Michael Singer - Freeing Your Consciousness from Your Mind

g g Masters there are certain foundations of truth that are so simple they shouldn't need discussion but we miss them one of them is that your entire life is about what you're conscious of none of your life is about what you're not conscious of if something does not end enter your awareness doesn't enter your Consciousness either mentally or physically it doesn't matter if it doesn't enter your Consciousness it has no influence on you that which you know absolutely nothing about have never experienced has zero influence and the opposite is true that which you experience in

your Consciousness regularly influences you so this thing about consciousness which is you you're the conscious being who dwells inside and then you experience things I wish you know in in photography and creative arts they talk about what's called negative space that is there's an object that you're photographing or making and then there's the rest of the universe that's truly what negative space is not object res Zen not object and the negative space of course defines the object do you see that okay if the negative space was exactly the color and shape of the object you

wouldn't see the object so it is the same with your Consciousness we could focus on what has influenced you but you already do that all the time it's all you do is focus on what's influenced you it would be fun I won't do it but it would be fun to have an entire talk about what hasn't influenced you but it would take a really long time I sometimes challenge you by asking you what percentage of what's going on positive Space versus negative space what percentage of what's going on are you experiencing like right now it's

pretty interesting you're here in this neat place and you're experiencing this what are you missing everything else that's the concept of negative space but I mean what you're missing is 99999999999999 per of what's going on isn't it everywhere I'm not talking about in Gainesville or Florida or on the planet Earth everywhere that's your negative space and this is just the situation you're experiencing so you're taking in nothing and that's what you're being influenced by nothing people are so busy with saying I'm so influenced he influenced me that influenced me yes it did it narrowed you

anything that influenced you destroyed your life in truth because it made you become narrow to that focused upon that event which was a nothing event at the same time that event was taking place 700 billion zillion other events were taking place that you were not experiencing so you're getting the drift I can only talk around it but it's very important because otherwise you lose your entire life to the nothing that you've already experienced and you don't pay attention to the fact that you missed everything so therefore the Mind naturally formulates the concept that it knows

something I'm man of the world no you're not you've only experienced the tiny amount that came into your Consciousness that you were looking at at that moment so this thing that you've built up inside yourself inside your mind this notion that you know something is the silliest thing in the whole world you don't know anything you only know the tiny little bit that has influenced your Consciousness has come into you and you know you admit that means you you missed everything haven't you so you start off with the humility that's what that creates is humility

that you don't know anything and I mean anything you don't know a thing about your wife you don't think about your husband you don't think about your boyfriend know a thing about anything and anything anything you think you know somebody there's no way you know somebody not even close that's why relationships so difficult people have been influenced by the experiences that passed before them as they went through life you met them 3 weeks ago they're 26 years old they've been influenced by all of those experiences every single second for 26 years and you've been influenced

by the ones that went into you and none of them are the same not even close period the person sitting next to you is not having the same experience as you all right so this person that you met is very complex and very limited let think about they've missed everything said that tiny laser beam of what happened to be in front of them even though all the rest was going on equally the same and so now this person is this complex mix of these limited experiences I'll be them limited this the ones they experienced and

you're this complex mix of this totally unique set of experiences that you've had and now you've known each other for 3 weeks and you feel like you know them that's really very funny you don't know them you don't know you know what you did when you knew them is what happened you had all your experiences then they became one of your experiences and so they came in and you inter mesh them into your experiences and that's what you mean when you say I know them you I feel like I've known him forever no you haven't

known him and you don't know him and you will never know him ever why because when you're not with him he's having different experiences even now and a person is just Skinner said a person is a sum of their learned experiences it's not what a person is but that's what your mind is you are the Consciousness that's in there aware that you have a very very restricted and limited mind that is limited to what has influenced you over the course of your life which like I said be honest is nothing so you start with the

humility of realizing this is the way it is we talk about witness Consciousness all it means seriously people make a big deal out of this thing all witness Consciousness means is I am in here I'm conscious I'm aware I don't have to try I'm aware you in there hi I thought so all right I am aware in here there are things going on in here that I am aware of these thoughts that my mind creates these emotions that my heart creates and a world unfolds in front of me those are the objects that you are

conscious of they are very limited but they are the ones you experience your thoughts are the sum of the Learned experiences that have influence them there's nothing good about your thoughts nothing bad about your thoughts if you had had different experiences you would have different thoughts and your experiences are totally random they're just what happens to unfold in front of you if you saw a car accident when you were 3 years old you looked out the window you saw a car accident there was really a lot of mess out there and it left a deep

impression on you now you don't drive you don't let your kids drive it influenced you I always tell the story if your little sister had distracted did you hey Peter look over here and you look the other way while you were driving by you're telling me your entire life is different okay I hope that makes you feel pretty weird that's weird you have these influences that have left Impressions on your mind now you are the Consciousness that is destined if you will to listen to what your mind creates because of the influences it had if

