These reflections originated after listening to a Michael Singer podcast sent by a friend named Tom.
To enable us to reduce the unnecessary suffering of being TOO SERIOUS, I've sprinkled in some light-hearted fun. Knowing Michael's approach to life, I think he'd agree.
--"True peace comes from letting go of preferences and consciously interacting with life as it unfolds. Life’s moments, good or bad, are unique experiences to be appreciated and respected. Embracing challenges with openness can transform struggles into meaningful experiences. This shift in consciousness toward acceptance fosters an elevated, peaceful inner state. This is the foundation for deep spiritual growth."
Singer lays this key question before us:
"How did I decide what I wanted...and didn't want?"
He adds can we replace our thoughts about what we THINK we want...
with the JOY of interacting with LIFE...AS IT COMES...
Beginning the Journey...
Right from the start, Singer tells us that becoming aware of and then eliminating our preferences IS AN INSIDE JOB. It's OUR choice. That said, most of us tend to use psychological reasoning to blame someone else for the results of the choices we've made.
Start by becoming aware of the Trash...
"Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spendin' cash
If you don't scrub that kitchen floor
You ain't gonna rock 'n' roll no more
Awakening...
"We are awakening (awakening, awakening)
To the calling of the mystic
Awakening (awakening, awakening)
In the flowering of the heart
Everybody here
Melting into presence
Overflowing effervescence
Rising in love"
It's an INSIDE job...
Singer adds that we live in a single occupancy apartment (there's only "ME" inside)...So, in the words of Michael Jackson:
"We have to start with the man in the mirror."
This philosopher's got the key to happiness figured out:
"Why not tell him what you want?" Oops, counter-productive...
Could it be as easy as in this next cartoon & song? The choice is ours...
Give up Control...
Our attempts to CONTROL our lives and those of others lead to CHAOS...KAOS...
Max is showing us that he's NOT SMART...yet...
Making friends with cockroaches...even on Mars...
Singer uses cockroaches to help us notice our preferences. He uses the example of an astronaut who's the sole survivor of an expedition to Mars. Somehow, a lowly roach also survived. Here are his observations from the transcript:
"Do every single thing that helps you. If it helps you, I’m all in favor. Lemme tell you a secret until you stop pushing that stuff away and learn to let it pass through and touch you and learn what it’s like to be touched by things. Even things that are not pleasant. You understand that, right? A roach is running across the floor. We don’t like roaches. Okay?
How are you dealing with that? Did it ruin your day? I’m not going home ever again. There could be roaches in the wall. Yes there could. You can ruin your life because a roach ran across the floor. Or you can look at it and say, do you know that as one of life’s oldest living creatures back to the dinosaurs? Really? That is the evolution of that roach. Oh my God. Doesn’t mean you have to kiss it.
It doesn’t mean you can’t pick it up and take it outside if you’re into killing it, okay, deal with it. Whatever it is. It doesn’t mean you can’t deal with it. It means you enjoy dealing with it. It’s called respect. I respect that there’s this creature running around on a floor. It’s old way older than you. You understand that? Not that particular one, but it’s heritage is way beyond human beings. And so you start with some respect and then you just, once you’re not freaked out over it, you let it touch you. Oh my God, look what’s here. And you deal with it.
I’m not going to tell you to deal with it. That’s not my business. It’s your business. "
"I told you once, if you go to Mars, you’re on Mars. You’re by yourself. No one else made it. You sit in there in the middle of the dirt, dust, red dust, there’s nothing there. It wouldn’t take hours. Maybe I'll give you a couple of days and somehow a roach made it in the ship. Alright? And it comes running across the sand. I’m telling you, you will chase that roach, but not to kill it, to make friends... to have company. Hi, where’d you come from? Oh, you’re from Earth. Oh boy. A fellow Earthling."
HUBBLE yourself in the sight of the (star) Lord...
Singer while sweating in Miami: "It's too HOT...I don't like it!"
Replace complaining with AMAZEMENT...
[from the podcast transcript] It was back in the early seventies when I moved out here to be in solitude or I failed. But anyways, to be in solitude, it was hot. I had a VW van. It wasn’t air conditioned. I live in a house. I had no air conditioning and it’s the summer in the Florida, 97 degrees. So it was hot. And he make you used to complain. Alright? Finally one day looked at him, complaining, complaining, complaining. I stopped him. I was meditating. I was able to do that. I said, Hey, you in there? Why is it hot mom? A nice discussion. You have to push your mind away.
We can talk to it. Why is it hot? So he said, because the sun is hot. I said, what is the sun? He said, there’s a star. Do you know that The little twinkles you see in the sky at night, that’s one of ’em. Exactly one of those. You’re just close enough to a star to feel its heat. Ever think about that? That’s pretty neat. Who doesn’t like stars? You’re close enough to a star to feel the heat that’s pouring off that ball of fire. And guess how close that star is? 93 million miles away. Miami’s 360, 93 million. And it’s so hot that you’re complaining. Wow.
