you spoke of the masters that we can look to them and the filming of this eight-week course living from a place of surrender occurred in the yoga and meditation center that you've established now for several decades temple of the universe and I'm curious what you see as the role of devotion devotion to the Masters on the spiritual journey it's again a very deep question but all of us have different nature we was some people are more hard oranges and Gomorrah mind oriented and so I I don't push those things either right but when I talk about someone my Christ or Buddha or you have an under mayor vollis and these great great masters from a krishna that reached these very very high states it's like hanging a picture of or or putting a bust of Beethoven on your piano if you're a pianist all right it's sort of like these beings inspire me they have reached great states I've read about them I can feel their energy and therefore they're great teachers for me there are great lights and inspiration can it create devotion to where you literally feel love to me if it does it's because you're really loving the state that you're longing to reach you're loving the energy level alright as opposed to loving a person or loving a being but different people are different ways some people are very much into the personal aspects of God and that's beautiful to that answer you I don't push oh I don't ever talk about it right I but I push is openness if you will open and you will let go what's closing you you won't have to talk to me or anybody else it will all happen inside of you you are your own book it will take you as quick as possible if you will let go of every single thing that's keeping you down you will go I is how I always tell it let's say have a gondola you know with a hot-air balloon on it right and it's quote tethered to the ground with with the the ropes correct if you want to go up don't put more hot air in the balloon or more the more things that were lifted up okay basically untie the tethers and it will naturally go up the helium right the helium or the hot air will lift it up so the right thing to do is not worry about going up just let go of what's holding you down and if you will let go of those tethers believe me your whole being will go up naturally exactly at the pace that it should everything will unfold perfectly and but you have to be willing to let go of what's holding you down okay now when I asked you the question how do I know what's holding me down you said look at your life and see what brings you down what exchanges with people what events and you gave a couple of examples being in the car and traffic etc and I immediately thought it doesn't take much often for something my partner will say something like would you mind doing this a different way than the way you just did it or something like that I'll interpret it as critical and I'll feel grumpy for a bit now my question everybody has their own thing where they can watch in an interaction where their energy goes down maybe it's something at work and they receive critical feedback or something like that and they're like yeah that will ruin my day so what do you suggest I do in those experiences such that I'm living from a place of surrender I'm triggered I'm upset I'm irritated something like that right now we're talking about where the tires it's Road right that is where the growth is so I know you would like to be able to achieve a state at some point in your life to where if somebody criticizes you you sit and listen to see if there's something you should be learning from it as opposed to getting upset or closing or getting defensive right and that you picked a perfect example because defensive 'no san a Churov ego that's what it's gonna do is gonna get defensive period so what it means is are you willing to let go of that part of you so that you're able to listen without that reaction is it going to happen right away of course not just like you didn't learn to play tennis right away you don't learn to play the piano right away that's one of things I find with people they somehow think well I tried it once it didn't work that's hilarious right if you sit down to play the piano you go to play scales first alright you're not gonna do really well if those either but you have to stay with it if you want to be good at it same thing here so if you meditate and you come out of meditation and then somebody criticizes you you were doing well right for just one moment more are you willing to breathe through it are you willing to let it go sometimes you need to use your mind to raise your mind you need to treat it like a little baby to say it's okay it's okay if somebody criticizes you you can handle it right that's you're still using your mind that's better than giving in to the lower mind and you raise yourself you just keep raising yourself a good raise a child and if you will do this on a regular basis someday you will notice that somebody comes and criticizes you and you say thank you and there is no reaction I love it when someone comes to me and says he had the most amazing thing isn't a spiritual experience that I had it's that I found myself in a situation that two years ago I would have reacted not only was there no reaction I forgot that there used to be I only looked back later said oh my God look at that nothing's happened that's spiritual growth that transformation is spiritual growth not these mites and spiritual experiences people have they just last for a minute and then you come back down I want something real I want people to change to grow to become great within their own being so does that answer you we're almost at a full answer but I still have a little bit that's unclear for me that I want to see if I understand so I noticed that I'm triggered and being criticized as something that would trigger me so we can keep going with that probably would trigger lots of people depending you know we're being unfairly accused of something in front of others things like that that would you know okay so now I feel this agitation in my body and maybe some heat and maybe even anger or something like that and I'm starting to think of the you know snippy comment I'm gonna make to cut the other person down something like that and what you're recommending is that I somehow connect back to my breathing you said expand your meditation practice or stay with it for another second or two and just let it go I think it's the just let it go part that I'm looking for a little further explanation of no I understand that's like my saying I want to play the piano I want to play Beethoven okay I'll play Beethoven's pieces I don't play the piano and so I just said to you play your scales and you just said to me you're saying to me flameless goes and all this don't be able to play Beethoven exactly what I said I said play your scales until you good enough with your scales and then t --- oticing it you who notices it wants to do something about it to make it stop that's why you have these snippy comments that's why you attack or whatever run away whatever it is right fight-or-flight right no what you need to do about it is relax if you