you doubt that you would be different if you had had different influen different experiences I can prove it to you easily because today you give me your opinions you do everything you tell me what you like and what you don't like us get it all down and then you go outside and you have an experience somebody tells you something you didn't know somebody does something you didn't expect one experience you want to tell me it's not going to change how you see things not going to change what your mind says whether you like people or

don't like people or anything like that it's pretty big there are people that are married that love people that have long-term relationship ships then they find out something about their past and they don't like them anymore don't blush it's embarrassing but it's true isn't it there are people who grew up with their parents and they're they're now 19 20 25 years old and the parents get together and decide well we should tell Johnny that he's adopted and then the parents sit down with Johnny and that's it for Johnny he goes south he's weird he's like

totally different person everything changed because of one piece of information that is the power of influence that is what your mind is doing it is taking in these Impressions trying to digest them and put them together into some model of understanding even though it only gots so little bit of information tries to figure it all out and when one more piece of information comes in the mind changes and now you're sitting in there watching witnessing witness conscious you're witnessing a mind that is now telling you different things before I told you oh I can't wait

till he comes over to see me I'm so excited and all a I don't want to see him I can't I hope he doesn't come has it ever happened to you it is so neat to watch this and that's what witness Consciousness does for you witness Consciousness is simply sitting there saying I am not the mind I have a mind but I am not the mind the mind is the sum of the Learned experiences it takes the Learned experiences takes them all in and then tries to make them make sense you try to make the

experiences you had makes sense inside of you and he does and she does etc etc and you it's called rationalization you take these thoughts you rationalize them all out and end up with a concept of how things are and so on it's tough to live in there when you've done that why because what you have in there is not truth what you have in there is nothing it's a couple of pieces of data that you built a whole world around and there's 800 billion more pieces of data that you don't have therefore you got nothing

I'm a computer guy I know it's only as good as the data put in wrong data you get wrong stuff out if you put in meaningless data you get meaningless stuff out you have meaningless data in there and you've built a whole model of the world and of people and of things and of you and of everything based upon that so your mind will now talk about that it will tell you what you like what you don't like what you want to happen what you don't want to happen what freaks you out what turns you

on just every single thing it says is just the sum of the Learned experiences that have left Impressions upon it and so now it's going to regurgitate that and talk to you when you sit in witness Consciousness I'm going to start to talk what I want to talk about when you sit in what's called witness Consciousness it means I am aware that my mind is doing this I don't have to think about it just like if I look at the wall I see the pictures I don't have to think in order to see the pictures

do I it's very important I just open my eyes and they're there they come in because they're there you're mind is there you see it you're aware of it you don't have to think about it witness Consciousness is not a state of I wonder if I'm witnessing I wonder if I'm seeing the picture no you're not doing anything with your mind you're just noticing that there is something happening before your Consciousness which is a mind that you someday if you watch long enough you'll catch on is doing nothing but regurgitating the sum of its learned

experiences that's all it's doing it's just spitting back out some combination of the day data that's in there all right and put one more piece of data spit out something different It's the funniest thing in the world and it has absolutely nothing to do with you nothing zero nothing there's not a single thing that that mind says that is any different than anything else it says it's just a Talking Machine in there that has take it's like a computer that took in this data and now it's putting it and talking about it and giving you

its opinion about things and so on you are the Consciousness that is aware if I asked you right now are you aware that your mind is doing this I can tell from the way you're looking at me that you're stunned and yeah that's what it does it doesn't do anything else it just puts that together now if you watch a little bit longer from the seat of witness I'll do it for you because most people can't watch objectively why because they're too invested in it they really think that what the mind has to say matters

it doesn't it's meaningless might well take an eightball and just turn maybe yes no right it's just meaningless chat that it's doing in there now I'm separating what I call the personal mind this is the personal mind that's a some of your learned experiences from the intellectual mind the abstract mind the impersonal mind what is the difference people say well that's like people write books and there say the personal and the impersonal mind we don't need books is how easy it is you have the ability to willfully make your mind think about what you want

I want you to think about Saturn in fact I want you to see Saturn right now all it's rings I want you to think about what spacecraft was that we sent to Saturn I don't care if you know or not just think about it your mind will think about what you tell it to if you do it write 2+ 2 equals do it literally write it in there make the Mind write the right answer down you have the right to use your mind you are in there the same you that I say hi are you

in there can make your mind do these things it's called an assertion of will you have the power of will you can assert your will and your mind will do what you tell it to do I'm going to call that the impersonal mind I'm going to call that the intellectual mind I'm going to call that the abstract mind it abstracts from what's coming in from the outside world and you get this it's a blank computer you get to use it for what you want what percentage of the time you don't know this but you'll come

back a couple of weeks you'll have watched what percentage of the time are you making your mind do what it does versus it's doing it by itself nobody ever ask you that before did they what you're going to find out is it's tiny like for example watch your mind do this where is he he said he would call I hope he's okay when if he got an accident he better up be with somebody else right are you making your mind do that or is your mind doing that to you you hear me you know how

