Of course, there are higher states of meditation than simply noticing
the mind, but you should not set expectations. Expectations are just another
mind-trip. Decid e that you are sitting down because you choos e to learn to
be present and work on yourself. This is a time when you don’t have so
many external distractions, so you can practice being present . That’ s all. You may not like what you see inside, but you are learning to be present
with it. Y ou’re learning to be at peace with what used to drive you crazy . To appre ciate the purpose of spiritual techniques, you have to realize
that you are addicted to your mind. You’re more addicted to your mind than
people are to drugs. In fact, the reason many people start doing drugs is to
get away  from their mind’ s incessant chatter . That’ s also why some people
start drinking—the mind can be impossible to live with. If you are like most
people, you are addicted to every single word your mind says. If your mind
suddenly says, “I don’t like it here, I want to leave,” you leave. If it says, “I
think something good will come from being here, I want to stay for awhile,” you stay. You are absorbed in your thoughts, and you follow
whatever the mind says. In essen ce, your mind is your guru, and you need to
back of f from that relationship. Changing your relationship with your mind is a major part of the
spiritual journey . You don’t do this by fighting with the mind and resisting
thoughts. You do this by learning not to listen to the mind. You are the
consciousness, and the mind is the object of consciousness. You must be
able to withdraw your attentio n from the mind, even when the mind is
talking. The easiest way to do this is to pay attention to something else. One
very common meditation technique is to pay attention to your breath. Just
watch your breath. Over time you will see that if you are watching your
breath go in and out, you are not focusing on the mind. If you try this very
simple technique of watching your breath, you’ll see how addicted you are
to the mind. One moment you’re sitting there watching your breath and not
being distracted by the mind. The next thing you know , you’re lost in your
thoughts. That is what’ s going to happen. You may not be able to sit there
for fifteen minutes and watch your breath. Good, that shows you how strong
your addiction is to the mind. The reason you lose focus on your breath is that consciousness gets
distracted by what your mind is saying. In other words, you stopped
watching your breath, and you started watching your mind. The moment
you catch on that you’ve done that, don’t get down on yourse lf. Just start
watching your breath again. The entire purpose is to practice gaining control
of your attention  so that it becomes yours again. What you pay attention to
determines your experiences in life. You should have the right to
consciously decide what to pay attention to. Until you learn to back away
from the mind, you have no choice; you pay attention to whatever your
mind says. There is one more element you can add to this simple meditation
technique we’ve been discussing. You’re not going to know right away that
you stopped watching your breath. You’re going to get lost in your mind,
and maybe fifteen minutes will go by. To help notice sooner , instead of just
watching your breath, count your breaths. Simply count a round of
inhale/exhale as one, then two, and so on. But don’t count to one hundred. Count to twenty-five and start over. That way you will see sooner that you
drifted off the breath. In/out…one, in/out…two, in/out…three. Watch your
breath go in and out of your abdomen. Just sit there and watch  your breathwhile you count to twenty-five, and then go back to one. If you find that
you’re at forty-three, just start over at one. Not a thought about it, just
immediately start counting at one. You now have a job to do that requires
you to be present. You must be conscious enough while watching your
breath to know to go back to one after you reach twenty-five. This doesn’ t
require thought—it just requires awareness. Some people turn mala beads during meditation, others do mantra. These are just ways to help keep your consciousness on something other
than your wandering thoughts. So, meditation is easy—if you understand
that it’s not about having spiritual experiences. Please don’t worry about
that. Just practice being presen t. If you do this on a regular basis, you’re
going to find that you are consciously aware during the day when your
samskaras get hit. Now it’s just a question of your level of commitment. Every single time you start to get disturbed, are you willing to relax and
release? Or do you still need to go through another round of expressing and
defending your blockages?Chapter 34. Handling the Bigger Stuff
Real spiritual practice  entails devoting  every moment of your life to your
liberation. Life is your real guru. It’s challenging you to either move further
away from Self or come back to Self. Life is your friend. Everything that
happens in life is an opportunity to get better at freeing yourself from
yourself—dying to be reborn. If you sincerely work on releasing the low-
hanging fruit, and if you remain centered in the seat of Self as your past
samskaras are released, you will become a more conscious being. You will
no longer have to come back to center after a dif ficult conversation, you will
remain centered during the entire experience. At first, this is difficult. Just
keep working on it. Make this the most important thing in your life—
because it is. It really is the only rational way to live your life. It’s not a
religious techniq ue; it’s simply deciding to wake up and make something
great of yourself. If you constantly let go, you will eventually achieve a state of perpetual
presence. You will be established in the seat of Self, and you will never
leave that seat again for the rest of your life. No matter what happens, no
matter who dies, no matter who leaves you, no matter what. All that stuff
can still come up, but you will have the power to decide what to do about it. There will be time you never had before, between the event and your
reaction to it. Things start to unfold as if in slow motion—even reactive
thoughts and emotions. This gives you time to relax and let go. We are now ready to address the bigger stuff. As you let go, and there
is less small stuff, the bigger things will come up all by them selves. You
may start having very intense dreams. You may be driving in the car and
begin feeling powerful emotion s for no apparent reason. Good, you don’t
need a reason. It is simply energy, the shakti, trying to push up because you
have given her the room to do so. She is your best friend. This energy flowinside is helping you, and it’ s always trying to push up. Y ou don’ t need to do
anything except  keep letting go. What if something happens that’s a really
bad situation? The house catches fire. Y ou lose your job. That’ s certainly not
low-hanging fruit. If you are sincere on this path, what do you do? First let
go. Always let go of your huma n reaction first. If you are upset and cannot
deal with the situation, what good are you? If you can’t handle the sight of
blood, you are of no use at the scene of an accident. First let go of your
personal reactio n so that you can serve the situation to the best of your
ability . Let’s take a real-life example. You get a phone call informing you that
your sixteen-yea r-old son had drugs in his school locker . Difficult things
like this happen in the world. You may not like it, but you are going to have
to deal with it. Perhaps your mind starts up, “How could he do this to me? Oh, my god, what did I do wrong? My husband’ s going to be so mad at me. We’re having enough trouble in our relationship. This could be the end of
my marriage. Why do I deserve  this?” What on Earth has all that personal
melodrama got to do with your son’s problem? Those are your problems,
and you need to let them go. You’re not supposed to be interact ing with the
world outside based on your blockages inside. All that personal talk has
nothing to do with the problem at hand. It has to do with the fact that this
situation hit your blockages, and now you’re reacting to your issues instead
of your child’ s issue. If you allow that to happen, you’re going to make
every decision based on what makes you feel better , which is likely not what
is best for the situation at hand. If you take things personally , you will try to protect yourself by
avoiding disturbing experiences. But difficult situations present an
opportunity to change that dynamic. The way to do that is to let go of your
entire personal reaction to the situation. You just let it go. You don’t let go
of the situation—you let go of your reaction to the situation. Go to the
principal’ s office, but not to protect yourself. Go because your son needs
help. Go because the principal needs help with the situation. Go because
you’re the parent, and your son is your responsibility . Do your best to raise
the energy in a constructive manner. You can’t do this if you’re focusing on
your embarrassment, fears, and other personal reactions. Bottom line, you let go of the personal so you can interact properly
with what’ s in front of you. It’s the same thing in business. You’re in a
meeting, and they’re discussing a project. You have a bright idea that youwant to contribute. So you put it out there, but it gets shot down . That hurts. Of course it does. You have an ego in there, and it’s going to get bothered. Now for the rest of the meeting, either you don’t contribu te anything
because you’re sulking, or you keep bringing up proof that what you said
wasn’ t so dumb . You no longer  belong in that meeting. Your presence has
become about you, not about the project. You can’t work like that. Your
underlying motive can’t ever be about you. It has to be about serving what’ s
happening in front of you. To the absolute best of your ability , you always
serve life as it unfolds before you. The process of letting go becomes how you work on yourself. Your
only decision is: Are you going to let go or not? It’s your choice. Either
you’re working on yourself on a regular basis or you’re not. The blockages
inside you that generate personal thoughts and emotions are nothing but
leftover samskar as. They are based on past issues you couldn’ t handle, and
they will tend to lead you in the wrong direction. Learn to express your
higher Self. Express the deeper part of your being that’s in harmony with
life. Keep letting go. The entire spiritual path is letting go of yourself. What
will happen if you do this? That’ s what we’ll explore next. We’re going to
deal with what life is meant to be like for every single person. Regardless of
what has ever happened to you or what you’ve ever done—it really doesn’ t
matter . If you let go of the samskaras inside of you, they will no longer
affect your life. You can truly be free of your past. This is what living
untether ed means. It means to let go of yourself, to transcend your persona l
self as Buddha taught, to die to be reborn as Christ taught. It is the essence
of all spiritual teachings, and it is the truth. Everyone is capab le of freeing
themselves, if they are willing to do the inner work.PART VIII: 
Living a Life of AcceptanceChapter 35. Dealing with Blocked Energies
One thing is for certain, we are all conscious inside. The question is: What
are we conscious of? Pretty much everyone is aware that there are
