CRAIG

Hello, and welcome to Desperately Seeking Wisdom with me, Craig Oliver. This is a podcast for people who want to live a more balanced, centred life, but aren't sure how to get there. Today's guest is Michael Singer, the author of The New York Times best-selling book, The Untethered Soul.

MICHAEL

If you store everything that ever bothered you inside of you, you're going to be bothered, right? But if you learn to let go, you can live a full life and be open, enjoy much more your life.

CRAIG

His countless followers include Oprah Winfrey, who says she always keeps his book close at hand. I don't think there's anyone who's had more influence on me in terms of how I look at and live my life. I began by asking him how he started on the path to becoming a spiritual guru.

MICHAEL

My life started when I woke up in 1970-71, I had an experience where I stepped back from myself, and I noticed, oh, my God, who am I, I'm in here, I better start working on myself. And I consider that my childhood and that's my birth.

CRAIG

And the way you describe yourself in your books at that time, in the early 70s, it sounds that you were part of, I suppose what I would understand as almost like a hippie-ish generation, you were living in a sort of like, in the middle of the woods of Florida. And you describe letting life sort of happen to you?

MICHAEL

Well, when I had my awakening, which wasn't a big, shocking, lights and mirrors-type thing, I just, for some reason, was having a conversation with a friend. And I remember vividly, there was that awkward moment where there was nothing to say. And I noticed how uncomfortable I was until my mind and the voice in my head was at a distance from me. And I was able to calmly objectively watch it. And don't ask me why that happened at that moment, because I have no idea. But it did.

CRAIG

You describe that almost as coming out of the blue?

MICHAEL

Yes, I was doing my doctorate in economics, in the seventies, where I grew up, right. And I'd started doing some yoga, physical yoga, but I wasn't into spirituality. It wasn't into anything. And it just happened. I just happened, I just woke up. And I became so serious about it, that I decided I need to take a hiatus in my life, I kind of dropped out, I stepped aside and bought 10 acres of land - had a little bit of money - and out in the woods outside of Gainesville, and built a little hut with a couple of friends of mine and I, and it was quite an experience. But I, the whole time, all I wanted to do is be alone. So I could watch this voice, and realise who's back there watching? I want to know more about that.

CRAIG

Pretty much like a lot of Eastern philosophies and religions and Buddhism and that kind of thing. Did you realise at the time that that's the sort of era you were in, that people had explored this before?

MICHAEL

I didn't realise it when it happened. But I was, as I said, I was talking to everybody about it. And a friend of mine who was in graduate school with me, he gave me a book called Three Pillars of Zen, because he said, maybe this will help you. And this book taught Zen, which was very disciplined, and it was about quieting that voice. So that became, the beginning of my path was on a self-taught basis of trying to practise Zen. And when I moved out to the woods, that's what I did. I meditated a lot. But I realised that unless I'm able to go out into the world, and be quiet and be calm and be comfortable, I didn't accomplish enough.

CRAIG

You became a very successful businessman. And you describe that success as not accidental, but almost flowing towards you. Is that how you describe it now?

MICHAEL

Yes, there was a moment when I was alone, practising solitude and meditating all the time out in the woods, that I realised I can't do this myself. And so I realised I needed something stronger than me, outside of myself. That was the second great realisation, that there is something in my life that is out of my control. And that's life, that life unfolds in the moment, is unfolding in front of you. People are coming, people are going, different things are happening, get a phone call, just there's events happening in your life. And I decided, well, I've been busy trying to control those. What if I started trying to accept those and let go of the part of me that's complaining, let go of the part of me that thinks is not right, let go of the part of me that has all this talk inside my head about it, and just try to serve and try to do what's put in front of me. And I started doing that and yes, then the flow was phenomenal.

CRAIG

Okay, that sort of leads us very naturally to the basics of your teaching. So let me try and walk through this in terms of questions and so that we can help people break it down. You start from the perspective that we get confused and think we're our minds or our thoughts or our hearts, thoughts, and our feelings. And you say we aren't either of those things. What are we then?

MICHAEL

It's more of an intuitive understanding that when you have a thought, you obviously know that you had the thought: you say things like, oh, my thought’s really bothering me, or since she left me, God, I just keep thinking about her. How do you know? How do you know that those are your thoughts? And the answer is very intuitive - because I am in here, I see them, I hear them. Correct? You're obviously conscious. And one of the things you're conscious of is that there are thoughts being created inside. And so basically, that's where the teachings start, is are you capable of paying attention to your consciousness, your awareness of being, as opposed to what you're aware of? And the answer is no, we're not. We're not capable. Like what goes on in our thoughts is so meaningful to us, it's so important to us, that we pay full attention to them and get caught up in them. What is the part of your being that is aware that thoughts are going on, and think that they’re your emotions.