you can test try stopping it so the mind because it's full of this stuff that you picked up and you built this whole model expresses that model day and night all the time it just even when you're sleeping your dreams are that as Freud he'll tell you the experiences that you had during your day will come come back up at night or the experiences you had that were traumatic when you were four will come back up at night all right that's where this stuff comes from it is the mind trying to release the energy built

up from these experiences that you stored inside from the impressions of some scars we call them in yoga from The Impressions that got left inside of you that is what's going on during the day the mind is just being active to try and release the energies that you stored inside because you stored all these Impressions especially the negative ones need to release and you won't let them release and so they find ways to talk about things and release and so on I don't need to teach you this you live in there you should be able

to watch this so the personal mind is the one that is talking about the personal experiences that you've had which I already told you is or meaningless and they're totally different than everybody else's and they just happened to be what was in front of you you stored them inside and they became the foundation of your personal mind you also have an intellectual mind where you you can do analytics you can do memory you can do different things like a computer when you are using your mind when you willfully use your mind but you're going to

find out that if I were to measure the difference between how often you're actually using your mind versus your mind is giving you trouble your mind's like you're driving down the road why don't you just enjoy the trees or the road you know stand a chance where am I going I wonder what I do I hope I hope she likes me oh like just watch please I beg you don't do anything about it don't analyze it don't try to figure it out don't try to stop it your first step is to watch start to notice

what your mind is doing and you see whether it's true or not that it does it by itself if you want to really find out that you're not using your mind it goes on by itself in case you don't believe me do that thing what's it called oh meditate try to meditate why would I try to meditate if for no other reason to prove to yourself that you can't okay okay sit down and decide for 15 minutes my mind is not going to go on by itself it's only going to work when I tell it

to and for these 15 minutes I signed a pledge to myself that I'm not going to use my mind for these 15 minutes I mean come on you can not eat for 15 minutes not easy but you can right you not smoke 15 minutes you cannot do all kinds of things for 15 minutes why don't just decide I'm not going to willfully use my mind and make it thing for 15 minutes and then see what happens during those 15 minutes because you to find out the Mind does not shut up they left to its own

it's going to continue thinking about what you should be doing instead of sitting here and this is stupid because it's not working anyways plus there's nobody talking in here that's I had people tell me I have no there's nobody talking I nobody's talking about I don't hear any voice there's nothing in here okay so you get this Basics that the mind is a thing in and of itself it is like an appliance it is a thought creating machine and it creates thoughts based upon the data that has been put into it and the data or

the experiences you've had that's why your thoughts are totally different than everybody else's it's neat there at least the humility you get from this is next time your mind says how could he do that I could never do that of course not you've had totally different programming therefore it makes no sense to you that somebody could ever do that and what you're doing makes no sense to them that's why it says judge not that you shall not be judged all right because it's the silliest thing in the world to sit there and take your mind

that is based upon your experiences and how dare you look at another person because what's going on in their mind has nothing to do but you're both doing the same thing you're listening to your minds you're all exactly the same Republicans Democrats this that everything male female young old sick healthy it doesn't matter you're all doing the exact same thing what do you mean doesn't look like it yes you're all listening to your minds that's a very beautiful place to get that's all anyone's doing in there is listening to their minds aren't you your mind

tells you stuff doesn't it you tend to listen to it where did the mind come from I already explained it to you didn't take books did it this is some of your learned experiences these experiences have come in now your mind says different things and when you reach witness Consciousness it merely means that you are able to maintain a center of being that is outside the mind you are watching the mind the best example I can give you is you sit down to watch TV there's other things going on in the room there's people there's

food there's this and that you're kind of lightly tangentially looking at the TV every once in a while you notice what's on the TV okay that's fine the TV is one of the objects in the room people food or other objects in the room they're all even then all of a sudden something comes on the TV that interests you and I mean seriously interest you all of a sudden there's nothing going into your Consciousness but what is on that TV there is no one else in the room you don't have a family you don't have

a house anywhere you have no past your entire Consciousness is absorbed in what's going on in the TV ever been there okay because you are the Consciousness if your Consciousness becomes fixated on a given object I'm telling you there is no other object I mean there is but not to you because you are only experiencing what's coming into your Consciousness so when you watch the TV so thoroughly it becomes your life that's the end of you it is the same thing with your mind if everything your mind says seems so important to you oh why

did I say that oh my God now I'm really embarrassed I hope I don't ever to see him again I don't want to come back to the school I can't they all laugh at me I don't what is that mind it's just mind talking all right it had an experience and now the mind is talking what witness Consciousness says is I've been there i' done that I've gotten sucked into the TV and missed my life I don't do it anymore more I'm going to sit here this is deep and notice the tendency of the mind