constantly changing energies within that can be overwhelming at times. Even if they don’t understand the energies, to stay upright in life, people
either push the energies away or try to release them through outer
expression. Though both these efforts cause their own sets of problems, they
are better than drowning inside. When people are actually drow ning in water , what do they do? They
try to grab some thing solid, like a board floating by, so they don’t sink. That
is how most people live their lives. They are grabbing onto whatever they
can so they don’t drown. Generally , what they’re grabbing onto is
something outside themselves. They think that if others respected them
more and treated them better , it wouldn’ t be so caustic inside. If someone
would just truly  love them and be loyal to them, then they’d be okay . The
problem is, if they manage to get what they want, they will grab ahold for
dear life and never let go, whic h creates its own issues. Even worse, if the
outside world ever stops givin g them what they want, they will start to
drown again. If you want to see how much you cling to the outside world in order to
avoid drowning inside, just see what happens when the world doesn’ t unfold
the way you expect. What happens when someone very close to you
behaves in a way that doesn’ t align with your model? Your mind and heart
catch fire. This happens even if the person hasn’ t actually done anything. All that is needed is for your mind to think, “What if my husband leaves
me? Sally’s husband left her. If Sam ever left me, I would just die.” That’ s
all it takes, and you feel pain and disturbance. All the energies become
unsettled inside. Why does this happen? It happens because you’ve beentrying to build a place of solidity within your mind that you can hold on to. As long as everything reasonably reinforces that, you feel safe and relatively
okay . But you have distanced yourself from the core of your being by
clinging to something outside. That’ s what we do, and it doesn’t work. If
you want to grow spiritually , if you want to have a beautiful life instead of a
midlife crisis, you need to do the inner work. A midlif e crisis happens when you’ve been building and clinging and
fighting for half your life in order to be okay , and you’re not. You’re simply
not free and at peace inside, even though you have the kids, the marriage,
the job. As it turns out, midlife crises are perfectly reasonable. It’s
surprising more people don’t have them. Halfway through your life, you
realize it hasn’ t worked—you’re still not okay . Sure, you’re okay as long the
spouse behaves, the kids do well in school, and you get respect at your job. As long as all this happens, and your finances hold up, you’re conditionally
okay . But inside you know it can change on a dime, so you must keep
struggling to stay ahead. That’ s why life is a struggle. The alternative is to clean up the mess inside. Someday you will realize
you are not drowning. You’re simply sitting on a planet spinning around the
middle of absolutely nowhere. That’ s the truth of the matter . The Cassini
spacecraft took a picture of the Earth from two million miles out. The Earth
is just a small dot in the middl e of dark, empty space. How can you drop
down onto the nicest planet there is and not be okay? We’ve looked far and
wide with our space telescopes, and we haven’ t found anything, anywhere,
even close to the majesty of the Earth. Basically , you won the lottery! You
dropped down onto this phenomenal planet that’s always exciting,
challenging, and growthful. It has all sorts of colors, shapes, and sounds—
it’s unbelievably  amazing. Yet, what do you do? You suffer. Why? It’s not
the planet causing you to suf fer—it’ s the stuf f you have stored inside. The logical questions become: Why are you storing all this stuff inside
you? And if you’re going to store stuff inside, why not make it nice stuff? People collect all sorts of things as hobbies. Some collect spoons, teacups,
stamps, or coins from all over the world. But you had a brilliant idea for a
hobby—let’ s collect bad experiences. That’ s what you did: “I’m going to
collect every bad experience I ever had and keep it inside me so it can
bother me for the rest of my life.” How can that work out well? If you keep
doing it, you’re going to collect more and more bad experiences, and your
life will get heavier and heavier .Are you really going to continue making your life so difficult? In
essence,  you are causing  yourself to be unhappy , then you’re going outside
and demanding that the world somehow make you happy . The world cannot
make you happy while you’re inside making yourself unhappy . It’s that
simple. You have to work on letting go of the root cause of suffering. The
spiritual path is always about letting go of yourself, and that means dealing
with the blocked ener gies. The blocked energies inside are going to build up and need release if
you don’t deal with them. These  energies may release in the form of anger ,
verbal or physical fighting, and other bursts of uncontrolled behavior . When
you allow the energies to release unconsciously like this, you’re not in
charge. The energies will tend to follow the path of least resistance, as
determined by the samskaras . When you allow this to happen, the
uncontrolled energy carves channels within you that will make it easier to
flow that way again. The energy flow becomes a habit. Not only is “losing
it” unhealthy because of what you may say or do outside, but you also
increased the probability of losing it in the same way again. This can cause
all kinds of trouble. Any time you’re not in charge in there, there’ s going to
be trouble. It’ s that simple. Understanding this process of blocking and then expressing energies
helps us have compassion for our own past behaviors, as well as for others. Compassion means you understand the root cause of people ’s behavior . People have trouble handling their blocked energies, and in most cases, they
have not been taught how to channel the energies to a higher level. There is
a higher level of our being, and those lower energies can be raised up. You
have access to a much higher way to deal with inner energies than to simply
step aside and let them express. That doesn’ t mean they should be
suppressed. Your choices are not limited to expression or suppression. As
we will discuss, there’ s a third choice, transmutation, and that’s where true
spirituality comes in.Chapter 36. Transmutation of the Energy
Suppression blocks inner energy; unchanneled expression wastes its power . The highest use of the energy is transmutation . Most people know nothing
about transmutin g the energy, yet it is the essence of spirituality . Currently ,
your natural energy flow is blocked by the samskaras in your lower energy
centers. When the energy tries to release, you either push it back down or
allow it to blow  off some steam externally . This external release solves
nothing in the long run—the energy will just build back up behind your
blockages. The release is temporary because the cause of the blocked energy
has not been addressed. What if, when the energy tries to come up, you see it as an opportunity
to get rid of the blockage it’s hitting? The energy is going to attempt to
release the samskara by pushing it out of the way. The probl em is if the
blockage was stored with pain, it’s going to come back up with pain. Instead
of pushing it back down because you can’t handle the experience, or
releasing it outside as a way of relief, you can relax and release at such a
deep level that you allow the blockage to pass without resistance. That is
what transmutation of the energy means. It involves using the rising energy
as a positive force by allowing it to cleanse whatever was blocking it. This is the highe st way to work with your inner energy—use it to grow
spiritually . Use it to let go of the blockages that are keeping you trapped. It
is those blockag es that cause suffering. They only allow you to be okay if
things are a certain way. This creates discomfort, anxiety , and fear about
life. That discomfort drives people to seek all sorts of distractions, which
just creates more turmoil. We all know about this cycle of disturbance and
temporary relief . Now you know there is a much higher way to live. If you
are willing to release the blocka ges, over time the energy will find its way
up. It will push the samskaras out of the way, and the next thing you know ,you won’t even be able to relate to how you used to be. This is especially
true about how you used to deal with some people around you. You’ll wish
you could go back and say, “I am so sorry . I was so lost.” You will see how
relationships used to be about finding a way to be more comf ortable with
yourself. Once the blockages begin to clear , the energy will find its way into
your heart, and that will comfort and sustain you. Relationships will
naturally be about love and caring—all of them will be about serving others. They will no longer be about control or getting something you need. This is
what happens as the ener gy is free to rise within you. If you release the blockages, the energy will naturally rise higher. You
will not have to fight with it—the energy wants to come up. Always
remember , the energy wants to go up. You do not have to force it. It is best
for long-term spiritual growth if the energy is allowed to rise naturally . When you get blockages out of the way, you will feel a steady upward flow
of energy. Eventually , you will realize that the shakti wishes to express
something so beautiful, it will leave you breathless. You will begin to know
a peace that “passeth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). You won’ t need
anything. Your natural state is so beautiful; you are whole and complete
within yourself. It simply depends on your willingness to work with the
energies. If you do, shakti will go higher and higher until eventually it
moves as fountains of joy flowi ng out the higher energy centers. As it does,
your entire relationship with this world will transform into something very
beautiful. What you were trying  to get from the outside will now naturally
be going  on inside. You will become filled with love and ecstasy. Again,
Christ described this as: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). You will have a
perpetual flow of ener gy feeding you from within. The transmutation of the inner energy flow is the answer to all the
world’ s woes. If people felt whole inside and were fed by the constant flow
of love and deep peace, they wouldn’ t be fighting with each other . Why
would you kill, rob, or harm someone if you were content within yourself? It is only because people are struggling inside that they are driven to
struggle outside . That’ s the only reason we need so many rules and laws. People left to their own create great trouble struggling with their inner
disturbances. There is something much higher within us, and it happens to
be our natural state. You’re a beautiful being; a truly awe-inspiring being. But you can’t reflect that beauty if you’re not okay . No matter how beautifulyou are, if you are trying not to drown, you’re not going to seem so
beautiful. To stop struggling once and for all, work on letting go of the
blockages. A spiritual being views life as follows: “I came down to the planet
Earth for a short time, and these are the experiences I got to have. They
were challenging, but I handled them and am better off because of them.”
