YTV#3 Yoga and The Untethered Soul - Michael A Singer
Who is this for? Anyone who is wanting to quiet that little chatter box this is in your mind down. This is just a little little lecture promoting his book The Untethered Soul which I highly recommend. This dude us the real thing. So much can be learned form him.
My 3 takeaways.
1. The chatter box in my mind can be useful in solving problems but it can also be just a chatter machine that has me serving my preferences - which leads me to being disturbed when things don't work out the way I want them to.
2. The problem with preferences is that it's impossible to control most everything around you and so you just spin your wheels in life - wasting time and energy.
3. Getting to the time when you become aware of being aware of awareness can be achieved but it takes time and techniques - one will never get there if they don’t untether the mind which effectively tames the monkey mind.
Notes from “Yoga and The Untethered Soul - Michael A Singer”
What is Yoga?
Yoga is the science of self-realization.
His book The Untethered Soul asks, “Are you in there?” “Yes” we say, then he asks. “How do you know you’re in there?” “Because I hear a voice telling me I’m in here.” Yoga is to go deeper through the understanding of the “monkey mind” voice, the “who” that is in there chattering away. His book uncovers what going on in your mind and how to deal with it.
Our minds tell us that to be happy it seems like we need things to be just the way we want them. i.e If my garden grows, I’m good. If it’s sunny, I’m good.. otherwise something is wrong and causes me a disturbance.
Our likes and dislikes are just a result of experiences from the past that have left impressions on us. They are called “Samscara’s” that they tend control us and make us feel good or bad. We have stored them and they come up automatically.
As events unfold we feel good or bad according to what we have decided what we like and what we don’t like. In your mind, as life unfolds - if it matches with our preferences, great, if they don’t, things are not so great. Basically, we tend to fixate on what is going on in the outside world to determine how things will be on the inside. But, in essence, the more preferences you have, the more difficulties and disturbances we have.
The foundation idea is that we try to get life to line things up to our preferences.
Yoga is the antithesis. You let go of life and merge with it - Yoga means Union.
If you want to be ok you have to start with accepting reality. See the world and be in the world and be comfortable with the world that is so very much out of your control. Realize that the world unfolds in accordance with a billion other things - not you! Accept that. Relax. Release.
If I pit my preferences with what is happening then I’m going to have trouble. If I don’t do that things will be better for me. That’s the foundation of Yoga. Don’t fight the world or come into harmony with it.
Merge. Harmonize. But How??
Yoga sounds like mantra, meditation, going to the Himalayas and fining a guru etc. These are just tools to use to achieve Yoga (union).
How can meditation help with finding peace?
15 minutes of watching your breath go in and out takes you mind off the game of preferences you habitually play. When you are watching your breathing you are not participating in the disturbed mind.
What do I want, what do I don’t want and how do I make things happen my way? This is the disturbed mind. You pit yourself against reality and it's just not the best thing for you to do.
Let go of the mind. It is a taskmaster - it talks and talks and asks you to do things ie figure out all the things around you so that all will be ok! “Go to work!” it sayes- fix the world. Please do this for me. I am the personal mind. Your mind is trying to fix things for you day and night - trying to line things up so that our preferences are met. It’s exhausting and its a losing battle.
Yoga is about not participating in the personal mind. You still care about things but you honour and respect reality.
Come into the quiet, into the seat of your own self. Let your personal mind pass by. Put your consciousness on your breath. When you are not addicted to the personal mind you become a nicer person and all the troubles tend to dissolve as you are untethered from you mind
Equanimity is Yoga. Peace within no matter what is without.
Accept reality and see things clearly so you can do good.
A Mantra can be good technique to help you with your personal mind. Any name or saying when said can get yourself from to paying attention to the mantra and not the money mind. Instead of listing and engaging in the crazy mind, you just insert your mantra.
Your “analytical” mind or “logical” mind, you need this to “logic” things out. This is a good use of your mind. It’s your mind that is on automatic solving the question “how do I get what I want? How do I avoid what I don’t want? - the one that has you feeling bad, comparing your self with others etc. That the personal mind and the one you want to tame.