to be weird notice the tendency of the mind to be the sum of the Learned experiences with the biggest one being what just happened all right it gives total weight to the latest one that happened versus all that it collected before and then that settles in and it Chang look it changes right is that amazing it's just amazing you have to watch it don't be afraid of it watch it and you realize you're capable of watching it you are the Consciousness that is aware of the mind you are the person sitting on the couch looking

at the TV you are not the TV you are not what's on the TV you are the being sitting on the couch who just got sucked into the TV for a minute now you're back on the couch all right that's called waking up that's literally that example we just used that is what self-realization is you were on the couch that you sucked in the the TV you lost yourself you don't even know who you are you're not on the couch anymore you're in the TV show right all of a sudden the commercial comes on it

ceases to catch your attention you're back on the couch now all of a sudden there's a whole room there's a whole world that you missed that's what happens when you wake up you come back to the seat of awareness that was so fixated on what the mind was saying that you lost all sense of yourself because you got sucked into the TV show of you that is the personal mind you guys are going to something very deep the concept of personal mind is a very important thing to understand there's nothing wrong with mind mind is

a computer it's brilliant it's wonderful it's what you're doing with it there's nothing wrong with the TV but if you get sucked into it and don't feed the kids and leave your entire life away it's not doing too good is it so the same thing is happening with your mind so the question becomes what do I do about it once you start realizing I got a problem here my mind thinks it knows what it's talking about and it's highly influenced by the input that came in and it's totally skewed from reality because reality is 700

billion other things are happening in the universe and are all the same they're just what's happening who will look at me I know it's embarrassing there's a creation out there it's going on it's been going on for 13.8 billion years every single bit of it is the same it's just what's happening and you happen to see the part that's in front of you but it came into your mind influenced it and your mind changed this whole talk didn't it just completely changed this talk and now you're in trouble you're not in trouble because your mind

did that you're in trouble because you're paying attention to the mind and that becomes your understanding of how to get out first of all can you get out yes what's it like out beautiful what do you mean it's beautiful it's just like when you stop watching the horror movie on TV there the whole world you can go wherever you want you're you're you're awake right you can enjoy your life right it's the same thing here if you're staring at your mind I am telling you you're in trouble that's why Buddha said all life is suffering

I guarantee you if you are staring at your mind you are in trouble I don't care if you're rich I don't care if you're poor I don't care if you're male female sick healthy in relationship not in relationship married 30 years never married doesn't matter if you're staring at that mind you are in big trouble because at any moment and you know it something could happen or not happen and it go south it just start changing its WAP instantaneously when it and you know that you know that every one of you know how dangerous that

is don't you and so what you do is you go out there and you attempt to manipulate the world outside of you so that it doesn't have influences that cause your mind to freak out and if you're not careful that is how you'll spend the rest of your life and a lot of you guys are young and I don't want you to understand that because you do not have to live like that do you see that tendency to feel like you have to manipulate and control people places and things around you so they behave and

act in ways that are comfortable to you instead of in ways that cause you trouble inside all right and that's how you end up living your life that's called a fearful life you're you're at war with what's in front of you because you're scared to death most people run around their lives deep inside scared to death scared that someone will do something somebody won't do something something will happen something won't happen that causes disturbance inside and then they won't be okay and so so what they need to do is invest their energies and find out

what's that's why we control freaks some people say I have control issues which one of you don't have control issues there's nobody doesn't have control issues that's what you need to do is control the moments in front of you so that when they come in they fit what's going on inside already and they don't cause all kinds of disturbance and that goes for every word somebody says somebody tells you you know I she said that he heard him say that he thought he didn't like you you're in trouble I swear to God I even said

it you turned white right it's like you can't even handle what's some what you think somebody is thinking so these inputs that come in can cause a lot of trouble and because you don't want that you end up living a life of stress a life of anxiety that's what it boils down to tension that's where tension comes from is that you feel the need to control the events around you so that they don't disturb you there is another life to be lived it is completely different than that you can live it in the same place

the same situations but you're living a different life what is that I said to you in the beginning that what happened is you've taken all these influences and you developed an entire model of reality inside your head based upon what isn't reality you just based upon the experience you've had that is not reality it's just the tiniest piece of things so it's not reality reality is is the whole reality is not the tiny part that you've experienced there is a way to live in which you don't hang out with that part of yourself you don't

look at your mind and say oh my God tell me what needs to happen so I'll be okay tell me how everybody else needs to be so I'll be okay you look at the mind you realize it doesn't know what it's talking about it's just the sum of his learned experiences and I'm not going to listen you can learn to not listen to that part of your mind you don't have to shut it up you don't have to fight with it there is a natural tendency that the experiences you've had are going to get stuck

in your mind store in your mind they're going to create noise they're going to create these Impressions that make all this noise inside your head you can spend your life trying to make the world be what matches it I don't advise that you can spend your life trying to shut your mind up so that it doesn't do those things that's very unnatural or you can decide not to listen and that's what true witness Consciousness leads to where you look at your mind and you realize it doesn't know what it's talking about it shows you that