will relax instead you gave us some space to release so you're actually right it is not you know breathe and let go that doesn't mean anything breathing means something but let go those are just words they don't mean a single thing what it means is catch your breath for a moment make a commitment I want to use this to go to God I want to use this for my spiritual growth I want to use this to liberate myself from myself all right there now you have your intention now I'm asking you to relax it's not easy you'll see the energy tries to pull you into it right also try to do right it's like to pull you in to get you to feed the reaction instead you're relaxed and just a very act of relaxing leave some space for a little bit of it to pass through the more you relax the more you lean away from the energy that's making all the noise the more space you leave and that's a very very deep spiritual practice - Rhett to relax and release I call it R&R to relax and release everything all the time right first let go that's what I mean by let go relax and release now deal with the situation don't deal with your reaction all right does that help that helped a lot and I feel very satisfied with that answer my call so thank you now in the course living from a place of surrender you give people what sounds like a pretty simple instruction and you say that this is one of the best ways to really get started with living from a place of surrender which is to start surrendering to the weather and that this practice will actually take you very far so I was wondering if you could share that with our listeners is something that will be helpful to them I think oh I talk about low-hanging fruit and we and the course goes into all this in great DJ for doing that course with me because I teach I've been teaching for forty five years but to be able to have the time that's what I got with that course we had the time to do eight sessions ten hours that I could go fully into like the explanation I just gave you took a little more time right I felt very fulfilled in doing that course that for the first time in all my teaching I was able to have the time to go deep and create that clarity so I really appreciate that and by the way I want to tell you your people were wonderful to work with I was very very very pleased with professionalism and the quality of other people I got to work with it sounds true all right that said so go back to your question what I was talking about was low-hanging fruit that's what I used whether what is low-hanging fruit doesn't mean the ones that are easy to let go of and I define it is this the cost of not letting go is you're disturbed the benefit of not letting go is zero okay you're not gaining anything so why would I not let go I mean those are easy ones so for example let's say it's raining all right it raining it's raining you not liking it raining is a 100% cause 0% benefit right or wrong not getting anything from not liking it raining if you are correct yes it's gonna rain anyway yes all right why not like it it's just silly if I put food in front of you and one of them would make you feel good and the other would make you feel bad which one would you take every single time you would take the one that makes you feel good as long as there's no cost involved right there was equal well the weather is the weather you can either like it or not like it and if you like it it's fun and if you don't like it it's not you did that the weather didn't do that so that's the epitome of how you start to work with yourself there's no reason not to like the wind there's no reason not to like the rain there's no reason not to like the heat there's no reason not to like the cold they're just things you decided to do that are making you miserable alright you just decided I'd like an even an icy cold all right change it let go say I love the cold it's fun I like to bundle up with me I love it right change the way you're looking at things and that act of willfully letting go of the negativity is a very positive thing to do and as you learn to do that those are like your scales as you learn to do that all of a sudden you'll find that when somebody criticizes you you're better off at being able to relax and release because you were able to do it with the cold weather with the rain and so on so they're like they're like practice fields every day you have the opportunity to practice raising yourself well I'm very happy that you shared with everyone this example that you call low-hanging fruit but before we end our conversation I want to get into something that I think is quite difficult for many people and as part of the course you've included a bonus teaching on spiritual activism the path of accepting and serving reality that's what you called the teaching and I think for many people this is a place where surrendering and accepting is quite hard when they look out at the world and whether it's a question of civil liberties or whether it has to do with global climate change there's this sense of I'm gonna listen to Michael in a lot of ways but when it comes to the state of the world I need to be an engaged activist here I'm not sure so can you address that for our listeners a very deep question which is why I gave a whole teaching on it all right and if by the time they're done watching this course they will absolutely understand I do touch that during the course what it boils down to is I'll use an example I'm an environmentalist and I'm very much into cars to get high mileage and don't pollute and I see that somebody's driving a home is a classic example somebody's driving a Hummer and I'm radicalized and I blow it up well you have just caused more damage than the environment blowing up that Hummer than any pollution it will ever caused by it's burning gas do you understand that all right so what you did is you reacted to your own anger your own inability to handle a situation what do you mean there are people who don't care about the environment there are people who don't care about the gas mileage they get there are people who don't care about a lot of different things that you care about right and when it came in when that event came in to you it hit your stuff and what came up was not clarity was not a constructive reaction what came up with anger but came up with fear but came up with hatred right what came up inside of you is hate and you expressed it right that is not proper activism proper spiritual the proper activism altogether which is spiritual activism because you first let go of your own reaction you let go of the personal part of your being that is reacting because of the personal part of another person's being because all that creates is war and so you let it go now you are faced with clarity that I care about I didn't stop caring about the environment I just stopped reacting in the way that was destructive in a way that was not constructive and and was just a personal reaction and made me Faisal why'd you blow up that Hummer it made me feel better well that's not what this is about making you feel better there about purifying and helping the environment so you start letting go of this