You don’t suppress your issues, and you don’t allow them to become the
foundation of your life. A past issue is just one of the many things that
happened to help you grow . You don’t need to know why it happened. You
don’t need to analyze its cause and effect, from a karmic point of view . All
sorts of things happen every day, and you don’t understand why they
happen. Yet you are comfortable handling them. You only insist on
understanding the events that you can’t comfortably handle. Understanding
becomes a crutch, a source of rationalization. If the mind can’t fit an event
into its conceptu al model, it insists on knowing why it happene d. Better to
accept reality first, then work with it in a constructive manner . You are the Self. You are the conscious witness of all that passes  before
you. You dwell deep inside, and nothing in there is more powerful than you. You have free will; use it to accept what has already happened rather than
letting past events mess up the rest of your life. Free yourself  from these
samskaras. Transmute your blocked energy flow into a powerful spiritual
force.Chapter 37. The Power of Intent
You are capable  of letting go at a very deep level if you really want to. It is
not a question of ability; it depends on intensity of intent. Inner work is
different from outer work. In the outside world, there are things you may not
be able to accom plish because of physical limitations. Try as you will, you
cannot pick up a mountain or run at the speed of light. You have physical
limitations. But inside you have no such limitations because there is no
physical aspect to Self. You are pure consciousness, and your will has
complete dominion over mind and emotions. As we have seen, most of your thoughts and emotions are created by
the blockages you have stored inside. These blockages are yours, and you
can let them go anytime you want. Once again, the problem is that since
they were stored with pain, they are going to release with pain. That is
where the depth of commitment comes in. Do you want to be free to live a
deep, beautiful life more than you want to avoid discomfort? Plenty of drug
addicts have gone through the pain of withdrawal to get their lives back. It
comes down to the old adage: where there’ s a will, there’ s a way. You can
let your blockag es go—if you really want to. What would you be willing to
go through for the most fulfilling love relationship, a constant state of well-
being, and the ability to feel the presence of God flowing throug h you at all
times? How would you answer? Would you say, “I’m too busy and I don’t
like any discomfort”? Or would you meet the challenge and say, “Anything. I would be willing to go throu gh anything to permanently live in such a
state”? Fortunately , you have the ability; that is not the problem. But do you
have the strength of intent to take the deep spiritual journey to liberation? Will is like a muscle—you build it by exercising it. Practice saying,
“I’m the boss in here. This is my house. I’m the only one living in here, and
I have the right to make it a nice place to live.” It’s not about becoming acontrol freak in there—it’ s about learning to surrender . Surrender is not
about suppression, and it’ s not about control. Surrender is about letting go of
weakness and being committed enough to carry out your intent. Surrender is
handling anythi ng that needs to be released inside and letting it pass
through. Remember , it was you who willfully resisted past events, which
caused samskaras to be stored. Why not learn to willfully relax and release
as the blockages cleanse so you can experience the beautiful inner energy
flow as it is meant to be? If you practice letting go of your blockages, not only will you get to
live in an elevated inner state, you will also become a blessing on the Earth. Anyplace you go, anything you do, will carry a blessing for others. If you
stay with this process every day, you will get there. Put time aside to remind
yourself who you are and to recall your commitment to cleaning up inside. Morning and evening practices will help you do this. It doesn’ t have to be
much time; just enough to relax and release, come back to center , and
remember to use every moment  of your life to let go of your blockages. If
you do that, the rest will happe n by itself. It is a natural process that will
take place. Always remember , it is spirit’ s job to liberate you from yourself. Shakti
wants to be free, but you’re in the way. When shakti starts to push the
blockages up, you’re going to have the tendency to push them back down
because it’s not comfortable to live in that fire. You stored past disturbances
in there, and it doesn’ t feel good when they are stirred up. Imagine that
somebody’ s talking to you, and you’re feeling strong and confident about
the conversation. Suddenly , they say something that hits your blockages,
and you start to feel your strength drop out from under you. If you are
sincere, you use the situation for your growth. It’s not the time to argue with
the person; it’s the time to grow spiritually . Calm and centered, you
inwardly ask, “What’ s happenin g inside of me? What blockage  got hit that
caused this shift in energy to take place?” Then, to use the situation for
growth, you relax and allow the energy to push the blockage up. You don’t
have to do anyth ing except not interfere with the process. Shakti will do her
job of pushing up—you have to do your job of letting go. To reme mber to do this in the moment, establish the practice of
recalling your intention every morning: “The purpose of my day is letting
go of my blockages and evolving spiritually .” Then every evening,
remember: “The  purpose of my day was to let go of my blockages andevolve spiritually .” Never complain about what happened—just inwardly
release the events of the day so they don’t leave samskaras. Don’ t let
anything remain stuck in there. Once you get good at this, you will learn to
do it throughout the day. Do your best with each interaction, then let it go. Always rememb er what’ s going on: you’re in there, and something is
happening that’s causing the energy to shift inside. Your tendenc y is to push
it away if you don’t like it or grab onto it if you do. It’s as if you have hands
in there,  and you use them to try to control the inner experience. Surrender
means—don’ t do that. That’ s all it means. It means you’re ready , willing,
and able to sit in the seat of consciousness when the energy shifts and just
let it go. Your interaction with the energy is similar to when you decide to stop
smoking or break any other habit. You’re going to feel the tendency to
resume the habit. It feels like a magnetic pull on you to go in that direction. The same thing happens when a blockage gets hit. It has attractive power
that draws you into it. You need to see that. You need to notice that it keeps
pulling on you, and sometimes  it won’ t leave you alone. That’ s not bad,
that’s good. Just relax more. It’s all about relaxing. If you’re using your will
to relax,  you can’t use your inner hands to push energy away or grab onto it. Someday , you’re going to remember this discussion. Something is
going to wake up inside, and you’ll know just what we’ve been talking
about. You’ll observe the energy pulling on you, and you will try to let go. For the first time you’ll realize what is actually happening—you are
struggling with yourself. You are both sides of the struggle. Part of you
wants to let go but part still wants to give in to the pull of the energy. Once
you sincerely want to let go of the old habitual energy flows, you will
realize that you have all the power you need inside. You’re the only one
living in there. You just need to deeply relax and stop fighting with yourself. At that point something amazing  is going to happen: All the energy that was
pulling you down and out changes direction. It begins to lift you in and up. This is the transmutation of the energy, and it is real. As liberat ion becomes
the meaning of your life, this inner process will step up signifi cantly . Once
you learn that your center of intent is stronger than any of the habitual
energy flows caused by your samskaras, you will sit quietly within, in the
seat of consciousness, and allow the process of purification to take place. Every day, every moment, you have the opportunity to explore the greatness
of your being.Letting go like this is not a struggle or an act of control. It is much
subtler than that. Perhaps this analogy will help. Imagine you’re in a game
of tug-o f-war . You are alone on one end of the rope, and an entire NFL
football team is on the other end. You’re in big trouble. The force pulling
you in the team’ s direction is very strong. You’ve studied all the latest
techniques for how to dig in your heels, how to best use your bodyweight,
and anything else the experts could teach about standing your ground in a
tug-of-war . You’re doing all the techniques, but they’re not working. Suddenly , Yoda, the great sage from Star Wars shows up to help (he
thinks everyone’ s name is Luke). Yoda: Luke, you know not how to do this. Let go. Let go, Luke. Luke: What do you mean, let go? If I let go, they will pull me
through the mud, headfirst. Yoda: Let go, you must. Luke: I don’ t get it. How do I just let go when this great force is
pulling on me? Yoda: Relax hands, Luke. Relax your hands. Luke: No, not hands—feet, legs, and body position. That’ s how to
end this tug-of-war . Yoda: Over it will be, Luke, if you relax your hands. Turns out, it’s true. If you relax your hands during a tug-of-w ar, the
struggle will immediately be over. No more rope. No more pull. No matter
how strong the pull is, if you relax your hands, you can go home and have
lunch. That’ s all you really wanted to begin with. Who said you had to take
the whole football team home with you? Just relax and let go, and the whole
struggle will be over. That’ s exactly what it’s like to surrender . You’re in
there, and the energy is pulling  you into it. Please don’t fight it. Just relax
your inner hands and let go. If this sounds very Zen, good, because it is. Y ou
don’t need to be strong; you need to be wise. The blocked energy can’t take
you anywhere if you simply relax and let go. Over time, you will find there is a place inside you that is behind the
commotion of the storm. You can simply relax and fall back into that place.This is the place  from which you are noticing the inner commotion, and this
place is still, quiet, and there are never any storms. That is the seat of Self. You don’ t find your way back to Self—you simply cease to leave. If you work
on this, you will come to a beautiful state within that is alwa ys there for
you. It is a place of refuge, and all you ever need to do is keep letting go. That is the life of surrender .Chapter 38. Exploring the Higher States
Once you are no longer drowning inside, a whole other life becomes
possible for you. We can now begin to discuss who you are, and what it can
be like in there. As the blockage s release, the energy is freed from having to
go aroun d them. You start to feel happier . You start to feel higher . You start
to feel like you used to feel when you had a really good day or a particularly
great experience . But this time, nothing special is happening. You’re just
feeling an uplift ing energy going on inside of you that keeps getting higher
and higher . You start feeling love simply because the sky is blue. It used to
take a special moment in a relationship to blow you away like that. Everything that is happening comes in, and you feel it all at a richer, deeper
level. This is because you are more open, more receptive. You don’t have
the need s and problems that you were trying to solve. Because you don’t
have all that commotion inside, and you’re feeling more whole and
complete, there’ s nothing you need from the outside. You start to look at
needs in a completely dif ferent light. You used to make satisfying needs your priority . Most of our modern
needs are psychological, not physiological. Psychological needs are actually
unnatural, as they indicate that something is missing or wrong . If you are
feeling whole and complete inside yourself, there are no psychological
needs. Psychological needs come from your blockages. When the energy is
freed, what you feel is love, joy, and enthusiasm, which are just different
words for uplifting energy. In the purest sense, this upward-flowing energy
is quite different from emotions. An emotion emanates out of your heart and
pulls you into its vibration. Enthusiasm is something that wells up inside. It
is a system-wide, spontaneous, uplifting flow of energy. It is, in fact, freed
shakti.When your energies are liberated, you don’t need energy from anybody
else. You have so much energy inside you it’s incomprehensible. Surely you
have experienced from time to time that if something you really like
happens, there can be a sudden  burst of inner energy. How long does that
take? A billionth of a second. Imagine you’re feeling depres sed and not
doing well. Suddenly , something  happens. Perhaps you receive a phone call
that gets you talking and smiling—it makes your energy flow. The energy
was always there, but you opened up because the phone call matched
something you liked. A blockag e temporarily got out of the way, and all this
energy flowed up. Truth is, if that blockage had not been in the way, you
would not have needed the phone call to open you. This is why you do the