all the time but you're not paying attention somebody's late somebody's supposed to call you at a certain time come home at a certain time and for 15 minutes you've got this period of time where you don't know what's going on will you watch how many iterations your mind goes through trying to figure out what's going on and then the person comes home and finds I had a flat tire or some you know anoculus thing took place do you sit your mind down and scold it and say look what you did you created hell for me

for 15 minutes no you don't you just accept that it did that all right A wise person wouldn't do that they look at it over time it takes time to mature into this and you realize ready it doesn't know what it's talking about the personal mind has no idea what's going on it can't it only knows about itself and then it projects itself onto everything else and it's never right never anytime you think you know why somebody said something you don't anytime you know why somebody did something you don't because what you're doing is saying

why would I have done that cuz that's the only data you have and so you make up all this stuff and believe it or not it is easier to live life not doing that it is easier to come into life and say a moment is unfolding in front of me yes my mind has this tendency it does it has a tendency to talk about it has a tendency to judge it has a tendency to see whether it likes it or doesn't like it etc etc but you've realized that doesn't lead you anywhere like that you'll

find out eventually that one of the silliest things you ever do in inside your head is decide that you don't like something especially if it already happened let's let's talk about it for a second the event happened you experienced it and now you've decided you don't like it what good does that do you how do you feel now that you don't like it you feel terrible how would you feel if you did like it wonderful then like it what is the benefit of not liking something I'm talking about somebody something anything especially events that already

happened because then you can't change them they already happened does that make sense I want just be sensible to you some people say spirituality is not sensible it is sensible normal people are doing is not sensible at all right I don't like what my ex did well here's your ex why are you you still don't like it I don't like that my parents got divorced when I was six okay well you're 43 years old there's all kinds of stuff you don't like that happen AR there all right what good is that doing you I mean

I want to ask you how do it make you feel it's terrible it messes you up you are the one who's deciding whether you like things or not why would you hurt yourself by deciding you don't like it why don't you just decide you do like it I was very upset that my parents got divorced 40 years ago you know I've decided I was good I I got to meet my stepfather I got to have two fathers everybody else only had one and you just make your money up put another influence into your mind what

your influence really that's what it's about the thing built itself without anybody being home there were no grown-ups around it just took the influences and put them together when you were sick and the stuff came in there and you stored all this stuff you didn't like and now you have all these influences all you have to do is decide I like it at least start now these are these are your techniques how you work with yourself do not not let your mind tell you you don't like something it's just telling you that you just decide

I like it you're much better off so this I can give you many techniques you start this process of realizing I am not my mind my mind is the sum of the Learned experiences that I've picked up over my life that is meaningless if I had different ones my mind be saying something different so why am I listening to it and you start the practice of learning how to not listen to your mind you don't have to fight with it you have to argue with it it you don't to prove it wrong you just simply

say you talk me no listen and that's what's called letting go that's very deep spirituality we got we got there sideways but this is very deep in other words your highest practice which is what you do in meditation is to sit there and take your Consciousness off of your mind I told you I started the talk by saying your whole life is only about what comes into your Consciousness and right now your whole life is about your mind because that's what comes in your Consciousness more than anything else you can't even walk outside and see

the trees or the animals or anything without your mind talking about it try it sometime why does it need to talk about it right it's just I saw a tree why is oh there's a tree I talk about that soul I start off that way right why is it narrating you see somebody oh there's there's Frank why does it say that I already know it's Frank I already saw him and you start realizing you can't go any anywhere without your mind completely overwhelming your Consciousness and if you'll listen to your mind doing that then you

listen to your mind says I don't want there's Frank I don't like him now how do you feel yiki I told you dare what if it said there's Frank I like him how would you feel well why can't it say I like him why does it have to say I don't like him because the some of your learned experiences are negative you've had lots of negative experiences you had lots of things happened in life that weren't Pleasant to you and you store all them inside and what you have stored inside your mind now is a

collection a storehouse of experiences that you didn't like and so now because there's all that stored in there when a new experience happens it stimulates that stuff and it tends to come up with negativity so what you do to get out of this this other life we talk about is you practice not listening to your mind so let's talk about basic meditation techniques the most basic of all meditation techniques 15 minutes in the morning 15 minutes in the evening try to do it at the same time each day and do it regularly right it's important

it's your life what you're doing is learning to liberate yourself you're learn to free yourself from this and so the most basic techniques they I don't teach meditation but the most basic techniques they teach is to follow your breath I love when somebody comes to me say well why would I watch my breath what's so special about my breath the answer is nothing there's nothing special about your breath it's just that if you weren't watching your breath you'd be watching your mind that's how you should look at meditation I don't want to give it to

