Professional Documents
Culture Documents
to Spiritual Awakening
Spirituality is meant to bring about harmony and peace. But the diversity of our
philosophies, beliefs, concepts and views about spiritual matters often leads to
confusion or even conflict. The fact is that the very act of seeking spiritual freedom
causes notions of success and failure, and these notions serve only to bind us to our own
self judgments: Am I growing? Have I done anything wrong? Am I meditating enough?
Truth is only complicated because we pass it through our habitual thought patterns.
When we step back from ourselves, truth becomes simple. There are not many paths to
freedom, there is only one. In the end, no matter what particular patterns of thought we
have managed to build in our minds, freedom always means transcending these personal
thought patterns.
But how does one go about transcending the personal self and awakening to spiritual
freedom? What is needed for this journey are succinct steps that are so universal that
they can echo through the halls of any religion as well as support intellectual
understanding. The following is a universal road map to Self Realization.
Look to see whats going on inside. If you want to understand why youve done
everything you have ever done, if you want to see whats really going on, just observe
your mind and emotionsjust experience your inner state. If you objectively look, you
will see that you are never completely at peace. You will see that you are not okay in
there.
5. Realize that the process of defining how the outside needs to be is not going to
make you okay.
You must seriously look at this process of trying to be okay. Youve been at it your
entire lifeyouve just tried different things at different times. While its true that
sometimes you manage to make it better for short periods of time, you know that youve
never even come close to reaching a state of permanent peace. Watch very closely how
you react to the things your mind has preferences about. You will see that if your mind
gets what it wants, you feel joy; if it doesnt get what it wants, you feel disturbance.
Likewise, when your mind experiences what it doesnt want, you feel disturbance, and
when it avoids what it doesnt want, you feel relief. You will never be okay playing this
game because the world will never match the conceptual model your mind has made up.
Eventually, you will come to see that struggling to be okay does not work. At some
point, you will try to find a different way to be okay in there.
7. Learn to go about your life just like everyone else, except that nothing you do is
for the purpose of trying to be okay.
If you arent so preoccupied with trying to be okay, you will be free to sit inside and
quietly love, serve, and honor whatever naturally unfolds in front of you. When you
reach this point, you are no longer living for yourself. You are interacting with life, but
not for the purpose of being okay.
8. As you sincerely let go of the inner energies you are watching, you begin to feel a
deeper energy come in from behind.
Up to this point, everything you were watching inside was in front of you. But now that
you are no longer being drawn into those personal energies, youll realize that your
inner universe is actually very expansive. You will begin to feel Spirit flow in from
behind. It lifts you and brings you great love and joy.
9. Your inner experience becomes so beautiful that you fall in love with the energy
itself, and you develop a very deep and personal relationship with it.
It will become completely clear to you that there is an absolute trade-off between your
personal energies and the amount of Spirit that you feel. The more you get drawn into
your personal energies, the less Spirit you feel. The more you dont participate in your
personal energies, the more Spirit you feel. You now have a direct relationship with the
spiritual energy, and you will find yourself constantly longing to experience it.
10. You begin to feel the energy pulling you up into it, and your entire path
becomes letting go of yourself in order to merge.
Will is no longer needed. Now your path is strictly about releasing yourself into the pull
of the higher energy. You must surrender deeply enough to be able to overcome the fear
of losing your connection to the personal self. You must to be willing to die to be
reborn.
11. Once you get far enough back into the energy, you realize that your personal
life can go on without you, leaving you free to become immersed in Spirit.
This is the greatest miracle: Youve surrendered and your entire life is about Spirit, yet
people, places, and things continue to interact with you. The difference is that these
interactions require none of your energy. They happen naturally, by themselves, leaving
you at peace and absorbed in Spirit.
12. Now you are truly okay and nothing inside or outside of you can cause
disturbanceyou have come to peace with it all.
Because you are now completely okay, you dont need anything. Things just are what
they are. At this point, you know yourself as Self. The world, mind, and heart cannot
disturb you. Youve transcended them all. What is more, instead of feeling drawn into
Spirit, you now actually experience yourself as Spirit. You have no boundaries in time
or space. You have always existed and you will always exist. You have no form, shape,
gender, or body. You simply are, have always been, and will always beInfinite Spirit.