inner work of releasing blockages. As the blockages release, the energy takes you to higher and higher
states. You alrea dy know what the higher states are. The higher states are
about love. They are about being really enthusiastic about your job and
anything else you’re doing. The higher energies are beautiful. They’re much
more beautiful than the expression of the lower energies. As you open up,
life is no longer about seeking nonnegative states; it becomes about
allowing ever-increasing, positive states. Growth used to be about not
feeling anger or anxiety anymore. Now it’s about feeling so much
overwhelming love when you wake up that you have trouble getting out of
bed. Then the feeling of enthusia sm to go to work gets so strong that it pulls
you out of bed and propels you through your day. This is what  it feels like
when the ener gy is flowing. Most people don’ t believe life can be like this. They feel they must find
the perfe ct job in order to be enthused to go to work. How are you defining
“the perfect job”? You define it as the one that opens you. In other words,
the one that fits your blockages just right so your energy can flow. Problem
is, if the same job ever hits your blockages the wrong way, you will close. You are still letting your samskaras run your life. It’s not a matter of finding
the right job; it’s a matter of releasing the blockages so you can be enthused
about the job you have. No matter how high you get, you can always get much higher . Don’ t
believe those who say you can’t enjoy happiness unless you also know
sadness. That is not true. That’ s what life is like if you are still blocked. Once you’re unblocked, you will notice the energy is always beautiful. It is
an ever-new rush of uplifting joy that raises your heart, your mind, andeverything insid e you. You’ll be more aware than you used to be and have
the enthusiasm of a child about everything you get to do. You might wonder why you would be motivated to do anything if
you’re already that content. Why bother having a job, or even a relationship,
if you’re  alread y filled with so much love and happiness? The answer is
simple: love wants to express itself and enthusiasm wants to create. Once
the energy is no longer blocked and is flowing freely , personal needs are no
longer your motivation. Your actions are the expression of love and
gratitude for life. Y our whole life becomes an act of service. Even your relationships become  acts of service to other human beings. You don’t need anything from a relationship, but love loves to express itself. If you have tremendous love going on inside you, people will be attracted to
you. You don’t have to worry about attracting somebody or keeping them
interested in you. People are attracted to light. It’s very natura l. If there is
someone special, you shower them with love day and night, expecting
nothing in return. Love is a very unique gift—it is just as beaut iful for both
the giver and the receiver . Life is so simple once you are okay inside. Y ou don’ t do things because
of the fruits they bear; each moment is whole and complete within itself. You reach the point where there is nothing more sacred than the spirit
flowing inside you. There can be moments of disturbance, but you don’t
have to do anything about them. They come and they go, and they don’t
affect your energy flow, unless you let them. You will come to realize that
this energy inside you knows what it’s doing. It is not only beautiful, it is
intelligent. If you let it, it will fix everything. The uprising energy will do all
the inner work for you. Y our only job is to not interfere—to surrender . Let’s go even deeper to explore what happens next. The ener gy flowing
inside you is so beautiful that your consciousness is naturally attracted to it. What you are experiencing is everything you ever hoped to feel from the
outside but could only taste for a moment. You fall completely in love with
the spiritual energy flow. Once you’re being fed by the inner flow, your
outer life will be fine. Before you cleared the blockages, you needed the
world to be a certain way for you to be okay . This created a struggle with
life on a daily basis. When you let go enough to clear the inner energy flow,
the struggling ceases. You realiz e through direct experience that everything
you ever wanted  is flowing inside you, and the battle will pretty much be
over.Attraction to the unconditional flow of inner ener gy is a wonderful love
affair. In fact, the Bible says, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:5). Now ,
you do. That is the ultimate commandment in the Old Testament, and Jesus
repeated it many times. You no longer have to worry about how to “love
God” because what’s flowing inside of you is spirit, and you naturally love
it with all your heart. You like being high, and spirit is the ultimate high. It’s
higher than any drug could ever take you. It’s higher than any relationship
you could ever have. The love and joy it brings will never stop unless you
stop it. That river will flow every moment of your life unless you dam it up. But now you know better . Once the energy starts spontaneously flowing,
you won’t touch it. You just respect it, honor it, and appreciate it. You
inwardly say, “Thank you,” and keep letting go. That becomes your only
prayer— thank you, thank you so much . Now that this energy is flowing  inside you, it will clean up the rest of
your blockages. This will not happen immediately; you must be willing to
let them go naturally. The shakti will push the samskaras out if you let her. Your entire life becomes spiritual—about spirit. You rest into the beautiful
flow of the energy, and it gives you the strength to let go of what needs to be
cleansed. In time, you learn to enjoy every moment of this journey . It is
freeing you, taking you to God. When you are settling into the upward flow of energy, that is a state of
true contentmen t. Contentment doesn’ t mean you’re lazy. It means you are
not being disturbed inside. What is going on inside you is so beautiful that,
for the first time in your life, you feel completely at peace. You’re not
looking for anything. If you look out into the world, you see what’ s there—
not what you want or don’t want to be there. The experience of the outside
doesn’ t stimulat e any preferences inside of you. It just comes in, passes
through, and leaves you as it found you—in a state of ecstatic well-being.Chapter 39. In the World but Not of It
Once you have reached a deep level of inner clarity , you will notice that just
because you are content with reality doesn’ t mean you don’t interact with it. The world continues to appear  before you, but there’ s nothi ng personal
about it anymore. It is just the part of creation passing before you at that
moment. Reality  doesn’ t bother you because you don’t need anything from
it. It simply exists and you simply exist—in perfect harmony . Every moment
unfolding in front of you is there for you to serve. It can be as simple as
appreciating it, or you may be able to raise the energy of the moment
passing before you. A smile, a kind word, a helping hand—these are all
ways of raising the energy as it passes by. Doing your job to the best of your
ability , taking care of your family, serving your community—these simple
acts are just as much service to the universe as anything else. Imagine you’re taking a walk and there’ s a piece of paper on the side of
the road. You feel the disharmony , and you pick it up. It’s not a “have to” or
a “supposed to”; you’re simply an artist making the world more beautiful. Your mind doesn’ t say, “I’ll pick this one up, but I’m not going to pick up
every single piece of litter.” Nor does your mind say, “What idiot threw this
piece of paper down here? This is the kind of person who ruins the world.”
No. You are simply a spontaneous being who is in harmony with life. You
expect nothing back from your actions because they were not done for
approval or recognition. You can’t help but share the beautiful energy going
on insid e of you with the mome nt in front of you. The highest life you can
live is when every single moment that passes befor e you is better  off because
it did. Serve the present moment with all your heart and soul. Imagine what
the world would be like if everyone did that. Start by raising what appears before you. If you can’t even serve what
is put in front of you, how are you going to change the world? If you aregetting so upset about conditions in the world that you’re  edgy with
everyone around you, you’re not helping anyone. If you can’t create
harmony in your own household, what right do you have to complain that
countries are shooting missiles at each other? You have to live a life that, if
everyone lived it, there would be peace. If you can’t do that, you are part of
the problem, not the solution. It’s all about letting go of yourself. The world
is going to come in, and it’s going to hit what’ s left of your samskaras. What
you feel going on inside when that happens is reactive energy. Don’ t ever
act based on that. You will just be polluting the environment with your inner
blockages. No good can come from that. A spiritual life is not about adhering to a given set of rules—it’ s about
never acting based on your personal energy. You won’ t be able to do that to
start with, so work on it. When the energy gets disturbed, just let it go. Your
initial reaction will generally be your personal stuff coming up. If you let it
go, you’ll be able to interact with the moment in front of you in a more
constructive manner . Simply ask yourself, “Is there something I can be
doing to serve the moment in front of me? Not for me; I already let go of
me. Now  that I’m clear and nonreactive, is there something I can do to raise
the moment as it passes by?”
Once you learn to let go of the reactionary noise of personal thoughts
and emotions, things will become clear . You will know how to work with
the situation in front of you. If you’re conscious, present, and paying
attention, you will know what to do. The moment in front of you is talking
to you. It doesn’ t have to be in words. The piece of paper on the ground, the
person who needs some help, whatever it is, your respon se becomes
obvious. The deepest truth is that it doesn’ t even matter what you do. What
matters is where you’re coming  from. What matters is your motive. If your
motive is to let go of yourself and serve the moment in front of you, you are
worthy of great respect. How would you like to meet some body whose
entire motive and purpose in life is to first let go of their personal blockages
and then do their best to serve what’s in front of them? They can’t do wrong
because their motive is pure. If the motive itself is pure and impersonal, in
the end, it will spread light. Be sure your motive is pure, then don’t look back. If somebody
criticizes your actions, just apolo gize and let go. Always be willing to learn. If you come from the highest place you can, there’ s no guilt, no shame. The
fruits of the best you can do are a very holy thing. If someth ing terriblecomes back from the best you can do, own it. It’s yours. Let it teach you. Let it make you better , so you’ll do better next time. Please, don’t feel bad
about it. Don’ t judge anything. It’s only when you didn’ t do your best—you
got personally disturbed and gave in to it—that’ s when you build karma and
things become really complicated. Practice letting go, and eventua lly you will find yourself in a seat of
awareness that can’t be disturbe d by anything you are experien cing. There
will always be a beautiful energy feeding you and raising you. At that point,
there are no more techniques; there are no more teachings. It all happens
naturally from then on. Intuitive ly, it dawns on you that this beau tiful energy
flow must be coming from somewhere. Yogananda wrote in Whispers from
Eternity (1949, 156), “O, what has become of me? Intoxication on
intoxication! Endless, indescribable throngs of divine intoxications
ceaselessly come to me!” Where is this energy coming from? You feel it as
a flow, just as if rushes of water were flowing upward within you. This is
not theoretical, it’s real. There is a constant experience of shakti, of spirit
flowing up inside you. It must be coming from somewhere. It has to have a
source. You are now ready for the next stage of your journey home—you
begin to seek the source. You will very quickly realize the mind cannot help you on this journey . Any focus on thoughts draws consciousness away from Self and diminishes
the energy flow. This is not an analytical or philosophical journe y. Only one
thing can seek the source of the energy flow: that which is exper iencing it—
your consciousness. To seek the source of a freshwater spring , you swim
toward the flow. You feel the current and go into it. It is the same when you
are seeking the source of the shakti flow. Your consciousness feels the flow
and melts into it. This becom es your entire spiritual practice. This is
surrender , real surrender . Heretofore, you’ve practiced surrender by letting go of your lower self. Now that you’ve learned to feel this higher energy flow inside, you
surrender to it. Until this final surrender , there is still a subject-object
experience: consciousness (subject) is experiencing the shakti flow (object). If you want to truly know the flow , you must fall into it, become one with it. To get closer to becoming one with flow, you must surrender your
entire sense of separation. It’s not enough to experience the energy, you