SP spiritual meaning I don't want you having blue pearls and see different lights I don't care I want you to learn to not watch your mind just like you'd learn to play tennis learn to play the piano you practice that's how you should see meditation it's my practice time to see if I can withdraw my Consciousness from its addiction to listening to what the stupid mind is saying so you start watching your breath go in and out if you want you can count it's pretty anoculus I'd rather have my mind count than say the rest

of the thing says how about you that would be much more enjoyable so you just breathe in 1 2 3 4 and you won't get past four come and tell me if you get past four then they going to find out you didn't get past four what are you doing you're listening to your mind good play your scales this how I want you to see it sit down to play your piano you've never played before they're going to start you with scales all right and you start playing your skills you make a mistake so what

that's what you're there for for if you're sitting there and you're counting and the next thing you know you're thinking about Frank or George or what are you going to do when you get up or why am I sitting here where was I anything do that means you went to your mind doesn't matter what it said it doesn't make any difference what the Mind said that Drew your Consciousness into it don't get into thinking about thinking about what you thought about it and getting mad at yourself that's just mine too oh my God what's wrong

I didn't get past four I I'm no that's mine too does it make sense to you that's all just mine talking you are the one who's in there noticing that the mind is talking and you started listening just come back to the breath just come back so I I love that you can learn meditation this way right take away all the lights and colors and and just sit there and say it is like playing your scales you are learning to put your Consciousness on something other than the talking head that's going on inside of you

but you won't do it until you've practiced witness conscious enough to see how dangerous that mind is it has ruined your life so far and everybody else is around you just watch what it does in your relationships that alone is hilarious right oh I really like him right oh look what he's wearing oh I could never go with somebody like that right oh well that's kind of doesn't it do that come on he's so cute it's adorable you have to get to laugh at it and realize if you listen to it you're in big trouble

cuz it keeps going back and forth isn't it watch you try to make a decision and fun making decisions the mind okay this is how a wise person deals with their mind when it comes time to make a decision ready we sit down oh mind mind pay attention should I marry this person and he says I don't know that's the end of the discussion he said he didn't know that's not what you do he says I don't know he says well if I I could think about it then what so I don't know if I

don't know I don't know if it tells you I don't know why don't you listen to it it doesn't know but instead you think about it you make all these possibilities and you try what are you actually doing with your mind when you're trying to make a decision like that you're actually trying to create in your mind what you think the situation might be and trying to see what it feels like well I could marry one it would be like wake up in the morning it would be nice to have somebody around the house and

I could fix fix a guys's handy with hand plus plus he he's in medical school by the time he gets his degree you think we have some good money like and it just tries these different situations on like trying on cloth isn't it is it any different than trying unclose and then standing in front of a mirror and turning around and see what what it feels like you're literally trying on these things your mind thinks about and then trying to see how your mind feels about them I I can't even talk about it anymore it's

the silliest thing i' ever heard of and then the minute you just oh yes I like it it'll change its mind in a New York second would it or one more piece of information right oh what are we going to do right is religion not the same in my what we bring the kids up oh I don't it's wrong I can't do it yes or no and then you go back and back and back so you eventually catch on that this mind of yours the personal mind not the intellectual mind intellectual mind is very powerful

thing right it developed air conditioning I like it it it flew us to the Moon I think that's exciting it split the atom it figured out out the quantum feel it's pretty neat thing the intellectual mind not one bit of that is personal that is using the creative analytical mind for what it was meant for but when you come in here and take your data and figure out a world inside of how it needs to be for you to be okay and then try to figure out what to do about it you're going to find

out that you go pretty weird gets pretty uncomfortable in there you wake up in the morning scared scared you might do something wrong or say something wrong right look back at the past it's all it gets pretty scary all right and it's perfectly reasonable that'd be scary by the way because what you've done is made up a world inside your head based on your past experiences and decided if it's that way I'll be okay and then you walked out into a world that has nothing to do with you it has to do with itself it's

manifesting based on the laws of physics and so on and so the the fear that it might not be the way you want is actually very rational and so what you decide to do is learn to take your Consciousness off of the talking head that's all is that simple and you do that one way to do that is meditation so you breathe in and out you count just do it short periods of time at first you won't be able to do it then you'll do better just like everything else just like you learn and then

what you're going to find out if you do even that simple act I love that most of the teachings nowadays are 15 minutes morning 15 minutes evening right it will change your life it's not about going to Altered States it's about not listening to your mind when you learn to not listen to your mind everything is is going to change just like when you stop staring at the TV there's a whole another life to be had isn't there because your Consciousness did not get absorbed in the TV I can't even hardly explain to you or