CRAIG

So much of your head is a babble of thoughts going on in your head and your mind is racing on things and assumptions you've made. And I think you were just about to go on to talk about feelings that just pop up inside you. And that we very, very naturally just associate with those things and assume they are the core of our being, but you're basically saying they're actually a byproduct, and that there's something else behind that. And if we can just focus on that thing behind that, life becomes more balanced and centred and goes easier on us.

MICHAEL

So if I asked you, Craig, are you aware of your thoughts? You would say yes. Otherwise, you wouldn't know you have, all right? Every single thing going on in there, it's the same you that experiences in it. If your heart hurts, your heart feels totally open, you are the one that experiences that. So the question is, who are you? It's not a philosophical question. It's a inner exploration question. Who are you that is in there noticing all this? Were you in there yesterday? Were you in there 10 years ago? These are neat questions, okay, and nobody ask them. We're very busy with what our thoughts are, instead of who's aware of the thoughts. When we’re oh, my God, I feel so sad, depressed, I'm having such a hard time - how do you know? How do you know? Because I'm in here. That's right, I want to talk to you who's in there.

CRAIG

It's so interesting, because we have a view, as science is now so advanced, but it struggles with some simple things and I'm fascinated by what they call the hard question of consciousness. In other words, no one can explain why I have a unique understanding of what it is to be inside me, and that I witness the world from a particular perspective. And since I was a child, I've asked the question, how did I get in here? And that seems to be where you're going to it's like, why am I even here, what is this thing that's in here? And you're saying, well, it's not your thoughts, it's not your feelings. But if you can get in touch with that, then things can go be a bit more straightforward.

MICHAEL

First, the thoughts of why am I in here - which is beautiful, you have those thoughts, especially as a child - the mind does not have to stop. You just have to stop being lost in your mind, okay? You're aware that the mind is talking, you're aware that the heart is emoting. That's fine. Just relax there, be comfortable being aware that that's going on. That's how you find out who you are. I've learned so much, 50 years of doing this, they say be still and know, [unintelligible] that saying all right, be still and know. I am. I exist. All right, as you come back to that part of your being, how? By not leaving, Can you see that? Pay attention and don't leave. It's not just a light shining there on your thoughts. As you come further back, you realise, what it’s nice stuff back there. That's a, what we call nirvana. That is a beautiful place back there. There's peace and love and enthusiasm and tremendous energy comes from there. And that's what you start to realise as you explore the nature of self.

CRAIG

Yeah. And okay, I think a lot of people will listen to that and they will say, okay, my thoughts aren't me, and my feelings aren't me. But they do dominate. And it feels sometimes so natural for us to be closely associated with them. What would you say to people who say that's basically how we're sad, and you're basically just trying to rewrite our basic software? In other words, trying to sort of override that process that's natural to us.

MICHAEL

I don't want to call it natural, I want to call it the default. Our programme, remember, it is the default behaviour. If you don't do anything different, that's what's going to happen. The new book, which I know you read, called Living Untethered, it specifically answers that question and discusses to those people, okay, is why do you associate so strongly with those thoughts? You literally build a what Freud called a self concept, you build a set of thoughts that say, this is who I am. You put them together into an ego, into a self concept. Why do we do that? And the book was really deeply into that. Because what happens is, we build a foundation of thoughts inside of ourselves, by keeping things that bothered us in the past. Events happened in the past, they didn't feel good inside, and so we suppress them. And eventually, you'll find if you will look in there, as you've collected every bad thing that ever happened to you inside your mind, and then you wonder why you're disturbed. Right? Like, you talked about the natural state, the natural state of a human being ain’t so hot. They're working real hard to be okay, how would I say that? They go on good vacations, have good relationships, nothing wrong with those things. But why do we need all of this in order to be okay? To distract yourself from yourself, and that's what we're doing. That's the natural state of a human being, I'm not okay inside, I need to find things, do things, change things, so that I'm better and distract myself from myself. And what the teachings are, well, why don't you just fix that stuff in there, and then you will be wonderful in there.