must release yourself into it. As you let go, the flow will pull you in. That’ s
where the great  masters went. In Sanskrit, the word yoga means “union.”Meher Baba said that when he first went into the highest state of
enlightenment, it was like a drop of water fell into the ocean. T ry to find that
drop. You can’t—it merged with the ocean. Christ said, “I and my Father are
one” (John 10:30). These teachings are the same. When you cease to
separate your sense of self from  this flow of the energy, it starts  to pull you
into it, and you become one with it. Yogananda called it a river of joy
flowing inside you. Your path is to find it, go there, get in, and drown. Now
we’re discussing the highest state, and everyone is capable of achieving this
state. Remember how we got here. We got here by letting go of the
blockages to this flow. The higher states are totally natural, but you
shouldn’ t be seeking them. Don’t be blocked and then try to experience
what it’s like to not be blocked . Get unblocked and the deeper  meditations
will come completely naturally . You’ll be minding your own business
watching TV , and you’ll fall into states that you couldn’ t reach after hours of
meditation. You will become a being of shakti, and she will take you into
ecstasy over and over again. There is nothing  more beautiful than the shakti flow. She is so fulfilling
that you would never block her again. If something happens and you feel
you want to defend yourself, don’t touch it. First let go of the part of you
that wants to close down, then deal with the outside. Use everything to let
go of what stands between you and the God-realized state. Start with the low-hanging fruit throughout the day and then progress
to letting go of your past. That’s a perfect way to begin meaningful
transformation. Once you learn how to let go of self-generated disturbances,
inevitably something bigger will happen. Because of the work you have
done on yourself, it will be totally natural for you to let go during more
challenging times. Don’ t wait until a terrible bomb goes off in your life to
wonder what to do dif ferently . You need to do the work of releasing yourself
in your everyda y life. You will then be able to handle anything life brings
your way . Like most things in life, these deeper spiritual states take time. Just do
the inner work, and the energy will start flowing. Once the floodgates open
within you, you’ll have all the help you need for the ascent. You are not
walking this path alone—all who walked before you are liftin g you. Just
keep letting go. No matter what happens, keep letting go. These states are
not going to happen all at once and then stay there. You’ll get rushes fromtime to time because something  opens up. It’s okay if it closes back down;
don’t worry . You still have work to do. Be diligent, but give it time. Eventually , the upward flow will never leave you. You will become a
knower of your soul, a knower  of spirit. When you can relax and release
into the deeper states, you will finally awaken to full self-realization. That’ s
what true enlightenment is. Enlightenment is not a spiritual experience—it
is a permanent spiritual state. No matter how deep you have gone, please do not say you’re
enlightened. Let that word be reserved for the great masters. Just be content. Don’ t build a spiritual ego. Spirituality is not about hanging out a shingle
that says, “I’m a spiritual perso n.” It is about letting go of that too. It is
about perpetually letting go of yourself completely . If you never stop doing
this, the energy will take over. Where you used to see your personal self
expressing, you will now see nothing but the flow of shakti. Surrender to the
flow. Give your life to it. Merge into it, and it will take you the rest of the
way. That is the final surrender . It has been such an honor to share these teachings with you. Please,
don’t let this be just another book you read and then go back to your normal
way of life. Do this work. This work is not about renunciation of life—it’ s
about truly experiencing life at the deepest level. If you let go of yourself on
a daily basis, under all circumstances, you will find what is greater than
yourself. That’ s just the way it works: Where you’re not, God is. Where
God is, you’re not. Now do you understand why Christ said the Kingdom is within you? It
is the very essence of your being. Your heights are incompreh ensible, and
you are perfectly capable of doing this work. Your inner states will just keep
getting higher and higher as you keep letting go. The fact that you are even
interested in these teachings means you’ve changed the world. You who do
the work of liberating yourself are to be deeply respected. With great love and respect,
Michael A. SingerAcknowledgments
Life is a great teacher . If you are open, every single situation has something
to teach you about yourself and the moment unfolding in front of you. I
begin by acknowledging how much this flow of life has taught me and has
led to the writing of Living Untether ed. I also acknowledge all those wise
beings who have walked this path before me and managed to guide me on
my exploration within. It is with deep humility and appreciation that I recognize the
tremendous work that my friend and product manager , Karen Entner, did on
this book. Her tireless and selfless service has instilled this work with a
sense of commitment and perfection rarely found in this world. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my publishers, New
Harbinger Publications and Soun ds True, for their heartfelt work in bringing
Living Untether ed to fruition. They worked together seamlessly to meld
their great talents into one unifie d force behind the development, marketing,
and distribution of this very special book. There were many early readers , all of whom deserve thanks. I would
like to single out James O’Dea, Bob Merrill, and Stephanie Davis, who
contributed detailed suggestions during the early writing of the book. Lastly , I would like to acknowledge you, the reader , for being
interested in deepening your relationship with yourself and the world around
you. Your willingness to take a second look at what is really going on,
outside and in, has the power to change the world.
Living-Untethered-by-Michael-Singer.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Of course, there are higher states of meditation than simply noticing
the mind, but you should not set expectations. Expectations are just another
mind-trip. Decid e that you are sitting down because you choos e to learn to
be present and work on yourself. This is a time when you don’t have so
many external distractions, so you can practice being present. That’ s all. You may not like what you see inside, but you are learning to be present
with it. Y ou’re learning to be at peace with what used to drive you crazy. To appre ciate the purpose of spiritual techniques, you have to realize
that you are addicted to your mind. You’re more addicted to your mind than
people are to drugs. In fact, the reason many people start doing drugs is to
get away  from their mind’ s incessant chatter. That’ s also why some people
start drinking—the mind can be impossible to live with. If you are like most
people, you are addicted to every single word your mind says. If your mind
suddenly says, “I don’t like it here, I want to leave,” you leave. If it says, “I
think something good will come from being here, I want to stay for awhile,” you stay. You are absorbed in your thoughts, and you follow
whatever the mind says. In essen ce, your mind is your guru, and you need to
back of f from that relationship. Changing your relationship with your mind is a major part of the
spiritual journey. You don’t do this by fighting with the mind and resisting
thoughts. You do this by learning not to listen to the mind. You are the
consciousness, and the mind is the object of consciousness. You must be
able to withdraw your attentio n from the mind, even when the mind is
talking. The easiest way to do this is to pay attention to something else. One
very common meditation technique is to pay attention to your breath. Just
watch your breath. Over time you will see that if you are watching your
breath go in and out, you are not focusing on the mind. If you try this very
simple technique of watching your breath, you’ll see how addicted you are
to the mind. One moment you’re sitting there watching your breath and not
being distracted by the mind. The next thing you know, you’re lost in your
thoughts. That is what’ s going to happen. You may not be able to sit there
for fifteen minutes and watch your breath. Good, that shows you how strong
your addiction is to the mind. The reason you lose focus on your breath is that consciousness gets
distracted by what your mind is saying. In other words, you stopped
watching your breath, and you started watching your mind. The moment
you catch on that you’ve done that, don’t get down on yourse lf. Just start
watching your breath again. The entire purpose is to practice gaining control
of your attention  so that it becomes yours again. What you pay attention to
determines your experiences in life. You should have the right to
consciously decide what to pay attention to. Until you learn to back away
from the mind, you have no choice; you pay attention to whatever your
mind says. There is one more element you can add to this simple meditation
technique we’ve been discussing. You’re not going to know right away that
you stopped watching your breath. You’re going to get lost in your mind,
and maybe fifteen minutes will go by. To help notice sooner, instead of just
watching your breath, count your breaths. Simply count a round of
inhale/exhale as one, then two, and so on. But don’t count to one hundred. Count to twenty-five and start over. That way you will see sooner that you
drifted off the breath. In/out…one, in/out…two, in/out…three. Watch your
breath go in and out of your abdomen. Just sit there and watch  your breathwhile you count to twenty-five, and then go back to one. If you find that
you’re at forty-three, just start over at one. Not a thought about it, just
immediately start counting at one. You now have a job to do that requires
you to be present. You must be conscious enough while watching your
breath to know to go back to one after you reach twenty-five. This doesn’ t
require thought—it just requires awareness. Some people turn mala beads during meditation, others do mantra. These are just ways to help keep your consciousness on something other
than your wandering thoughts. So, meditation is easy—if you understand
that it’s not about having spiritual experiences. Please don’t worry about
that. Just practice being presen t. If you do this on a regular basis, you’re
going to find that you are consciously aware during the day when your
samskaras get hit. Now it’s just a question of your level of commitment. Every single time you start to get disturbed, are you willing to relax and
release. Or do you still need to go through another round of expressing and
defending your blockages. Chapter 34. Handling the Bigger Stuff
Real spiritual practice  entails devoting  every moment of your life to your
liberation. Life is your real guru. It’s challenging you to either move further
away from Self or come back to Self. Life is your friend. Everything that
happens in life is an opportunity to get better at freeing yourself from
yourself—dying to be reborn. If you sincerely work on releasing the low-
hanging fruit, and if you remain centered in the seat of Self as your past
samskaras are released, you will become a more conscious being. You will
no longer have to come back to center after a dif ficult conversation, you will
remain centered during the entire experience. At first, this is difficult. Just
keep working on it. Make this the most important thing in your life—
because it is. It really is the only rational way to live your life. It’s not a
religious techniq ue; it’s simply deciding to wake up and make something
great of yourself. If you constantly let go, you will eventually achieve a state of perpetual
presence. You will be established in the seat of Self, and you will never
leave that seat again for the rest of your life. No matter what happens, no
matter who dies, no matter who leaves you, no matter what. All that stuff
can still come up, but you will have the power to decide what to do about it. There will be time you never had before, between the event and your
reaction to it. Things start to unfold as if in slow motion—even reactive
thoughts and emotions. This gives you time to relax and let go. We are now ready to address the bigger stuff. As you let go, and there
is less small stuff, the bigger things will come up all by them selves. You
may start having very intense dreams. You may be driving in the car and
begin feeling powerful emotion s for no apparent reason. Good, you don’t
need a reason. It is simply energy, the shakti, trying to push up because you
have given her the room to do so. She is your best friend. This energy flowinside is helping you, and it’ s always trying to push up. Y ou don’ t need to do
anything except  keep letting go. What if something happens that’s a really
bad situation. The house catches fire. Y ou lose your job. That’ s certainly not
low-hanging fruit. If you are sincere on this path, what do you do. First let
go. Always let go of your huma n reaction first. If you are upset and cannot