Describe the life that happens when you stop listening to yourself it's the funniest thing in the world all of a sudden everything's fine it's not because of some law of attraction that you've attracted nice things to yourself it's because you stop defining how things need to be for you to be okay and then of course they're not that way if you don't Define how they need to be they're fascinating the way they are every person is fascinating the weather is fascinating all of it rain is fascinating hot is fascinating cold everything's fascinating it's an experience

that you're having without judging and because you're having the experience it hits you very deep this is what it's like right now you only have Rich moments every once in a while you know you turn you see the sunset it blows you away and it touches you the core of your being or somebody hugs you who you love you have this intimate moment where you melt that's because you're allowing the experience to get past your mind if somebody's hugging you and you're sitting there saying well I don't know hope that don't squeeze me too tight

if that's going on you're not having a very nice hug and also by the way if you turn you see the sunset and your mind is saying yeah it's nice but I've seen nicer ones I saw one remember when I was little you're not having a nice experience your mind is destroying your life it stand standing in between you the Consciousness and the experience you're having judging talking interfering creating static it is the moments where that's not happening that you're having deep experiences you live for those you understand that you want you call them spiritual

like oh my God the sun was beautiful I felt like I was in the presence of God you were but not because of the sunset because it touched your being and that's the presence of God inside of you it came all the way in and touched your soul holds your Consciousness so does the hug so does holding your baby for the first time but those are very far between it's I'm I'm asking the following let's it this straight I look in the eyes that that which you feel when the sunset is just right and it

gets all the way in or when you're in somebody's arms in that intimate moment and just perfect and you're melting completely or you're holding your baby for the first time that experience you're having I want you to have it every second of your life not four times during your life every second of your life should be like that because it's not the experience that matters it's the experiencing of the experience that matters it was because you like this person that when they hugged you you opened and allowed it in if you didn't like the person

you'd call the police it would not be a nice experience it's because you're open right or if you had just tried to buy a house in Hawaii that fa the sunset and just before you Clos somebody came in and swept it away you didn't get it now you're back home and you turn the corner there's this Sunset it depresses you I could have watched it every night now I'll Never See yes or no your mind is keeping you from experiencing the experience it's reacting to the experience it's talking about the experience it's judging The Experience

therefore you are experiencing your mind doing its thing instead of you experiencing The Experience itself this the deepest thing I can ever teach you all right but when you don't do that when you have those rare moment moments M call them Peak experiences you those rare moments where what you are experiencing is touching the experiencer and you're feeling this wholeness and this Oneness and this peace and Beauty you can have that all the time if you will learn not to listen to your mind if you will thin the mind out more things will come in

and touch you right now when you see your child laughing and playing it melts your heart I want it to be when you see every child any child laughing and playing it melts your heart exactly as much and don't you doubt you can reach that state the only reason it happens there's nothing different in your child than any other the difference is what your mind is doing about it your mind is saying oh look at sad he playing and doesn't do it about the other kids if your mind shut up each experience would come in

and touch you so your mind's not going to shut up to start with right why because it is trying to figure out how everything needs to be for you to be okay okay why is it doing that you told it to you literally told your mind to think day and night about how everybody and everything needs to be figure it all out you're thinking about When I'm 64 when you're 20 years old right you're trying to plan it all out because you're afraid because you're afraid something will happen that doesn't fit well in there and

so you ashed your mind like a shield to protect you by figuring out how it needs to be for me to be okay and then figure how to make it be that way and that's your entire life okay so nothing gets in anymore cuz it's all judged based on the reaction of the Mind the answer is not to fight with yourself and not to fight with the world is not to shut the mind up it's to learn to not listen the answer is to learn to move your Consciousness to something other than the talking head

so meditation is one way of doing that now you see why meditation would work if you take that time and practice what's going to happen is you'll get good at it you'll get good at it you'll notice that your Consciousness can stay focused on your breath and if you're counting that it can count to 20 count to 20 then come back you have to come back cuz I want you to be conscious enough to bring it back to start counting over again and so you're you're aware you're centered you're clear right and you're going to

come back and you say I all I did was watch my breath and I feel so peaceful you're DN right you do because you didn't watch your mind it's as simple as that maybe other than your mind there's nothing but peace back there remember I said if you're not watching the the TV you're in the room you got all kinds of stuff going on what's it like if you're not watching the Mind do you know how few people know the answer to that question where do you find out it's beautiful all the time all the

time every single experience that unfolds in front of you is a miracle it's a gift it's it's an experience would you rather be nothing would you rather be an outer space and there's just black empty space you have no experiences of course not so you're being given the gift of the experience is but what if the experience I don't want that's your problem you're the one who decided what you wanted or didn't want eventually you stop doing that you stop saying okay I have the right to enjoy and appreciate and respect and learn from the

experience that's unfolding in front of me but I don't have the right to decide what experience is unfolding in front of me right it's big it's the result of all the forces that cause it to be and I'm just here to experience it when the mind is not complaining about it when you're not listening to the Judgment of your mind you will find that every single experience every single experience has something to teach you it can touch you in a different way just like all music is different every note in the piano is different one's

not better than another it takes all the notes to make a a concert of piece right it takes every Noe of life to make you holer if you had your way you'd only keep having the same experience over and over again that you liked and you never had the experience you don't like it's bad enough that you're so limited to how how many experiences you have anyways now you don't even want to have the ones you're having it's so funny you'd like to just get stuck in one given one that doesn't bother you so a