CRAIG

I'm glad you mentioned Living Untethered, because there's a fairly long passage that I just want to read out that's in the book, which I think encapsulates a lot of what you're saying, and I think it will help listeners understand. So it goes, ‘when people are actually drowning in water, what do they do? They try to grab something solid, so they don't sink. That is how most people live their lives, they're grabbing on to whatever they can, so they won't drown. Generally, what they are grabbing on to is something outside themselves. They think if others respected them, or treated them better, it wouldn't be so caustic inside, if someone would just truly love them and be loyal to them, they'd be okay. The problem is, if they managed to get what they want, they will grab hold for dear life and never let go, which creates its own issues. Even worse, if the outside world stops giving them what they want, they will start to drown again.’ Talk to me a little bit about that passage. It's interesting to me, I think that you described so much of the human experience, particularly when it's under stress, as drowning.

MICHAEL

People are drowning inside, right? They have trouble. Like I said, my experience, and I've worked with a lot of people, including myself, is we store our problems inside. Something happened to you yesterday that was not comfortable and you see that person again today, it makes the uncomfortableness come back up, you know that. So we stored all these triggers inside that are just waiting to get hit. And we have to defend ourselves and protect ourselves. T That I call drowning, we’re drowning inside with all these issues and concerns and worries, and so on. Worry’s a good word. Most people admit they worry a lot, so perfect example. Like I sometimes tell people, you feel like you're drowning, what's really happening is you're in three inches of water, slashing your hands all over the place so the water is getting in your mouth, and you're screaming ‘cause you're drowning - stop it! You're gonna find out, just get up. There's no issue, you're creating your own issue.

CRAIG

Yeah, and let's unpack that. So you're basically, the moment is just a moment, it's just there. But you're choosing to bring to it pain and suffering and torment. And actually, if you just let it pass, then it would be okay.

MICHAEL

Buddha said, all of life is suffering. Now, he’s not being negative, right? He's sitting there saying if you're rich, you worry about losing your money. If you're poor, you worry about having money, if you're in a relationship, you were they might hurt you, or maybe there's a better one, or are you wasting your life with this person. Come on, be honest, we go through a lot of stuff in there. That's a line in the book, which has become my favourite, right, which is, the moment in front of you is not bothering you. You're bothering yourself about the moment in front of you. Contemplate on that.

CRAIG

So look, reading the book, it seems to be that there are three big words and phrases that I want to take one by one. One is acceptance, one is surrender, and the other one is letting go. Can we start with acceptance? It seems to me you're saying we have to learn to accept the world as it is not as we want it to be? Is that right?

MICHAEL

Yes. That doesn't mean you won't work with it. Right? Once you've let it go and aren't bothering yourself about it, you're in a better position to work with it constructively than if you're freaking out and getting all upset about it.

CRAIG

So when you talk to people about acceptance, and I must admit in my own personal experience when I was listening to what you were saying and reading your books, I struggled, because for me, a lot of overcoming some of the issues I had in the past sometimes felt about, you know, like asserting myself or making sure that I was, you know, that that person knew that they caused a problem. And so it was interesting to me this idea of acceptance.

MICHAEL

I've honed this down over the years, right? Because acceptance is a word a lot of people have trouble with. So I get it down to this: a moment unfolding in front of you. Right? It already happened. You can't stop it from having happened. It already happened. Accept reality to start with, because you can't change reality. You can change later. Right? But you can't change the past, and you can't change the exact moment that just unfolded. Somebody actually said what they said, somebody actually walked away from you. Somebody actually told you they love you more than anything in the whole world. Events happen. You now choose: resist, accept. That's what I mean by acceptance. We're supposed to be the most highly-evolved species, right, that's adaptable to our environment. Well, that was your environment right then, can you handle it? And the answer, for most people with most moments is no, at least a lot of what was, I can't handle that happen.

CRAIG

And so much of the discussions that I have with people about things is around the word ‘should’ and that, you know, something should have been this way, that person shouldn't have done that, they should have behaved this way, they should have done that. And actually, as you're saying in reality, that well, they just did it. And there's nothing you can do about it, they did do it. So you have to work from that rather than getting angry about the way things should or shouldn't be,

MICHAEL

Okay, let's get down to brass tacks. If a person said something that is offensive to you, they actually already said it. You can't go into reverse and make it go backwards. You understand that no one's ever done that, no one has a time machine, an event that actually took place, where the tires hit the road already happened. If you can't accept that it happened, you can’t constructively work with it. All you can do is resist inside because I can't, watch my words, I can't handle this, you're in a state that you can't handle that that happened, you have to start with understanding it did happen. Doesn't mean we’re not gonna do anything about it, doesn't mean we're gonna work with it. Right? But inside, you better start with: this happened. If you can't handle internally, if your mind is freaking out, if your heart is giving you all these problems, right? If it's a mess inside, and you're expressing the inner mess, what do you think is gonna happen? So I'm calling acceptance, that moment, just that moment, don't expand into everything. The moment of: this is reality, can I handle it?