part of you the same part we've talked about the entire conversation you let it go don't just don't justify this righteous anger there's no such thing you let it go now you're clear the one who's clear will see solutions they may be small steps but at least your steps in the right direction and maybe there's nothing you can do about you know the fact that something's happening in the other side of the world that is not right and not comfortable right but there is something you can do within your family there is something you can do within your workplace to bring love and bring caring and that spreads it maybe that's all you can do right now in my experience is you do that instead of getting all upset about something's happened that you can't do any it's not anything you know anything about right now alright this moment and therefore your upsetness brings into your family and brings into your workplace and you're polluting the environment so you're really not helping anything you think you are because it makes you feel better to be upset but you're not right so you let go of that you do the best you can to bring love peace joy purity into the environment that you have any control over and my experience is if you do that then all of a sudden a bigger thing comes your way and the next thing you know you're able to deal with things that are bigger than just your local environment because you're a leader you're somebody who deserves to lead alright and therefore the universe unfolds in a way that put you in a position of leadership and that is you know that's my experience because you read this render experiment but that's what I call spiritual activism it is not that you are not dealing with things you're just not dealing with yourself because you can't handle the things which is what many of the of the radical activists are doing they're just they saying I can't handle this so I'm gonna throw up all over the place alright it doesn't help no it doesn't mean you don't serve doesn't mean don't help but you do it from a place of clarity and you do it within the frame of what you're capable of working with and like I said that lease and an expert's leads to the next it says something interesting you said there's no place for righteous anger and I think a lot of people think that that is useful somehow that that's drawing a boundary or something like that in the end anger is anger and it's coming from a personal place and what it's going to do is create more anger on the other side there is a place you know blessed are the peacemakers there is a place in which you are centered you are clear you have finished your stuff so when you're now interacting with the environment with prejudice people with whatever it is right you're coming from a place of clarity you are not fueling the opposites you understand that that opposites attract the opposites you have you're you're a Taoist you have created this balance within yourself I always say the highest being who is most capable solving the problems of this world is the one that can be at peace with every single thing that comes into them if you can't be at peace with the different sides of the war of the battle inside yourself how can you expect the outside world as complex as it is to come to peace you have to prove that all these different views and all these different opinions and all these different types of people sit in a place of love and peace and caring and compassion inside of you that doesn't mean you don't act I mean the perfect example and I'm talking about is a Dalai Lama it is not I mean he's not working with righteous anger right and and you know King and then Gandhi and these are the spiritual activists and they brought about tremendous change but they did it not by taking the personal part of their being that was upset by what's happening and dumping that out into the world to create more pollution they purified it within themselves then they came into the world and worked with these things and as my experience personally that if you do that that somehow the universe then brings you bigger things because you're blessed peacemakers you're doing it properly and all of a sudden you're able to teach you're able to bring about harmony and bigger and bigger places so anyways there is there's entire movements in the activist community that are doing exactly this and when they sit there and say that you know wrongs were done and we bring together the perpetrator with the victim and we let them meet each other and try to create bridges that come across here instead of punishing and hating that's doing what I'm talking about I know many people all over the world that are mediating and doing these sort of things instead of coming coming from a place of righteous anger mm-hmm no Michael just in conclusion you've created this new 10 hour video teaching living from a place of surrender it's an eight-week online course that begins on October 30th and I'm curious to know you've shared a little bit that you were so glad that you had a chance to unpack and deliver many of these teachings in an unrest way but my question is what was your motivation for creating this teaching program I've always stayed just as life has done it to me I have many business things but I like spiritual life I stayed at the temple I moved out here in 1971 and I have not left all right and people come out they come around me they come out here and I teach but I haven't I don't travel I don't go out and give lectures all over the place and I don't do social media and I haven't done this the only course I've ever done you know the interview I ever did was Oprah's pretty much and so that's just my lifestyle and people have always asked me what I broadcast you know podcast from the temple and we don't wanna bring that energy in so this was a tremendous opportunity to archive the teachings to just absolutely put them down so that whoever wants them can get them that they're available across the web and they will be there forever all right and so basically that that was the motivation properly what sounds true and you all did a wonderful job I couldn't be more pleased and more satisfied feels very whole what happened here i likewise feel a real sense of fulfillment and happiness Michael Michael singer has created a new eight-week online course called living from a place of surrender the untethered soul in action and you can come to sound Street calm for more information about that Michael thank you so much for being a guest on insights at the edge and I have to say you've really inspired me thank you though thank you so much and pleasure to talk to you thank you for listening to insights at the edge you can read a full transcript of today's interview at sounds true comm forward slash podcast and if you're interested hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and also if you feel inspired head to iTunes and leave insights at the edge a review I love getting your feedback being in connection with you and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program working together I believe we can create a kinder and wiser world sounds true calm waking up world [Music]