You get to do that with your mind. You get to use your abstract mind to understand reality and sit there and say, that is neat. It’s neat. I told you, you do not get sunburned. You get star burned. That’s a whole other attitude, isn’t it? I’m so close to a star that will gets red far out. And so you just start using your intellectual mind, your higher mind. I have nothing. That’s the mind, the personal mind that’s full of your junk that you shoved down there over the course of your life and then built all these concepts and views and opinions and preferences and hopes and dreams. All that garbage you built in your personal mind. Why is it garbage? Because he built different ones. She built different one, and you’ll have different ones tomorrow. They're just nothing. You love somebody tremendously until somebody tells you something about ’em. I don’t know if I like ’em anymore.
One more experience. Your mind changes. This doesn’t change. Suns with 93 million miles away for 4.5 billion years. Give or take a few miles. Let’s have your foundation be truth. Therefore, you can handle reality because your foundation is truth and for reality is truth. And so now you are enjoying, I swear since that that time, if I get out of my car and it’s hot out, which is quite often, I can’t not stop face the sun, feel that heat pour on me and think I’m sitting on a planet, tiny little planet of which 1.3 million fit inside that star. And I’m just ing that star. Somebody. What’d you do today? A 360. What’d you do this year? A really big 360. That’s all you orbited the sun. You just orbited a star. Don’t worry, you only have 89 day of them. You might as well enjoy ’em. You can do this, can’t you?
What’s stopping you from doing this? Absolutely nothing. Nothing. And then I don’t know why it turns me on so much I’d like to share with you. That’s a star. You’ve seen pictures of the star out in the red burning with the flares, right? Pretty far out, right? Okay, that’s the star. Alright, how many are there? Oh, there are 300 billion in your galaxy. How many? 300 billion of those things in the Milky Way galaxy. Well, how far away is the next closest to us? How far away is that? Alright, 4.3 light years, which means nothing. That’s a nice number. 4.3, right? What’s the light year if I took a beam of light, held it above the earth. You got it? I have it in my finger. Let it go for one second. It’s circumnavigated the globe seven and a half times now. Fast enough for you. What’s a light year?
That speed every second for a year and 4.3 light years is the next closest star. Alright? Ever. Think about it’s the next closest star and there’s 300 billion and you’re worrying about what exactly is freaking you out. There’s something wrong here because there’s nothing to be freaked out about. It’s kind of far out reality, isn’t it? But you got pretty myopic, didn’t you? Every little thing bothers you. Why don’t you try expanding your frame of reference into what reality? I think for a moment, that’s the closest store. There’s 300 billion, they’re all the far away and there’s 2 trillion galaxies. What are you worrying about? Why are you getting so caught up in nothing? Nothing for the few years You’re here in the middle of nowhere spinning through space and you make a fricking mess of your life, didn’t you? Alright, work with yourself, raise yourself. I just gave you a way.
Science can help you. Science is wonderful. It is. You don’t have to be a scientist. Just pay attention to what they found. Pay attention to what’s happening out there with the Hubble and the James Webb and this stuff. It’s like, please, I beg you. They were looking at reality. What you’re looking at here is the 0.1 minus 7 billion part of reality, and you’re freaking out over it. You decided to like or not like it. How about we open up? That’s what it’s called to be open. That’s what it’s called to expand your frame of reference.
People talk about expanding consciousness in the sixties. We talk about that expanded consciousness. Let’s not talk about expanded consciousness. Let’s talk about not contracting consciousness. Consciousness is already expanded. It’s universal. Well, why don’t I experience that? You have contracted your consciousness down to this tiny, tiny little thing called your thoughts, your feelings, your body, what you like and what you don’t like.
Oh my God, how much of the universe is that? I like to call it this statistically insignificant.
That’s what it is. Learn not to do that. Work with yourself. Raise yourself if you do that. Look, I gave you all kinds of clues on how to do that, but do it every moment. It’s not just meditating or doing this or that. Yes, meditation is wonderful. I don’t talk against it. I talk into meditation. I do not. I meditate. But I’m telling you, you spend much more time not meditating than you do meditating. So I would like to tell you what to do when you’re not meditating. Okay? Let somebody else tell you what to do when you’re meditating. Plenty of people, but I’m telling you that you can change your entire life almost instantaneously by doing what I’m telling you about. See, they say you change your life by getting what you want.
No, you change your life by expanding your consciousness so that you’re in awe that any of it exists.
There’s a person over there, I don’t know her. That person has 25 trillion, 25 to 30 trillion living cells making up her body. Wow. Trillion, right? They’ll talk to each other and that’s what your body is. There’s not something there, but these cells binding themselves together. Wow. How do I not respect her? Well, she has different views than me. Well, I don’t care. Why do people have different views? You’ve just been through an election.
Why do people have different views? People say, how could somebody go for that? How somebody, because your mind is the sum of your learned experiences. Your mind is her mind is her mind is his mind is what else is going on in your mind, but the sum of your learned experiences. So don’t say, I don’t understand why somebody can think like that.
Interesting reflection. Thank you. It was a great podcast. Perspective is everything, eternal perspective is the best!