deal with the situation, what good are you. If you can’t handle the sight of
blood, you are of no use at the scene of an accident. First let go of your
personal reactio n so that you can serve the situation to the best of your
ability. Let’s take a real-life example. You get a phone call informing you that
your sixteen-yea r-old son had drugs in his school locker. Difficult things
like this happen in the world. You may not like it, but you are going to have
to deal with it. Perhaps your mind starts up, “How could he do this to me. Oh, my god, what did I do wrong. My husband’ s going to be so mad at me. We’re having enough trouble in our relationship. This could be the end of
my marriage. Why do I deserve  this. ” What on Earth has all that personal
melodrama got to do with your son’s problem. Those are your problems,
and you need to let them go. You’re not supposed to be interact ing with the
world outside based on your blockages inside. All that personal talk has
nothing to do with the problem at hand. It has to do with the fact that this
situation hit your blockages, and now you’re reacting to your issues instead
of your child’ s issue. If you allow that to happen, you’re going to make
every decision based on what makes you feel better, which is likely not what
is best for the situation at hand. If you take things personally, you will try to protect yourself by
avoiding disturbing experiences. But difficult situations present an
opportunity to change that dynamic. The way to do that is to let go of your
entire personal reaction to the situation. You just let it go. You don’t let go
of the situation—you let go of your reaction to the situation. Go to the
principal’ s office, but not to protect yourself. Go because your son needs
help. Go because the principal needs help with the situation. Go because
you’re the parent, and your son is your responsibility. Do your best to raise
the energy in a constructive manner. You can’t do this if you’re focusing on
your embarrassment, fears, and other personal reactions. Bottom line, you let go of the personal so you can interact properly
with what’ s in front of you. It’s the same thing in business. You’re in a
meeting, and they’re discussing a project. You have a bright idea that youwant to contribute. So you put it out there, but it gets shot down. That hurts. Of course it does. You have an ego in there, and it’s going to get bothered. Now for the rest of the meeting, either you don’t contribu te anything
because you’re sulking, or you keep bringing up proof that what you said
wasn’ t so dumb. You no longer  belong in that meeting. Your presence has
become about you, not about the project. You can’t work like that. Your
underlying motive can’t ever be about you. It has to be about serving what’ s
happening in front of you. To the absolute best of your ability, you always
serve life as it unfolds before you. The process of letting go becomes how you work on yourself. Your
only decision is: Are you going to let go or not. It’s your choice. Either
you’re working on yourself on a regular basis or you’re not. The blockages
inside you that generate personal thoughts and emotions are nothing but
leftover samskar as. They are based on past issues you couldn’ t handle, and
they will tend to lead you in the wrong direction. Learn to express your
higher Self. Express the deeper part of your being that’s in harmony with
life. Keep letting go. The entire spiritual path is letting go of yourself. What
will happen if you do this. That’ s what we’ll explore next. We’re going to
deal with what life is meant to be like for every single person. Regardless of
what has ever happened to you or what you’ve ever done—it really doesn’ t
matter. If you let go of the samskaras inside of you, they will no longer
affect your life. You can truly be free of your past. This is what living
untether ed means. It means to let go of yourself, to transcend your persona l
self as Buddha taught, to die to be reborn as Christ taught. It is the essence
of all spiritual teachings, and it is the truth. Everyone is capab le of freeing
themselves, if they are willing to do the inner work. PART VIII: 
Living a Life of AcceptanceChapter 35. Dealing with Blocked Energies
One thing is for certain, we are all conscious inside. The question is: What
are we conscious of. Pretty much everyone is aware that there are
constantly changing energies within that can be overwhelming at times. Even if they don’t understand the energies, to stay upright in life, people
either push the energies away or try to release them through outer
expression. Though both these efforts cause their own sets of problems, they
are better than drowning inside. When people are actually drow ning in water, what do they do. They
try to grab some thing solid, like a board floating by, so they don’t sink. That
is how most people live their lives. They are grabbing onto whatever they
can so they don’t drown. Generally, what they’re grabbing onto is
something outside themselves. They think that if others respected them
more and treated them better, it wouldn’ t be so caustic inside. If someone
would just truly  love them and be loyal to them, then they’d be okay. The
problem is, if they manage to get what they want, they will grab ahold for
dear life and never let go, whic h creates its own issues. Even worse, if the
outside world ever stops givin g them what they want, they will start to
drown again. If you want to see how much you cling to the outside world in order to
avoid drowning inside, just see what happens when the world doesn’ t unfold
the way you expect. What happens when someone very close to you
behaves in a way that doesn’ t align with your model. Your mind and heart
catch fire. This happens even if the person hasn’ t actually done anything. All that is needed is for your mind to think, “What if my husband leaves
me. Sally’s husband left her. If Sam ever left me, I would just die. ” That’ s
all it takes, and you feel pain and disturbance. All the energies become
unsettled inside. Why does this happen. It happens because you’ve beentrying to build a place of solidity within your mind that you can hold on to. As long as everything reasonably reinforces that, you feel safe and relatively
okay. But you have distanced yourself from the core of your being by
clinging to something outside. That’ s what we do, and it doesn’t work. If
you want to grow spiritually, if you want to have a beautiful life instead of a
midlife crisis, you need to do the inner work. A midlif e crisis happens when you’ve been building and clinging and
fighting for half your life in order to be okay, and you’re not. You’re simply
not free and at peace inside, even though you have the kids, the marriage,
the job. As it turns out, midlife crises are perfectly reasonable. It’s
surprising more people don’t have them. Halfway through your life, you
realize it hasn’ t worked—you’re still not okay. Sure, you’re okay as long the
spouse behaves, the kids do well in school, and you get respect at your job. As long as all this happens, and your finances hold up, you’re conditionally
okay. But inside you know it can change on a dime, so you must keep
struggling to stay ahead. That’ s why life is a struggle. The alternative is to clean up the mess inside. Someday you will realize
you are not drowning. You’re simply sitting on a planet spinning around the
middle of absolutely nowhere. That’ s the truth of the matter. The Cassini
spacecraft took a picture of the Earth from two million miles out. The Earth
is just a small dot in the middl e of dark, empty space. How can you drop
down onto the nicest planet there is and not be okay. We’ve looked far and
wide with our space telescopes, and we haven’ t found anything, anywhere,
even close to the majesty of the Earth. Basically, you won the lottery. You
dropped down onto this phenomenal planet that’s always exciting,
challenging, and growthful. It has all sorts of colors, shapes, and sounds—
it’s unbelievably  amazing. Yet, what do you do. You suffer. Why. It’s not
the planet causing you to suf fer—it’ s the stuf f you have stored inside. The logical questions become: Why are you storing all this stuff inside
you. And if you’re going to store stuff inside, why not make it nice stuff. People collect all sorts of things as hobbies. Some collect spoons, teacups,
stamps, or coins from all over the world. But you had a brilliant idea for a
hobby—let’ s collect bad experiences. That’ s what you did: “I’m going to
collect every bad experience I ever had and keep it inside me so it can
bother me for the rest of my life. ” How can that work out well. If you keep
doing it, you’re going to collect more and more bad experiences, and your
life will get heavier and heavier. Are you really going to continue making your life so difficult. In
essence,  you are causing  yourself to be unhappy, then you’re going outside
and demanding that the world somehow make you happy. The world cannot
make you happy while you’re inside making yourself unhappy. It’s that
simple. You have to work on letting go of the root cause of suffering. The
spiritual path is always about letting go of yourself, and that means dealing
with the blocked ener gies. The blocked energies inside are going to build up and need release if
you don’t deal with them. These  energies may release in the form of anger,
verbal or physical fighting, and other bursts of uncontrolled behavior. When
you allow the energies to release unconsciously like this, you’re not in
charge. The energies will tend to follow the path of least resistance, as
determined by the samskaras. When you allow this to happen, the
uncontrolled energy carves channels within you that will make it easier to
flow that way again. The energy flow becomes a habit. Not only is “losing
it” unhealthy because of what you may say or do outside, but you also
increased the probability of losing it in the same way again. This can cause
all kinds of trouble. Any time you’re not in charge in there, there’ s going to
be trouble. It’ s that simple. Understanding this process of blocking and then expressing energies
helps us have compassion for our own past behaviors, as well as for others. Compassion means you understand the root cause of people ’s behavior. People have trouble handling their blocked energies, and in most cases, they
have not been taught how to channel the energies to a higher level. There is
a higher level of our being, and those lower energies can be raised up. You
have access to a much higher way to deal with inner energies than to simply
step aside and let them express. That doesn’ t mean they should be
suppressed. Your choices are not limited to expression or suppression. As
we will discuss, there’ s a third choice, transmutation, and that’s where true
spirituality comes in. Chapter 36. Transmutation of the Energy
Suppression blocks inner energy; unchanneled expression wastes its power. The highest use of the energy is transmutation. Most people know nothing
about transmutin g the energy, yet it is the essence of spirituality. Currently,
your natural energy flow is blocked by the samskaras in your lower energy
centers. When the energy tries to release, you either push it back down or
allow it to blow  off some steam externally. This external release solves
nothing in the long run—the energy will just build back up behind your
blockages. The release is temporary because the cause of the blocked energy
has not been addressed. What if, when the energy tries to come up, you see it as an opportunity
to get rid of the blockage it’s hitting. The energy is going to attempt to
release the samskara by pushing it out of the way. The probl em is if the
blockage was stored with pain, it’s going to come back up with pain. Instead
of pushing it back down because you can’t handle the experience, or
releasing it outside as a way of relief, you can relax and release at such a
deep level that you allow the blockage to pass without resistance. That is
what transmutation of the energy means. It involves using the rising energy
as a positive force by allowing it to cleanse whatever was blocking it. This is the highe st way to work with your inner energy—use it to grow
spiritually. Use it to let go of the blockages that are keeping you trapped. It
is those blockag es that cause suffering. They only allow you to be okay if
things are a certain way. This creates discomfort, anxiety, and fear about
life. That discomfort drives people to seek all sorts of distractions, which
just creates more turmoil. We all know about this cycle of disturbance and
temporary relief. Now you know there is a much higher way to live. If you
are willing to release the blocka ges, over time the energy will find its way
up. It will push the samskaras out of the way, and the next thing you know,you won’t even be able to relate to how you used to be. This is especially
true about how you used to deal with some people around you. You’ll wish
you could go back and say, “I am so sorry. I was so lost. ” You will see how
relationships used to be about finding a way to be more comf ortable with
yourself. Once the blockages begin to clear, the energy will find its way into
your heart, and that will comfort and sustain you. Relationships will
naturally be about love and caring—all of them will be about serving others. They will no longer be about control or getting something you need. This is
what happens as the ener gy is free to rise within you. If you release the blockages, the energy will naturally rise higher. You