CRAIG

And many people go through relationships that are abusive or difficult, you know that they can be physical or emotional, or sexual abuse or whatever, all sorts of difficult and nasty things happen. I just want to be clear, you're not saying that they should accept that's okay. You're basically saying those things have happened to you, now how do I deal with it? To make sure that I'm okay going forward?

MICHAEL

It means you deal with it from a real place of clarity. Well, who would you rather have work on you? A surgeon that just had a fight with his wife, and he couldn't handle what happened and he's really upset and they're not paying him enough money, or somebody who's calm, centred clear, and is making good decisions. And that's true of every moment of your life. If you're not centred and clear, but you're upset, you're not going to do well. That statement that goes on inside many of our heads, I can't handle this. You're an intelligent guy, you need to think about that. Think about that saying, I can't handle it - well, then don't touch it. Because you just admitted you can't handle it. I can't handle that happen. This is a difference.

CRAIG

It feels to a lot, I do see the difference, and I think the thing that a lot of people, and I'm with you completely on it, but at first I think it's actually quite a counterintuitive thing. Because actually you feel very strong emotions or have very strong thoughts. And actually, it's almost like you have to be counterintuitive, you have to overcome the setting that's inside you. And I think that that's what people sometimes find difficult.

MICHAEL

Nothing wrong with being an activist. Nothing wrong with being a political, nothing wrong with doing anything, if you're doing it not from a personal state of upsetness. Alright, you can be clear and make better decisions. The event happened okay, that happened. It disturbed me, well, that happened too, that's reality also. Understand that. Can you handle that it happened and can you handle that it disturbs you? That's just a step back. Eventually you can handle all of it. Now I'm clear, I'm open, I'm conscious, what should I be doing to raise the situation to the best of my ability - doesn't mean you can fix everything. Right? I can't fix what's going on in Ukraine right now. All right. But I can handle the moments that are happening in front of me in a more conscious awareness, what it means in a more conscious way, as opposed to a reactive, emotional or disturbed mental way.

CRAIG

It does make sense. And you talk about acceptance, and then you talk about surrender. What's the difference?

MICHAEL

It’s subtle. The difference is, I start with acceptance, and then I let go of the disturbance that happened inside of me. You don't surrender to everything that's happening in life, you surrender your reaction, you let go of your reaction. And eventually, in order to surrender, you have to start with acceptance. Surrender becomes the next step back, now I've taken the position of: look, it happened. Okay, so we have a situation where somebody said something about someone's significant other, and they couldn't handle it, and they freaked out and they reacted, etc, etc. That didn't work out. Well, it doesn't mean the event didn't happen, it doesn't mean it didn't hit you wrong, but that's because you've stored stuff inside of you a certain way to where you couldn't handle that thing. Somebody else could, but you couldn't. Fine, what do I do? I start being conscious: it happened, somebody said something. Two, something inside of me really reacted really strongly. Are you aware of that? Can you see that? Surrender that reaction, let go of that reaction, then deal with the situation, you will always be better off. So surrender is an inner thing, not an outer thing. Can you relax, and let that first initial reaction pass by so that you're still centred and conscious and clear when you're dealing with a situation.

CRAIG

I think what's so interesting about your teaching is you're brilliant in metaphors. And one of your early talks, I was particularly struck by one, and you talked about somebody who had an injury with a thorn in their side, and you say that the sensible thing to do is to take out the thorn and have some short-term pain. But instead, what people do is they build elaborate behaviours and routines around the fact they've got a thorn in their side, in order to not let the thorn be touched. And of course, that's a metaphor. And I think what you mean is that something painful happens to us, and instead of just dealing with it, and taking the short-term pain, it becomes embedded in our being and how we deal with the world. And I think that that explains so much about when you encounter difficult people, they have a really painful thing that they haven't dealt with. And so they have elaborate behaviours as a result of that. And you see that come out particularly I think when people are in crisis.

MICHAEL

Absolutely, absolutely. And that's what it's all about. If you store everything that ever bothered you, inside of you, you're going to be bothered. I don't know why people can understand that, right. But if you learn to let go, you can live a full life and be open and enjoy much more your life, as opposed to being anxious. That's where all the anxiety comes from. And yes, I know Oprah, when I've talked to Oprah, she loves it. That's all she talks about and she says she teaches it to all her students and everything. An event happened, yes, it was difficult, but I need to let it go. I need to neutralise it so I don't carry it around for the rest of my life. You go to a restaurant, and there's a food that you ate that made you sick, it didn't really work well, do you ask for a doggie bag, so you can take it home? And every morning taste a little bit of it to remind yourself how sick it made you so you don't do it again? You would never do that. And so why do you do it with bad experiences? So the answer is not to find compensating ways to make yourself feel better about the fact you have this stuff inside of you. It's to do the necessary work to let it go. You have to get as clear as you can, and then try to make the best decision you can for the benefit of everybody, not just yourself.