Notes and Thoughts on The Untethered Soul by
Michael A. Singer
The substance of his book tackles the inner voice and its many guises
towards solidifying a self. His book starts with recognizing this voice
(Chapter I) and learning to befriend it by becoming familiar with its
many facets (II). Once we have gained a deeper understanding of this
self, Michael leads the reader to step back and watch this
multifaceted self and its many manifestations (III). By doing this, we
gain the understanding that we are not these things. We are The
Witness. He finishes Part One of The Untethered Soul with extending
this awareness, this lucid self into our day-to-day lives (IV).
Part Three is all about freeing ourselves. What can we do? How do we
do it? When? Where? And so forth... The sum of which can be
condensed down to: letting go (VIII), abiding in the center (IX), and
allowing (XI).
The Fourth Part of The Untethered Soul deepens our practices, which
in turn invites more energy, clarity, time, space, and so on into our
lives. Chapter (XII) focuses on taking down and dissolving the
walls/barriers we erect to protect and solidify/grow the self, then in
Chapter (XIII) Michael talks about raising our vibrations. This
particular approach i find fruitful, in that, we are focusing on that
which we seek. In doing that, those things that are not conducive fall
away. This includes unwanted thoughts and energies. The last chapter
in this section directs us to become aware of how the self is formed
and how to unravel it from its source (XIV).
The last Part of this book is all about bringing our practice into all
aspects and situations of life. Chapter (XV) is about inviting happiness
into our lives; (XVI) is about nonresistance and being open; (XVII)
deepens our presence in life by learning from Death; Chapter (XVIII &
IXX) is about living in the Dao and extending our perspective to
include all things.
If there was one thing i would take away from this book it is this: stop
looking outside, stop getting caught up, stop creating stories and
getting lost in them, stop judging and expecting, stop and just be
present: bear witness with what is. If that is negative thoughts and
judgments, then so be it. See them come and watch them go.
The best way to stop the incessant chaos in the mind is to step back
and just witness (9): we are not the voices in our head the incessant
chattering, worrying, thinking, dreaming, remembering, debating,
judging, narration, and so forth we are the witness. One way in
which we can touch in with this witness is to step back from the
thoughts, memories, emotions, sensations, and everything else. By
stepping back and witnessing these things, we see them as objects of
consciousness, and so, being objects they obviously cannot be us in
the truest sense of the word. To help solidify this process, imagine
that this discursive thinking is coming from outside as an external
person speaking to us (19). Once you have established this, spend
some time with this person, get to know them, listen to what they
have to say, see how they trip themselves up, and so forth. Get to
know the thinking mind as it is. When we can truly see the mind as it
is there is a natural tendency to want it to shut up. This gives rise to a
desire for freedom from it. That desire is what ultimately gives us the
energy, strength, and will to attain freedom.
The mind is like a tea kettle in that when the pressure builds it starts
to whistle, only, in the case of the mind, it gets louder and more
insistent (11). This chaos fills in the space, inviting the appearance of
comfort and security/protection with/from the world a sense of
control, as we buffer ourselves from naked reality with a picture of
what we expect, believe, hope, or otherwise desire things to be.
Some ways we identify the "I" with
Name
Form
Mind
Family
History
Accomplishments
Memories
Psychology
Relationships
Experiences
Beliefs
Career
Hobbies and passions
Emotions and thoughts
Soul
Consciousness/Pure Witness
"Real spiritual growth happens when there is only one of you inside"
(61). I totally agree with this. When every facet of our being is align,
we are whole, we are awake. All the vying desires, terrifying fears,
conflicting attachments, and opposing energies within us create
conflict and imbalance. When we are whole and aligned with the
moment, there is just Pure Being: we are the Dao.
"Spiritual growth is about the point at which you start to feel your
energy change" (62). In my experience, this can be after the fact.
Change sometimes can be like watching a child or hair grow. If we are
constantly around them, change is not so apparent. While, for
someone who has not been around for awhile, when they see our hair
or the child, they will say, "you have really grown." It is important in
our journey to reflect. To take a moment to become aware of and
appreciate our growth. In doing so, we not only come to see ourselves
in a different light, but we also strengthen and expedite more change
within our lives.
The more we practice and become aware of the energies within our
lives the easier it is to stem unbalancing energies before they solidify.
The more familiar we become with the center, the easier it is to pull
ourselves back from these disturbing energies. The center being, that
place of joy, peace, energy, unrippled awareness, and so forth. It is a
good place trust me.
A large part of the spiritual journey is unraveling the many blocks that
prevent the energy to flow through us. In many ways it is like peeling
away layers of an onion so that more and more light can shine
through (73).
"Consciousness is always drawn to the most distracting object" (76).