wise person just looks at that mind understands what I'm saying and first you have to watch for a while just watch for a while and see if it's true what I said that the mind's a problem that it's not telling you nice things it's is like a horror show it's freaking you out okay you have to give a public talk it says oh you're going to blow this you know you'll blow this oh my God you're going so embarrassed I don't want to do that anybody's mind do that okay well isn't that nice of it

no it's not nice and I don't want you listening to that but it's going to do it because that's the sum of your learned experiences you don't have to listen so if you will practice for example we talk about meditation what is Mantra Mantra is taking a benign word you want it to be a name of God take a name of God you want it to be peace love I don't care just take a benign word it has to be more of a neutral thing that doesn't stimulate thoughts you just do whatever you want but

pick a word and then start training your mind train your mind to say it why would I do that so that when your mind is saying the other things it says you have the option of putting your Consciousness here if you'll do it your mind you know look your mind sometimes plays songs it won't stop right to get in your head you can get a word in your head right I used to just say I don't do it anymore but I used to say God just God God God God God God God God and Fredy

s in the mind saying God God doesn't know what it's saying but it's just saying it God God and then it starts saying well what if she doesn't like me I have a choice I can listen to what if she doesn't like me should I do God God see the power Mantra it's another place to put your Consciousness it's like changing the channel on the TV it used to be it was only a one channel was on one channel you're pretty stuck aren't you I changed the channel okay that's what the Mantra is and instead

of listening to this garbage that the personal mind has to say which is just the sum of its learned experiences regurgitating out to try and release the energies express its fears and anxieties and stuff you get to watch your breath count pay attention to mon all these traditional techniques have a foundation don't they they make sense you can modernize them and do them any way you want but if you don't do something to practice not listening to your mind you're going to listen to your mind if you don't do something to figure out how to

come back to the couch and not stay fixated on the TV you're going to stay fixated on the TV aren't you all right so I've just I went about it a weird way but you now understand spiritual practices I like to be able to teach the entire spiritual practice and never use the word God I only used it here when I said God God God so I'm not guilty all right why if you do this you will come back and tell me about God so far all we've talked about is can you get out of

having to watch your mind if you stop watching your mind you're going to find out that you back there are something very very special and that the experience of your own being is the most beautiful thing you've ever experienced the experience of self the experience of of a realization of self that you are the source of beauty you're the source of love you're the source of Joy the passion everything that's who you are that's what you are but you're staring had a mind that is what I told you it is a bunch of garbage all

right a bunch of collection of junk that you've collected when you stop staring at it you will start to feel a joy that transcends anything you've ever experienced and you realize it's coming from me that's who I am that's what you are the source of all joy the source of love that's why then go further back and you'll literally start talking about Spirit God everything they were talking about everything Christ talked about everything Buddha talked about and you got there simply by learning to not stay fixated on the noise your mind is making and that's

what you'll see it as eventually it's just noise I can't believe I ever listened to it it doesn't know what it's talking about it's very negative it worries all the time it's got all these Concepts and Views and opinions and preferences a burden to carry right and instead you can just interact with life without that doesn't mean you don't use your intellectual mind when you're interacting with life there'll be times that you need to figure things out but they're not about you you're not trying to figure out how you can be okay what you want

how you can get what you want what you don't want how you can avoid what you don't want it's never about that it's about there's somebody sick in front of you you need to deal with this what's the closest hospital you use your mind use your mind to study use the intellectual you see the difference right now you're using your mind to figure out you aren't you figure out how to be okay and sure I get married and is this the right guy and what will I do if he turns out to be different like

George did so gives you a nice Foundation as to what the spiritual path is really about mayor Baba was a great enlightened Master very fully enlightened master and he had a math formula it's one of my favorites man minus mind equals God you're going to find out that that's true because you are very great but you who staring at the mind the Mind Is Not Great not the personal mind if you learn not to stare at it you will find out who you are Christ said the same thing you must die to be reborn you

have to cease to know yourself the way your mind is telling you and let that go and then all of a sudden you'll find out who you are all the teachings are exactly the same once you get to that point so that gives you a nice Foundation I've been talking more about that little simple technique of meditating lately because some of you come and say well how do I meditate well I don't think you should learn it from me I'm not a teacher meditation but if better than nothing sit down 15 minutes a day twice

a day and watch your breath see what happens I didn't actually finish if you'll if you'll watch and learn to count and succeed in doing it you're going to find out that you're driving your car and the person in front of you is driving 10 miles hour below the speed limit and your mind starts going right and all of a sudden you notice you're still breathing and just spontaneously you choose to watch your breath and count instead of watching that and you that happens more and more very naturally and all of a sudden you're free

of yourself and you're free to bring your whole being into the moment instead of struggling with the noise of the Mind very good work on these things