CRAIG

Nelson Mandela talked famously about being the captain of his own soul. But what's also interesting about thinking about somebody like him is that you see history is littered with innocent victims. Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine, he's a man who's having a vast impact on a vast number of people because of his need to control.

MICHAEL

I'd be proud to say that if I was in Ukraine, and this was going on, and I was younger than I am now, I could take up arms, you do everything you can to defend your country. There's nothing about my teachings or any of these deep teachings that say you would not do such a thing. Or if you're a politician, you do everything you can to work with it to make good decisions, that could be politically arguing or doing this or doing that or negotiating, whatever it is.

CRAIG

But then you look at somebody like Putin, he's causing so much pain and anguish around the world of people, just innocent people, he's literally having tens of thousands of people killed. And I just wondered how that fits into your template, because I think people will be interested in that because they're like, okay, I can see your teaching to a level, but then there's sometimes something that goes so far out of control, like what Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine, how does that fit?

MICHAEL

Okay? There's what's happening. There's this person who has obviously issues, I can’t exactly psychoanalyse him, but he obviously needs things to be different than they are. Okay? And very personal and very painful. And so he's doing this, Hitler did it too. Okay, he's doing this. What do you do? You calm yourself, you get centred and you look to see what is the best I can do to help with this.

CRAIG

That's a good answer. Let's change gear a little. Every day, because of you, I remind myself that life is a gift. And that was a very profound shift for me. I'd seen life as a bit of a trial, something that I needed to struggle to get through. And you remind us how amazing it is to be here. We've won the lottery after lottery in 13.8 billion years of universal history. And to quote you, how can you drop down to the nicest planet there and not be OK? It's exciting, challenging and growthful. It has all sorts of colours, shapes and sounds, yet what do you do? You suffer - why? It's not the planet that's causing you to suffer. Let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, it is extraordinary to be here, it's amazing to wake up and look at this wonderful world and yet we seem to be set to be complaining about it.

MICHAEL

It… all around us is so miraculous, it’s ridiculous. 1.3 million planets - of our planet Earth - will fit into the Sun. 1.3 million! That’s how small this silly old planet is, it's tiny. And there are 300 billion suns, stars, in our galaxy, and there are 2 trillion galaxies. Now what problem are you having? Let's talk about it. How about we don’t? How about we realise if you will just stop fixating and get it, like your mind is like an ingrown toenail. You start fixating on yourself and what you want and what you don't want, and what you like, what you don't like. You can love everything, just open up and see the miracle of life. It's phenomenal.

CRAIG

It's an incredibly sane and balanced way of looking at life. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is because in my life, I've known people who've had pretty severe mental health problems, you know, they've had conditions that have made life very, very difficult for them. And I often sort of look at them and I think that what you say is incredibly sensible and sane, but it's almost as if the problems are so insurmountable for them. So if you know, if their problems were physically manifested, they'd be a paraplegic or in a wheelchair or something, you know, it's a huge issue for them. And the struggles they go through are enormous. How do you help people like that, because I'm sure we all know them, and we know that, people with such strong mental health problems.

MICHAEL

Like I said, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychologist, or a psychologist, right? It is interesting that Freud, who I have a lot of respect for, he didn’t study healthy people - Freud was studying clinically problematic people. And he came up with his theories, and his theories basically say you're suppressing stuff, that a lot of this stuff comes because of mommy and daddy, and this and that, and you've suppressed these things, and they're causing your abnormal behaviour, and your unsocial behaviour. So that's not that different than what we're teaching, what we're talking about. So there are problems, some of the problems are due to suppression, or due to the fact that events happened to you in your life, you weren't able to handle them, and you stored these disturbed things inside. And so now the mind is disturbed there, that's a way of defining a destroyer without getting too deep into it. There are other problems that are literally physiological, genetic things, there can be all kinds of things that go on. I have a lot of people, just recently, a lot of people that are in AA that are dealing with addictions that have read my books that I didn't intend, that I never thought of that, and said it helps and many of the AA teachers teach the Untethered Soul, because it gives them the step back, so they realise, yes, I'm disturbed, okay. I'm disturbed, but I'm not disturbed: I'm watching a disturbed mind. And that gives you a chance to free yourself. So the teachings do work perfectly well, to a degree. Like I said, I'm not a psychiatrist, psychologist, I am just a person who noticed that I noticed. I had somebody with PTSD who used to have the services, at the temple, and he's told me it went away. He just looked at and said, I can handle this. Yes, it's terrible, yes it freaks me out if I think about it. But I can breathe. I can, little by little, be letting this go and realise, this is what happened, nothing I can do about it, it’s what happened, and I'm better off being able to handle that it happened, than I am complaining, and not being able to handle that it happened. And I’m not saying it's for everybody, but it can help tremendously to work with yourself, doesn't mean you don't need therapy help, or help from a professional, I always recommend that if somebody needs that, by all means, there's no replacement to that. It's just something you can do on a daily basis, moment to moment basis, to work with yourself. And you're better off if you do than if you don't.

