YTV #4 THE MICHAEL SINGER PODCAST : THE COMMITMENT TO STAY CONSCIOUS
This is a video that I listened to a dozen times because I believe if I actually dial into what it says it might change my life. Wish me luck on this one. It’s about staying aware of not being sucked into worldly drama. What I thought were the salient notes are below. Could be a life changer for you! Enjoy. - b
MY THREE TAKE AWAYS..
1. The challenge in life is to “Let go, Let god", “Relax and Release” Take it easy!! Don’t try to control everything.. Kay Sara Sara :-)
2. Your life will be passed on soon.. so wake up and don’t waste a minute.
3. Our troubles are small .. just look at the universe! Our troubles are mind made.
According to Michael…. notes to myself are …
You have to really commit to growth. Everything in your life will do even better if you just let things be; financial, personal, you name it, it will end up overall becoming clearer and better.
Living for your name, fame, finance, family, relationships, they won't resolve you and you won't evolve you.
He says don't disturb the energy of the world. Let things be. There's a whole universe going on and if you try to mess with your little spot of it, your behaviour kind of like becomes like an ingrown toenail he says.
Devote your life to your personal revolution. You don't have to leave your job or renounce anything, you just have to pay attention to every moment of every day and be conscious.
Do use the same focus with interacting with the world but you free yourself from the outcomes. It's all about your relationship with the people around you and life around you. Not the people and things that go on. Your relationship with these things. You can't change the outside things but you can change the inside things; your attitude to what's going on. If you think - you can change things around a bit so that you can be OK - you’ll never be OK.
No matter where are, you find that life is either attracting you or repulsing you. You're constantly looking for things that are attractive to you or are running from things that you find repulsive. You're constantly looking for things - plus and minus. And you don't have to go far… three steps down the line and you hit something.
Everything really should be looked at as neutral. A tree, a chair, a car; these things don't bother you; they're neutral. Why can't you be neutral to everything. Something happens that attracts you or disturbs you and when that happens your natural tendency is to say, “I need to fix this”. You think, I need to cling to things that are attractive and repel things that are repulsive. You use energy going from one thing to another trying to constantly fix things.
You're working on things they don't really matter because when you're dead and gone - it all won't matter. Yoga is about turning the whole thing upside down and recognizing that the most important thing is to focus on yourself - not all of these other little things outside. I guess the message is to pay attention to the inside and not outside. A billion, zillion things are happening on the outside and you should be at peace with it all.
Get to a point where everything is the same. Where you don't have preferences, philosophies, opinions etc. etc. etc. Just let there be their events take place, actually tasting life as it goes by as opposed to being lost. Planets have different diameters, shapes, colours . They are neither right or wrong. Life is neither right nor wrong. People are the way they are, situations happen when they happen, people come and go, things come and go, you happen to be there and interact with things.
You can interact- you just don't need to try to control it and expect a certain outcome all the time. One thing comes before you and then the next and then the next and then the next. Don't decide in your head the way you need life to be and then use all of your energy ,which should be used in to work on yourself, to manipulate life and try to make it the way you want to make it.
You don't have to go meditate and be by yourself etc. No you just have to work on yourself every single moment of every single day no matter where you are or who you're with. Just try to pay attention to your own awake consciousness all the times.
You need to be cognizant that it's important to find out what takes you out of a conscious state than what gets you into the state in the first place.
If you focus on every moment you will be in the state but if you live unconsciously then you will lose yourself. Feel nervous, feel desires, feel competitive, feel challenged, whatever it is welcome it and recognize it's happening inside of you - not outside of you. It's what's keeping you from being at peace. Outside situations are just outside situations.
Use your energy to work on the inside and not on the outside. Every single minute of every single day.
Things will catch you by surprise and you just tell yourself, life folded, it caught me by surprise now I have to work on myself so that I can see them coming. I am able to experience life as it is and not as I expected to be. It's called the Pathless Path. It is ‘your life itself “ that is your guru, that is your teacher.
