Turning Preference into Peace — Michael Singer

eventually when you mature spiritually you get to a point that all you want is to be free but now you've come to understand what freedom means it means to be free of yourself doesn't mean anything else until freedom means to be free of yourself you will never be free the only thing that keeps you from absolute freedom is yourself so while you think that freedom means the freedom to get what you want the freedom to do what you want the freedom to be where you want the financial freedom etc etc you're still very lost and you'll never know freedom and it's not the freedom to merge with God and to go deep into meditation well that's what you're thinking you're still thinking it is when you become really really clear and it takes really long time and you just see you know this thinking stuff is way overrated it's really not done me much good and it's really not doing me much good it's sort of like I'm working for my mind my mind decides I'm not okay and the moment it decides I'm not okay guess what I'm not my mind decides this will make me okay and guess what happens the moment it decides this will make me okay and that starts to happen I am okay it's like the mind psychic or something it just knows everything that's what it would like you to think but the truth of the matter is this is the type of psychic that your mind is I see water being dumped on your head as it picks up the water and dumps on your head I was right no that's not a psychic that's not a psychic at all your mind is sitting there closing you because it doesn't like what's happening and then it says see I told you you wouldn't like this and your mind is sitting there spinning so that you can feel the flow of the Shakti when it gets what it wants and then the mind is saying see I told you that's what you wanted that's what you come to know about the mind it controls your state of being so freedom cannot possibly be to get what the mind wants because you are bound by the minds wants and not once and freedom cannot possibly be in this a tough one for people to be free to merge into God why why are you not free you're not free because of your mind so if you have a mind that's keeping you not free and then the mind is saying I know the answer we need to learn to meditate we need to merge into God we need to go to India you know you're in trouble when your mind starts to tell you how to get to God that is a sure sign that you are in deep trouble but that's what the mind does so a why is mature being comes to see I am the problem there is no other problem I am the only problem my personal mind is the cause of every single problem I have it's the cause of my problems in my personal life it's the cause of every problem I have in this world with everybody and everything and it is the reason that I cannot naturally merge with God so the problem is me why don't you come to know this so deeply that all you ever want is freedom from yourself that's all now you're ready now you're ready to work on your freedom then the question becomes how do you get free from yourself you can go through many many techniques and many people teach many different things I can only discuss with you one way then you have to see for yourself the mind is a problem because it has wants and not once if the mind does not have wants and not once the mind is not a problem if it doesn't want things then it won't disturb you because it doesn't have them it won't keep looking around to see how to get them it won't be jealous because somebody else has them it won't do anything because it doesn't care just notice what your mind does about things that doesn't want nothing but your mind does about things that doesn't care about absolutely nothing God I saw Mary walking with saw last night and thought we're gonna leave that's the end of it because you don't care the mind doesn't care and when the mind doesn't care you are transcendent you are in a state where nothing can disturb you how do you like that and that meet people always talk about where they're caught I want to talk about well you're not caught there are many many more places you're not caught in places you're caught in fact the more you study in an examiner you will see there's a whole universe of things 99.999% about you don't care there was wind blowing on Saturn yesterday there's a little bit less on Mars as icecap than there was before a worm three feet under seven feet over on the field over there had a baby net result is you don't care it doesn't do anything to you you are in a state of equanimity here I want you to see the depth of the spirituality the Gita talks about this great state of equanimity the - wait are you telling okie enjoys he's not overjoyed and sorrow is not over sorrow lets goodness come when it will and when it will depart and let's darkness come when it will and when it will depart he's a stranger a sojourner in the midst of the qualities of nature just as all this rivers and streams of the earth pour into the ocean but leave the ocean as it found it it doesn't overflow its bounds and then it closes with the yogi the whole world pours in through the portal of the senses and it leaves him as it found him untouched this state of equanimity is yoga you know that state you have it about everything you don't care about so you do know what equanimity is like the problem is there are a handful it's just a tiny handful of things in the whole universe that you do care how many you could probably list them it's a finite amount but there's an infinite universe so you take that finite amount and you look and you say those things mess me up if those things happen a certain way I freak if those things happen another way I'm happy these things run my life I had do not have equanimity about these things in fact I have the opposite of equanimity I am totally disturbed by these things I'm totally attached to these things we know about that then now you understand your freedom and your lack of freedom if I fill you with a room of things you care nothing about whether your eyes are open or closed doesn't make any difference whether they're talking or silent doesn't make any difference you don't care gotta try to impress upon you that is not a cold state it just means you don't care well if you don't care then it doesn't draw you into it then it doesn't make your mind active then it doesn't disturb your state of being when your mind is not active and you're not being pulled into the world through the senses and your state of being is not being disturbed guess where you go to God if nothing is distracting the self from self the self will fall into self that is its natural state something must be drawing your attention drawing your consciousness away from your seat of self so that you get involved in it well those are the things that you care about the things you don't care about don't do that spirituality isn't what people think it is literally it's way deeper than that so now you understand that there is a handful of things in your life that have the ability to disturb you what does it mean to disturb you they have the ability to draw your consciousness into the activity of your mind and draw your mind onto the object of caring on to the object of attachment and when they do that you get disturbed you lose your seat of consciousness you lose your seat of meditation you lose the stability of mind either it goes freaky because it likes there it goes freaking us doesn't like it to do yoga there the same so the question becomes what are these things the very few things that you don't have equanimity about and how does one achieve equanimity because we now got it very simple it's all about you and your relationship to the things that you either like or dislike and that's why I always come back to the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences third zen patriarch when love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisturbed make the slightest distinction however in heaven and earth have said infinitely apart there there's a man a nudey was talking about it is because your mind is differentiating this undifferentiated world into what you like and what you don't like that you are stuck in the state that you're in so if you work with anything other than that you're working at the wrong level if you are working on anything other than the fact that you are still differentiating what you like from what you dislike you're not going to get there you