CRAIG

In the final part of the interview, I want to get quite practical, because I know that people want tips and that kind of thing. And I think that sometimes when I read your books, and like in your lectures, you've almost resisted that a little, but in the latest book, you're actually are very practical. And I think that the last few chapters are very, very strongly practical. And one of the things that struck me in that book was that you asked people to write down what they want in life. And usually you say they come up with a list of like, I want a great life partner and amazing house and a job. And then you say, that's not really what they want. What do they want?

MICHAEL

You want what you think that will give you. That if I get a better job, if I have more money, if people respect me more - that’s a big one - if I'm successful, that that's going to be the answer. Based on my past experiences or movies I watched, all right, I think that if those things happened to me, I would be happier, I would feel love, I would be at peace, I wouldn't worry as much. Okay, that's what you want. You're just defining outside stimuli that you think will cause that to happen inside. If you say I want to be a rock star, let's say you end up on drugs and all kinds of mess is happening, there's a complete mess. But if that was done, do you want that? No, though you thought that this outside stimulus was going to affect your inner state to be the way you want? So what I'm saying is, well, why don't you just ask for that? If you're going to pray to God and want something or the genie shows up and says what are your three wishes, right? Don't ask for the car, the Rolls Royce or whatever, Ferrari, and don't ask for the perfect relationship because it doesn't always stay perfect, and don't ask for the beautiful house, right? Ask for a feeling inside of completeness and wholeness and total well-being every second of my life that keeps getting higher and higher, and I feel complete joy and well-being as well, that’s what I want to ask for.

CRAIG

And I know that you regularly quote Jesus who said the kingdom of God is within. And that's what you're really saying is, you've got to look within and sort yourself out. And then you will be happier and balanced and more centred. But if you constantly go to the outside world, that's when you're really going to struggle and that's when there's going to be difficulties.

MICHAEL

Doesn't mean that I can't interact with the outside, I want to interact with the outside, I want to interact out of inspiration, out of love. That's very different than saying I don't feel love, so I need to find a person that will make me feel love. Good luck.

CRAIG

Yeah, and I've got a quote from you, which is in bold, underlined and in italics, that says ‘the foundational choice in life is either constantly control life to compensate for our blockages, or devote our lives to getting rid of our blockages.’ And then you go on to say if you want to grow spiritually, if you want to have a beautiful life, you need to do the inner work. Okay, so let's just, what, how do I do the inner work? Tell me about that.

MICHAEL

If you clean up inside and don't store things that bothered you inside, you're way better off and so is everyone around you, then the question becomes how do you do that? I think that it's simple, if you're willing to go…. How do you learn tennis? It’s hard. I don't want to golf, hit the stupid bullets, in little small little tiny holes. But you bother to learn, you bother to say I want to do this, and you take lessons and you do this and you shank the ball and you hit different next time. You just, you adjust, you work with it. It's the same thing inside. If I'm storing stuff inside that's disturbing me on a daily basis, you are, it rained arghh, I got a, complaining, the car in front of me was driving too slow, I was in a rush, everyone arghh, my God you bother yourself about everything. How about we start with what I call low-hanging fruit, that's what the book talks about. There's things that you bother yourself about life, that you're not changing. Just bother yourself about ‘em and you're not getting any good out of it. If you bother yourself because it's raining or it's gonna rain tomorrow, it's not gonna change a single thing. All it did was bother you. You know, I went to business school, right and doctorate in economics school, and that basically they taught us there's this thing called a cost-benefit analysis. We business people do things like that. And if somebody comes through the whole bunch of projects and opportunities, and you look at the cost-benefit analysis, which good business person says, I want the one that has no benefit at 100% cost? Okay, well, that's not gonna work out real well. That's what you're doing when you bother yourself about something that has no benefit. There's no benefit of bothering yourself. But there's tremendous costs. So how about we take those, the driver in front of you, the fact that it’s gonna rain tomorrow, the fact that, you know.