Level I: Perception
Delusions
Acting Out
Fantasizing
Reminiscing
Passive Aggressive
Withdrawal
Projection
Level III: Mentalization
Displacement
Dissociation
Splitting
Hypochondriasis
Intellectualization
Idealization
Rationalization
Complicating
Simplifying
Reaction Formation
Regression
Repression
Suppression
Undoing
Comparing
Respect
Moderation
Patience
Courage
Humility
Mindfulness
Acceptance
Gratitude
Altruism
Tolerance
Mercy
Forgiveness
Anticipation
Humor
Identification/Modeling
Introjection
Sublimation
Resistance
Repulsion
Fear
Insecurity
Jealousy
Anger
Shame/Guilt
Self-consciousness
Up stories
Justifications
Rationalizations
Etc....
In the end there is just one thing that needs to be considered for the
Path to define itself: do we want to be happy or not (141): no
qualifiers, conditions, or excuses (142). Depending on our answer will
ultimately decide the Path we take in life. Of course, once we have
answered that question the very next question we should ask
ourselves is: "what the hell is happiness anyways?"
"If you live life fully, you won't have any last wishes" or regrets (161).
"If you feel the edges, and don't go there, you will stay in the Way.
That's how you live in the Tao" (171).
Random Thoughts
1-Sentence-Summary: The Untethered Soul describes how you can untie your self
from your ego, harness your inner energy, expand beyond yourself and float through the
river of life instead of blocking or fighting it.
Books and Oprah Winfrey have a two-way, positively reinforcing relationship: If Oprah
picks a book to show to her audience, those books sales are sure to go through the roof.
Vice versa, you can be sure that the book Oprah picked is a good one and that its made
a big impact on her.
So when Oprah interviewed Michael A. Singer in 2012, you can bet that she put a lot of
thought into why he was a good person to talk to: he explains spirituality in plain terms,
hes not a guru and makes what he describes as the untethered soul easy to understand
and attain for everyone.
His book of the same name is about reaching a state of well-being and acceptance by
letting life flow through you without ever blocking its stream of energy.
1. There are two separate versions of you, and your personal self is just one of
them.
2. Your inner energy is real, and the more you can let it flow through you, the
better.
3. Think about death often to make sure your priorities are in the right order.
Want to untether your self from your consciousness without having to become a
recluse? Heres some spiritual sense for normal people!
After all, your thoughts dont define who you are. For example, if you often feel sad,
you might start to think youre just a sad person in general, when in reality, these
thoughts are nothing more than objects flowing through you it just so happens that
your inner voice keeps picking them up.
This distinction is important. Singer calls it the difference between your self and your
personal self. Your self is the pure stream of consciousness, that just keeps on flowing.
Your personal self is the identity you form, based on how your inner voice perceives
this stream of consciousness and the thought patterns that emerge from it.
Once you realize theres a difference, youll look at yourself in a whole different light.
For example, yesterday I was supposed to drive two hours to Frankfurt and meet up
with a bunch of old and new friends. When I woke up in the morning, I didnt feel too
good and thought about canceling the trip. Once I decided to go and sat in the car with
some music though, I suddenly felt like I could take on the world.
Some call it chakra, some call it chi, some call it shakti, but whatever you label it, this
inner energy we all have, though intangible, is very much real and you should never
underestimate it.
In the same way it can empower us, it can also drag us down if we block it. For
example, ever since I sent an email on Wednesday, I was anxious about the potential
reply Id get so my mind clung to it, I kept thinking about it and couldnt let it go.
This stressed me, and I could only let it go two days later, when I realized nothing bad
would happen.
Its important to learn to let such negative thoughts just pass through, so they wont
block your inner flow of energy.
While death is one of our biggest fears (though not as big as public speaking), its also
what gives life meaning.
I keep re-learning this lesson, and since Ive been following Gary Vee a lot, I keep
getting reminded of it. Knowing that youre going to die and that your time on this
planet is finite is one of the single greatest ways to get you focused on what really
matters to you in life.
For example, if youre the jealous type and seeing your partner talk to someone else at a
party already makes you mad, imagine what youd want them to do once youre gone
does it really matter who they talk to, as long as theyre happy?
Whatever it is you want to do in your life, if its worth doing before you die, chances are
its very much worth doing right now. Dont wait. This is your only at bat.
My personal take-aways
Ill be the first to admit that it took me a while to get Michael Singers ideas, youll
have to think a bit to wrap your head around them, but once you do, theyre incredibly
powerful new ways of looking at the world. Im with Oprah on this one, thumbs up!
What Tao is about and how it can help you become spiritually aware