will not have to fight with it—the energy wants to come up. Always
remember, the energy wants to go up. You do not have to force it. It is best
for long-term spiritual growth if the energy is allowed to rise naturally. When you get blockages out of the way, you will feel a steady upward flow
of energy. Eventually, you will realize that the shakti wishes to express
something so beautiful, it will leave you breathless. You will begin to know
a peace that “passeth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). You won’ t need
anything. Your natural state is so beautiful; you are whole and complete
within yourself. It simply depends on your willingness to work with the
energies. If you do, shakti will go higher and higher until eventually it
moves as fountains of joy flowi ng out the higher energy centers. As it does,
your entire relationship with this world will transform into something very
beautiful. What you were trying  to get from the outside will now naturally
be going  on inside. You will become filled with love and ecstasy. Again,
Christ described this as: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). You will have a
perpetual flow of ener gy feeding you from within. The transmutation of the inner energy flow is the answer to all the
world’ s woes. If people felt whole inside and were fed by the constant flow
of love and deep peace, they wouldn’ t be fighting with each other. Why
would you kill, rob, or harm someone if you were content within yourself. It is only because people are struggling inside that they are driven to
struggle outside. That’ s the only reason we need so many rules and laws. People left to their own create great trouble struggling with their inner
disturbances. There is something much higher within us, and it happens to
be our natural state. You’re a beautiful being; a truly awe-inspiring being. But you can’t reflect that beauty if you’re not okay. No matter how beautifulyou are, if you are trying not to drown, you’re not going to seem so
beautiful. To stop struggling once and for all, work on letting go of the
blockages. A spiritual being views life as follows: “I came down to the planet
Earth for a short time, and these are the experiences I got to have. They
were challenging, but I handled them and am better off because of them. ”
You don’t suppress your issues, and you don’t allow them to become the
foundation of your life. A past issue is just one of the many things that
happened to help you grow. You don’t need to know why it happened. You
don’t need to analyze its cause and effect, from a karmic point of view. All
sorts of things happen every day, and you don’t understand why they
happen. Yet you are comfortable handling them. You only insist on
understanding the events that you can’t comfortably handle. Understanding
becomes a crutch, a source of rationalization. If the mind can’t fit an event
into its conceptu al model, it insists on knowing why it happene d. Better to
accept reality first, then work with it in a constructive manner. You are the Self. You are the conscious witness of all that passes  before
you. You dwell deep inside, and nothing in there is more powerful than you. You have free will; use it to accept what has already happened rather than
letting past events mess up the rest of your life. Free yourself  from these
samskaras. Transmute your blocked energy flow into a powerful spiritual
force. Chapter 37. The Power of Intent
You are capable  of letting go at a very deep level if you really want to. It is
not a question of ability; it depends on intensity of intent. Inner work is
different from outer work. In the outside world, there are things you may not
be able to accom plish because of physical limitations. Try as you will, you
cannot pick up a mountain or run at the speed of light. You have physical
limitations. But inside you have no such limitations because there is no
physical aspect to Self. You are pure consciousness, and your will has
complete dominion over mind and emotions. As we have seen, most of your thoughts and emotions are created by
the blockages you have stored inside. These blockages are yours, and you
can let them go anytime you want. Once again, the problem is that since
they were stored with pain, they are going to release with pain. That is
where the depth of commitment comes in. Do you want to be free to live a
deep, beautiful life more than you want to avoid discomfort. Plenty of drug
addicts have gone through the pain of withdrawal to get their lives back. It
comes down to the old adage: where there’ s a will, there’ s a way. You can
let your blockag es go—if you really want to. What would you be willing to
go through for the most fulfilling love relationship, a constant state of well-
being, and the ability to feel the presence of God flowing throug h you at all
times. How would you answer. Would you say, “I’m too busy and I don’t
like any discomfort”. Or would you meet the challenge and say, “Anything. I would be willing to go throu gh anything to permanently live in such a
state”. Fortunately, you have the ability; that is not the problem. But do you
have the strength of intent to take the deep spiritual journey to liberation. Will is like a muscle—you build it by exercising it. Practice saying,
“I’m the boss in here. This is my house. I’m the only one living in here, and
I have the right to make it a nice place to live. ” It’s not about becoming acontrol freak in there—it’ s about learning to surrender. Surrender is not
about suppression, and it’ s not about control. Surrender is about letting go of
weakness and being committed enough to carry out your intent. Surrender is
handling anythi ng that needs to be released inside and letting it pass
through. Remember, it was you who willfully resisted past events, which
caused samskaras to be stored. Why not learn to willfully relax and release
as the blockages cleanse so you can experience the beautiful inner energy
flow as it is meant to be. If you practice letting go of your blockages, not only will you get to
live in an elevated inner state, you will also become a blessing on the Earth. Anyplace you go, anything you do, will carry a blessing for others. If you
stay with this process every day, you will get there. Put time aside to remind
yourself who you are and to recall your commitment to cleaning up inside. Morning and evening practices will help you do this. It doesn’ t have to be
much time; just enough to relax and release, come back to center, and
remember to use every moment  of your life to let go of your blockages. If
you do that, the rest will happe n by itself. It is a natural process that will
take place. Always remember, it is spirit’ s job to liberate you from yourself. Shakti
wants to be free, but you’re in the way. When shakti starts to push the
blockages up, you’re going to have the tendency to push them back down
because it’s not comfortable to live in that fire. You stored past disturbances
in there, and it doesn’ t feel good when they are stirred up. Imagine that
somebody’ s talking to you, and you’re feeling strong and confident about
the conversation. Suddenly, they say something that hits your blockages,
and you start to feel your strength drop out from under you. If you are
sincere, you use the situation for your growth. It’s not the time to argue with
the person; it’s the time to grow spiritually. Calm and centered, you
inwardly ask, “What’ s happenin g inside of me. What blockage  got hit that
caused this shift in energy to take place. ” Then, to use the situation for
growth, you relax and allow the energy to push the blockage up. You don’t
have to do anyth ing except not interfere with the process. Shakti will do her
job of pushing up—you have to do your job of letting go. To reme mber to do this in the moment, establish the practice of
recalling your intention every morning: “The purpose of my day is letting
go of my blockages and evolving spiritually. ” Then every evening,
remember: “The  purpose of my day was to let go of my blockages andevolve spiritually. ” Never complain about what happened—just inwardly
release the events of the day so they don’t leave samskaras. Don’ t let
anything remain stuck in there. Once you get good at this, you will learn to
do it throughout the day. Do your best with each interaction, then let it go. Always rememb er what’ s going on: you’re in there, and something is
happening that’s causing the energy to shift inside. Your tendenc y is to push
it away if you don’t like it or grab onto it if you do. It’s as if you have hands
in there,  and you use them to try to control the inner experience. Surrender
means—don’ t do that. That’ s all it means. It means you’re ready, willing,
and able to sit in the seat of consciousness when the energy shifts and just
let it go. Your interaction with the energy is similar to when you decide to stop
smoking or break any other habit. You’re going to feel the tendency to
resume the habit. It feels like a magnetic pull on you to go in that direction. The same thing happens when a blockage gets hit. It has attractive power
that draws you into it. You need to see that. You need to notice that it keeps
pulling on you, and sometimes  it won’ t leave you alone. That’ s not bad,
that’s good. Just relax more. It’s all about relaxing. If you’re using your will
to relax,  you can’t use your inner hands to push energy away or grab onto it. Someday, you’re going to remember this discussion. Something is
going to wake up inside, and you’ll know just what we’ve been talking
about. You’ll observe the energy pulling on you, and you will try to let go. For the first time you’ll realize what is actually happening—you are
struggling with yourself. You are both sides of the struggle. Part of you
wants to let go but part still wants to give in to the pull of the energy. Once
you sincerely want to let go of the old habitual energy flows, you will
realize that you have all the power you need inside. You’re the only one
living in there. You just need to deeply relax and stop fighting with yourself. At that point something amazing  is going to happen: All the energy that was
pulling you down and out changes direction. It begins to lift you in and up. This is the transmutation of the energy, and it is real. As liberat ion becomes
the meaning of your life, this inner process will step up signifi cantly. Once
you learn that your center of intent is stronger than any of the habitual
energy flows caused by your samskaras, you will sit quietly within, in the
seat of consciousness, and allow the process of purification to take place. Every day, every moment, you have the opportunity to explore the greatness
of your being. Letting go like this is not a struggle or an act of control. It is much
subtler than that. Perhaps this analogy will help. Imagine you’re in a game
of tug-o f-war. You are alone on one end of the rope, and an entire NFL
football team is on the other end. You’re in big trouble. The force pulling
you in the team’ s direction is very strong. You’ve studied all the latest
techniques for how to dig in your heels, how to best use your bodyweight,
and anything else the experts could teach about standing your ground in a
tug-of-war. You’re doing all the techniques, but they’re not working. Suddenly, Yoda, the great sage from Star Wars shows up to help (he
thinks everyone’ s name is Luke). Yoda: Luke, you know not how to do this. Let go. Let go, Luke. Luke: What do you mean, let go. If I let go, they will pull me
through the mud, headfirst. Yoda: Let go, you must. Luke: I don’ t get it. How do I just let go when this great force is
pulling on me. Yoda: Relax hands, Luke. Relax your hands. Luke: No, not hands—feet, legs, and body position. That’ s how to
end this tug-of-war. Yoda: Over it will be, Luke, if you relax your hands. Turns out, it’s true. If you relax your hands during a tug-of-w ar, the
struggle will immediately be over. No more rope. No more pull. No matter
how strong the pull is, if you relax your hands, you can go home and have
lunch. That’ s all you really wanted to begin with. Who said you had to take
the whole football team home with you. Just relax and let go, and the whole
struggle will be over. That’ s exactly what it’s like to surrender. You’re in
there, and the energy is pulling  you into it. Please don’t fight it. Just relax
your inner hands and let go. If this sounds very Zen, good, because it is. Y ou
don’t need to be strong; you need to be wise. The blocked energy can’t take
you anywhere if you simply relax and let go. Over time, you will find there is a place inside you that is behind the
commotion of the storm. You can simply relax and fall back into that place. This is the place  from which you are noticing the inner commotion, and this
place is still, quiet, and there are never any storms. That is the seat of Self. You don’ t find your way back to Self—you simply cease to leave. If you work
on this, you will come to a beautiful state within that is alwa ys there for
you. It is a place of refuge, and all you ever need to do is keep letting go. That is the life of surrender. Chapter 38. Exploring the Higher States
Once you are no longer drowning inside, a whole other life becomes
possible for you. We can now begin to discuss who you are, and what it can
be like in there. As the blockage s release, the energy is freed from having to
go aroun d them. You start to feel happier. You start to feel higher. You start
to feel like you used to feel when you had a really good day or a particularly