CRAIG

And let's talk a bit about meditation, because I was sort of a bit confused about it at first and thought it was, in a way, a bit more complicated than it really is. And what it really does is, it's a way of sort of clearing your mind and just being present. And what I think that it teaches you to do is in life when you're not meditating, is to respond and not react. And I think before I was meditating, I was reacting a lot to things. It's like instantaneous, I was annoyed or fed up or suddenly felt sad about something. And actually, what it does is that your brain almost slows so that you're then willing to actually respond and think rationally about it or not think rationally, or just be rational about it, be more balanced, be more centred. And so that practice helps a lot, doesn’t it.

MICHAEL

And I liked that you said, your mind slows, you're thrashing around, and that's causing all the trouble, if you stop thrashing, that's really what happens is you step back, and stop thrashing. And basically, that allows you to have peace and centred, you'll do better in life, you’ll do better in relationships, do better in every single thing you do, if you could come from a place like that.

CRAIG

And another metaphor that you use is that you can't expect to play a really complicated piece on the piano without practising, without doing the scales, without putting in the effort. So I suppose that also these little things about not letting yourself get bothered, because somebody cut you up in a car or the weather's bad today, actually builds up to being able to deal with much greater problems, things that really are much more serious and really are genuinely painful and have the capacity to really knock you off course.

MICHAEL

If you're okay inside, you're okay. Okay, you can deal with stuff. Let's say something happens financially, and you have to downsize your house. Some people, that's a big thing, oh, my God, I can have, it’s embarrassing, I don't want to talk about it, and I don't feel good when I come home. If you're not okay inside, you're not okay. It's just that simple.

CRAIG

And I think that you're very clear that this doesn't mean to say that, suddenly, everything's going to be a bed of roses. And I think one of the quotes that you say at the end of the book is, if something terrible comes back from the best you can do, own it, it's yours. Let it teach you. So there's a lot of stuff in that, isn't there, that so you're saying difficult things will happen? And the best way to deal with that is to own it and let it teach you. Can you talk a bit about that? I mean, I know that in your own experience, you had very serious problems with your business at one stage, that kind of thing. Can you talk a bit about that experience and, and how he teaches you?

MICHAEL

It shows how deep you are, that you're taking out the deepest part of the book, very pleased, right, that we got to share that. Obviously, you do not control life. You think you do, you’re not even close, okay? All kinds of events happen out in the field that are not in your control. And so basically, your choice is back to acceptance. You start with, I always start with acceptance. Did this happen? Yes, reality wins, reality happen. So you start from that point, you're much better off if you start that way. So you know, wasting your energy complaining, wasting your energy getting, thrashing all over the place inside: as quickly as possible, accept, alright, this happened, you need to deal with this. What's the best way to handle that moment, then the next one, one foot in front of the other, like AA, all right, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time, you do the best you can. So that's how I've lived my life.

CRAIG

We haven't got time to go through it, but when the difficulties happened with your business, I mean, I think it went on for over a decade, didn't it? And that there was like you ended up having to go through, you know, lots of appearances with lawyers and that kind of thing. Were there moments where you've thought, God, am I going to be strong enough to deal with this? Am I going to be able to live this - were there wobbly moments?

MICHAEL

So you're asking a deep question. And because I have done so much work on myself for so long, before that happened, right? I sat there from the beginning and said, can I handle this? And I said yes. And therefore I said yes, I can handle this. And then any thought that would come up over how terrible something could be, I said, I could handle that. That's where it matters that you worked on yourself all those years, imagine being able to say that to yourself, I'll be fine, I can handle anything that happens, I'll be fine. That's what should be going inside of you when you go through a difficult situation, you do your best to deal with it. But inside, you're centred, you're clear, nothing can happen that I won't be okay with. Because I can be okay with anything if I'm okay inside. And I'm in control inside, not control outside. That situation, I sure as heck, I’m talking about the end, the last section of the surrender experiment. It obviously, outside wasn't so pretty, okay. But inside, I don't have to let that mess me up inside, do I. And it turned out wonderful. And it made a really nice section for the book, didn’t it?