How you this is by staying conscious. Going into meetings; going into anything, tell yourself you are going to stay conscious of what's going on and “be there”.
Your goal is not to impress people etc. etc. it's just being there. Without any loss of continuity between purpose and awake consciousness. Most times people walk in and out of meetings and they don't even know they're not there and then after they wonder "where was I”?
He uses the example of occupational therapist getting someone who has a broken hand to use a pottery wheel to strengthen their hands. When the doctor comes in a month later you wanna show him all your pots that you've made but he doesn't care about the pots- he only cares about how your hands are. Likewise, the analogy is life and all the things that happen to us are like the pottery clay. We are on a spiritual journey and we are trying to learn from the events we experience. Things that disturb us will teach us how things have been “caught up" inside of us. Those are the times when we need to relax and release. Like a curved rock that has gas trapped underneath, we move the rock release and the gas to flows up and out. All of our disturbances eventually all go away.
Remember life is perishable. It's constantly being thrown away at every moment. Everything that we do every moment that seems so important before they happen but then we don't even remember what's what once it has past.
Life is all about spiritual therapy. Putting you in the situation and allowing you to practice your consciousness.
All yoga just helps us practice to stay centered. Let life unfold just the way it it is. If you're challenged with disturbances- it's a good thing. It helps to teach you to focus and to do the work.
He claims you have to get your bearings and take it easy on yourself at first but truly you need to learn that life is the retreat. You don't have to go anywhere. From life’s beginning to it’s end it's all about remaining centered.
Your life’s purpose is about staying centred and aware of consciousness. With all the events of your life passed before you. Just stay centred and aware of what's going on and don't feel like you have to be overwhelmed by it.
If you feel fear can you stay conscious and feel the fear etc. if life causes anxiety, jealousy, greed. etc; whatever it is that causes you disturbance inside you can remain centered. Everything comes and goes and so that becomes your work.
Every moment of every day things come and you recognize how these things affect you and then you relax and release. That is your work.
If you decide that you don't want to work on life then you might as well just suffer because life is going to throw things at you because you have so many things inside that need work. Accept the work. Relax and release. It's fun. It's easy.
He gives the example about going to visit your parents. Sometimes you just can't hold it together and you fall back into old patterns. Recognize this and work to centre yourself before you go in and then see how long you can sit there without saying anything or have something trigger inside you, then once things are triggered recognize that this is your spiritual challenge.
Insecurities, fear, things that your parents may stimulate. You try to stay centred and you let this be the challenge and purpose of your visit. Now it's a spiritual experience and so is life, all life is a spiritual experience that is challenging you all the time. The fact that it “gets to you” is the fact that you need work in certain areas.
Liberate yourself with R&R relax and release. Do the work little by little. Stay conscious; just relax your shoulders, relax your chest, relax your stomach and let go. Be willing to let go. Don't analyze, don't blame, just let go. All the things that you have stored inside you will go away overtime. If you do that constantly you will never lose your centre again ever. No matter what is going on you'll have the honour of being there to let it go on - and it's fun to watch.
Eventually, you will be completely free and you'll be just watching and participating. Consciousness is like the light of the sun and it shines all the time and is at all times shining and centred one is always aware.
That awareness will burn through everything but you have to be able to do all the work. Don't blame, don't prefer one thing over the other. Don't ever leave your consciousness. If you have a preference one over the other you still have blockages inside you.
It's just telling that if one thing makes you feel better than another than you are compromised. It's because of your relationship to them - not them.
Say, I'm never blaming anything or anybody again. That’s what it means to do spiritual work. We have to do the inner work. Meditation will help you but it's not an end in itself. Mantra is not an end in itself. Yoga is not an end of itself.
The thing that leads to the end is your commitment to stay conscious.
Do the work and make that this a reality and your life will flow with happiness from the inside.