Transcend this mind. Don’t pay attention to it. Be comfortable and relax behind it and lean away from the noise.
Find that there is a pull between your eye brows - your third eye. As you grow it gets stronger and stronger. It's a technique of Yoga to raise your eyes and focus on that spot and peace comes upon you. You're watching something other than your mind - a flow of energy that comes in that point between your eyebrows.
It's all about transcending the personal mind and coming to peace with what is falling in front of you and maintaining what is; what we call establishing the “seat of your self”.
It’s a knowing of being in there being aware. You’re aware that there is a personal mind that is being active and engaging with the world that is unfolding and we are not participating in that. We are not being disturbed by reality.
You were keeping yourself centred. Once that happens some amazing things are going to happen which most people are familiar with in terms of Yoga.
Because you're not participating in your personal mind, eventually you start to realize that more and more of your awareness will become centred in the centre of your being - in the seat of your being.
It just means that you're always aware - that you're aware - that you're aware. You are aware that the mind is talking; you're aware that your heart is feeling one thing or another; you’re where the world is unfolding, in front of you and you're just not reacting to it.
You’re not participating in the minds reaction, you're just aware that all of this is going on and you , in the middle of it all, become comfortable sitting in that seat of awareness.
You will start to realize that you are becoming aware of the nature of your own being.
The mind has a nature.
The world has a nature that is unfolding.
Your heart has a nature, it expresses and reacts to different things that are unfolding.
So your soul also has a nature but you can't know it because you're busy watching the mind. If you're studying something else’s nature then you studying that and not able to study “awareness”.
If you're no longer studying the nature of the mind - your consciousness will naturally become aware of its nature. And there is something very, very great to realize that there is something wonderful going on inside. Something more beautiful than anything you will ever experience from the outside world.
A love bigger than you've ever felt will be expereienced because the mind closed down for a minute and you opened and you were able to experience the greatness of your own being.
All of it is coming from inside of you but you can't experience it because you're experiencing the disturbances of mind and heart.
So as you start to experience the seat of your own self you feel this tremendous love and flowing that wells up inside you. Flowing, not in front of you but back behind where you sit inside. It starts to pull you back into it.
Now you start hearing the more traditional aspects of yoga we call that energy flow or “Shakti” and eventually that word will represent something very beautiful to you. It won't be something you study or read about but it will be more real to you than the beat of your own heart. More real than the noise of your mind or the world unfolding in front of you.
It keeps rising up and pulling you into it's ecstasy and joy. It's beauty is so great that eventually you can't hold yourself back and your meditation becomes spontaneous. It’s not something that you do but it's something that just happens to you in your life.
Now your life becomes saturated and permeated with this overwhelming sense of joy and ecstasy. And it pulls you in deeper and eventually you start to get this inner sense wondering where it is coming from, where does the flow of this Shakti come from? The seeking of the source of that energy flow is your final stage in Yoga.
Yoga means - when you let go of the distraction of mind and all that's coming through the senses - this is Shakti.
The pull of the Shakti inward is so strong that you can't resist it any longer and you just, like the ultimate surrender, you back into it and the great masters Christ, Buddha; all the great Masters saints and sages of all times, in all religions teach you the same thing. Eventually a little river of your consciousness gets pulled back into the ocean of God. That's Yoga. Yoga means unity.
That is the purpose of the book The Untethered Soul; that's what it means to Untether your soul. It is no longer tied to the humanness nature of your mind or the limitations of your heart or to the temporal nature of world folding in front of you.
Once the untethering takes place, you still live in this world but the centre of your being is merged into something much greater; you're a blessing on this earth and your very presence brings joy, brings Shackti, brings god, to anything you look at, anything that comes out of your mouth, any place you go you becomes a blessing on this earth.
Yoga is a very, very great thing. So the purpose of the writing of The Untethered Soul is to get you to start at the beginning asking - How are you doing in there? and helps you to work your way out back to the true nature of your own being. Down into the seat of awareness.
This is self- realization. This is Yoga!