CRAIG

It did and I think you've built an extraordinary life where you've touched millions of people, as you said, you mentioned Oprah Winfrey, you've been top of the New York Times bestseller list. And you've spoken to millions of people, including me. And I want to come to the end of the interview by quoting something that I actually thought was very, very moving at the end of the latest book, Living Untethered. And you say that once you've done all this, once you've actually taken this to heart, when you've practised it, you've done the equivalent of all your scales and learning how to use a piano, that sort of thing, it’s a metaphor. And you would say, you wish you could go back and say I am sorry, I was so lost. That's such a profound and moving thing to say, it's basically that that we do go through life sort of hurting people or inadvertently or living in a way, that's not the best it can be. And that causes all sorts of problems and that kind of thing. But actually, when you try to live in the way that you're doing that you see things a lot more clearly. And you become a lot more balanced and centred.

MICHAEL

Yes, that's, as I said, you're picking out the deepest parts of the book, that's very beautiful. And that’s the truth, you can only do what you can do to the best that you can from where you are at that moment. To look back and feel guilty or shame, it wouldn’t help one iota right, as long as you've grown past it, and you can look at it and say, when I ask people who feel guilt or shame about things that happened in their past - sh, listen to me, if the same situation happened again, would you do the same thing? And they always say, no, I would never do that. Okay, you learned, you grew, you use the situation and make yourself a better person, and what use is guilt or shame. Right? Now, if you would do it again, but if sincerely you had remorse, and you went through it, you need to go through inside yourself to realise, that was a terrible thing that I came from, God, I would never do that again, never ever, then you learned. And you have the right to learn. That's why you're here. Right? So you took birth on Earth to be you, you don't want to leave this planet in the same state where you came in, right? You want to be a greater being, you want to have grown.

CRAIG

And just listening to you, and having read so much of you, it seems that there's almost like a pattern here isn't there, that you get all this stuff gets stored up inside you, you have all sorts of issues, some people come to a point where they realise, God, I need to do this differently. And there's a better way and they come to some kind of understanding. Is that deliberate? Is that how it's supposed to be? Is that how the pattern is set? Or is that just a stupid question.

MICHAEL

It's not a stupid question. But at some point, you're going to philosophy. And I try not to do that. Okay, I try to just deal with reality. But Earth is a place where souls are sent to evolve. How's that?

CRAIG

That's pretty deep. So you believe it's a learning experience?

MICHAEL

Of course it is.

CRAIG

And we spend a lot of time I think, I'm coming to the end here, but we spend a lot of time sort of thinking the world is getting worse. There's so much shouting and division. You teach sanity, but do you worry that it's getting worse? Or do you think it was always thus?

MICHAEL

Most of the things are out of your control, and I can't control the world. I can't do this sort of thing. But I can certainly do my best for the people I'm interacting with. Bring love, caring, compassion into the moments and not bring my personal problems, that’s the key. Everybody, the reason the world's a mess, everyone's bringing personal problems to the world. Okay, you talked about Putin or whatever, right? He thinks Russia needs to come back to their greatness, whatever the heck it is. And you know, different people couldn't handle different things and he made a mess, made a real mess, look at that mess they make. Right? Don't be that. Bring the most beautiful person you can into every interaction you have. If you get upset, let it go. If you take something personal, let it go. Look at Gandhi. My God, he handled things, didn’t he, he handled them, beating him up, he handled that easily. He handled the British rule, right? There's nothing personal, nothing personal - basically, and that ability to accept, to handle, changed the world didn’t it, it changed - I can’t even think about it, it’s amazing.

CRAIG

And I think what you just said then about, imagine a world in which everybody was behaving like that, how much easier it would be on all of us. At the end of your book, you sign off, with great love and respect. And I just wanted to say that I want to sign off now and say, with great love and respect, I think you've taught me a huge amount. I think the fact that I've tried to live and try to live, some of the things that you've taught has made a huge difference to me. So thank you, you've made a huge difference to the world and certainly made a huge difference to me. And that's greatly appreciated. So with great love and respect, Michael Singer, thank you very much.

MICHAEL

Well, thank you so much, I really, I was looking forward to talking to you. All right. I appreciate that your background is very different than how you've evolved yourself into right now. And that's just a role model for a lot of people. So I really respect you a great deal. All right. Bye bye.

CRAIG

The great Michael Singer. I urge you to seek out his amazing books and lectures. Next week's guest couldn't be more different. The political comedian Matt Forde.

Matt Forde

Once you realise you can make people laugh, you kind of go oh, other people want to talk to me now. They're all right, actually, no, they're not judging me that badly, you know.

CRAIG

He has some amazing stories to tell. If you enjoyed this podcast, why not subscribe and even leave a review. Desperately Seeking Wisdom was produced for Creators Inc by Sarah Parker. Until next time, goodbye.