great experience. But this time, nothing special is happening. You’re just
feeling an uplift ing energy going on inside of you that keeps getting higher
and higher. You start feeling love simply because the sky is blue. It used to
take a special moment in a relationship to blow you away like that. Everything that is happening comes in, and you feel it all at a richer, deeper
level. This is because you are more open, more receptive. You don’t have
the need s and problems that you were trying to solve. Because you don’t
have all that commotion inside, and you’re feeling more whole and
complete, there’ s nothing you need from the outside. You start to look at
needs in a completely dif ferent light. You used to make satisfying needs your priority. Most of our modern
needs are psychological, not physiological. Psychological needs are actually
unnatural, as they indicate that something is missing or wrong. If you are
feeling whole and complete inside yourself, there are no psychological
needs. Psychological needs come from your blockages. When the energy is
freed, what you feel is love, joy, and enthusiasm, which are just different
words for uplifting energy. In the purest sense, this upward-flowing energy
is quite different from emotions. An emotion emanates out of your heart and
pulls you into its vibration. Enthusiasm is something that wells up inside. It
is a system-wide, spontaneous, uplifting flow of energy. It is, in fact, freed
shakti. When your energies are liberated, you don’t need energy from anybody
else. You have so much energy inside you it’s incomprehensible. Surely you
have experienced from time to time that if something you really like
happens, there can be a sudden  burst of inner energy. How long does that
take. A billionth of a second. Imagine you’re feeling depres sed and not
doing well. Suddenly, something  happens. Perhaps you receive a phone call
that gets you talking and smiling—it makes your energy flow. The energy
was always there, but you opened up because the phone call matched
something you liked. A blockag e temporarily got out of the way, and all this
energy flowed up. Truth is, if that blockage had not been in the way, you
would not have needed the phone call to open you. This is why you do the
inner work of releasing blockages. As the blockages release, the energy takes you to higher and higher
states. You alrea dy know what the higher states are. The higher states are
about love. They are about being really enthusiastic about your job and
anything else you’re doing. The higher energies are beautiful. They’re much
more beautiful than the expression of the lower energies. As you open up,
life is no longer about seeking nonnegative states; it becomes about
allowing ever-increasing, positive states. Growth used to be about not
feeling anger or anxiety anymore. Now it’s about feeling so much
overwhelming love when you wake up that you have trouble getting out of
bed. Then the feeling of enthusia sm to go to work gets so strong that it pulls
you out of bed and propels you through your day. This is what  it feels like
when the ener gy is flowing. Most people don’ t believe life can be like this. They feel they must find
the perfe ct job in order to be enthused to go to work. How are you defining
“the perfect job”. You define it as the one that opens you. In other words,
the one that fits your blockages just right so your energy can flow. Problem
is, if the same job ever hits your blockages the wrong way, you will close. You are still letting your samskaras run your life. It’s not a matter of finding
the right job; it’s a matter of releasing the blockages so you can be enthused
about the job you have. No matter how high you get, you can always get much higher. Don’ t
believe those who say you can’t enjoy happiness unless you also know
sadness. That is not true. That’ s what life is like if you are still blocked. Once you’re unblocked, you will notice the energy is always beautiful. It is
an ever-new rush of uplifting joy that raises your heart, your mind, andeverything insid e you. You’ll be more aware than you used to be and have
the enthusiasm of a child about everything you get to do. You might wonder why you would be motivated to do anything if
you’re already that content. Why bother having a job, or even a relationship,
if you’re  alread y filled with so much love and happiness. The answer is
simple: love wants to express itself and enthusiasm wants to create. Once
the energy is no longer blocked and is flowing freely, personal needs are no
longer your motivation. Your actions are the expression of love and
gratitude for life. Y our whole life becomes an act of service. Even your relationships become  acts of service to other human beings. You don’t need anything from a relationship, but love loves to express itself. If you have tremendous love going on inside you, people will be attracted to
you. You don’t have to worry about attracting somebody or keeping them
interested in you. People are attracted to light. It’s very natura l. If there is
someone special, you shower them with love day and night, expecting
nothing in return. Love is a very unique gift—it is just as beaut iful for both
the giver and the receiver. Life is so simple once you are okay inside. Y ou don’ t do things because
of the fruits they bear; each moment is whole and complete within itself. You reach the point where there is nothing more sacred than the spirit
flowing inside you. There can be moments of disturbance, but you don’t
have to do anything about them. They come and they go, and they don’t
affect your energy flow, unless you let them. You will come to realize that
this energy inside you knows what it’s doing. It is not only beautiful, it is
intelligent. If you let it, it will fix everything. The uprising energy will do all
the inner work for you. Y our only job is to not interfere—to surrender. Let’s go even deeper to explore what happens next. The ener gy flowing
inside you is so beautiful that your consciousness is naturally attracted to it. What you are experiencing is everything you ever hoped to feel from the
outside but could only taste for a moment. You fall completely in love with
the spiritual energy flow. Once you’re being fed by the inner flow, your
outer life will be fine. Before you cleared the blockages, you needed the
world to be a certain way for you to be okay. This created a struggle with
life on a daily basis. When you let go enough to clear the inner energy flow,
the struggling ceases. You realiz e through direct experience that everything
you ever wanted  is flowing inside you, and the battle will pretty much be
over. Attraction to the unconditional flow of inner ener gy is a wonderful love
affair. In fact, the Bible says, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:5). Now,
you do. That is the ultimate commandment in the Old Testament, and Jesus
repeated it many times. You no longer have to worry about how to “love
God” because what’s flowing inside of you is spirit, and you naturally love
it with all your heart. You like being high, and spirit is the ultimate high. It’s
higher than any drug could ever take you. It’s higher than any relationship
you could ever have. The love and joy it brings will never stop unless you
stop it. That river will flow every moment of your life unless you dam it up. But now you know better. Once the energy starts spontaneously flowing,
you won’t touch it. You just respect it, honor it, and appreciate it. You
inwardly say, “Thank you,” and keep letting go. That becomes your only
prayer— thank you, thank you so much. Now that this energy is flowing  inside you, it will clean up the rest of
your blockages. This will not happen immediately; you must be willing to
let them go naturally. The shakti will push the samskaras out if you let her. Your entire life becomes spiritual—about spirit. You rest into the beautiful
flow of the energy, and it gives you the strength to let go of what needs to be
cleansed. In time, you learn to enjoy every moment of this journey. It is
freeing you, taking you to God. When you are settling into the upward flow of energy, that is a state of
true contentmen t. Contentment doesn’ t mean you’re lazy. It means you are
not being disturbed inside. What is going on inside you is so beautiful that,
for the first time in your life, you feel completely at peace. You’re not
looking for anything. If you look out into the world, you see what’ s there—
not what you want or don’t want to be there. The experience of the outside
doesn’ t stimulat e any preferences inside of you. It just comes in, passes
through, and leaves you as it found you—in a state of ecstatic well-being. Chapter 39. In the World but Not of It
Once you have reached a deep level of inner clarity, you will notice that just
because you are content with reality doesn’ t mean you don’t interact with it. The world continues to appear  before you, but there’ s nothi ng personal
about it anymore. It is just the part of creation passing before you at that
moment. Reality  doesn’ t bother you because you don’t need anything from
it. It simply exists and you simply exist—in perfect harmony. Every moment
unfolding in front of you is there for you to serve. It can be as simple as
appreciating it, or you may be able to raise the energy of the moment
passing before you. A smile, a kind word, a helping hand—these are all
ways of raising the energy as it passes by. Doing your job to the best of your
ability, taking care of your family, serving your community—these simple
acts are just as much service to the universe as anything else. Imagine you’re taking a walk and there’ s a piece of paper on the side of
the road. You feel the disharmony, and you pick it up. It’s not a “have to” or
a “supposed to”; you’re simply an artist making the world more beautiful. Your mind doesn’ t say, “I’ll pick this one up, but I’m not going to pick up
every single piece of litter. ” Nor does your mind say, “What idiot threw this
piece of paper down here. This is the kind of person who ruins the world. ”
No. You are simply a spontaneous being who is in harmony with life. You
expect nothing back from your actions because they were not done for
approval or recognition. You can’t help but share the beautiful energy going
on insid e of you with the mome nt in front of you. The highest life you can
live is when every single moment that passes befor e you is better  off because
it did. Serve the present moment with all your heart and soul. Imagine what
the world would be like if everyone did that. Start by raising what appears before you. If you can’t even serve what
is put in front of you, how are you going to change the world. If you aregetting so upset about conditions in the world that you’re  edgy with
everyone around you, you’re not helping anyone. If you can’t create
harmony in your own household, what right do you have to complain that
countries are shooting missiles at each other. You have to live a life that, if
everyone lived it, there would be peace. If you can’t do that, you are part of
the problem, not the solution. It’s all about letting go of yourself. The world
is going to come in, and it’s going to hit what’ s left of your samskaras. What
you feel going on inside when that happens is reactive energy. Don’ t ever
act based on that. You will just be polluting the environment with your inner
blockages. No good can come from that. A spiritual life is not about adhering to a given set of rules—it’ s about
never acting based on your personal energy. You won’ t be able to do that to
start with, so work on it. When the energy gets disturbed, just let it go. Your
initial reaction will generally be your personal stuff coming up. If you let it
go, you’ll be able to interact with the moment in front of you in a more
constructive manner. Simply ask yourself, “Is there something I can be
doing to serve the moment in front of me. Not for me; I already let go of
me. Now  that I’m clear and nonreactive, is there something I can do to raise
the moment as it passes by. ”
Once you learn to let go of the reactionary noise of personal thoughts
and emotions, things will become clear. You will know how to work with
the situation in front of you. If you’re conscious, present, and paying
attention, you will know what to do. The moment in front of you is talking
to you. It doesn’ t have to be in words. The piece of paper on the ground, the
person who needs some help, whatever it is, your respon se becomes
obvious. The deepest truth is that it doesn’ t even matter what you do. What
matters is where you’re coming  from. What matters is your motive. If your
motive is to let go of yourself and serve the moment in front of you, you are
worthy of great respect. How would you like to meet some body whose
entire motive and purpose in life is to first let go of their personal blockages
and then do their best to serve what’s in front of them. They can’t do wrong
because their motive is pure. If the motive itself is pure and impersonal, in
the end, it will spread light. Be sure your motive is pure, then don’t look back. If somebody
criticizes your actions, just apolo gize and let go. Always be willing to learn. If you come from the highest place you can, there’ s no guilt, no shame. The
fruits of the best you can do are a very holy thing. If someth ing terriblecomes back from the best you can do, own it. It’s yours. Let it teach you. Let it make you better, so you’ll do better next time. Please, don’t feel bad
about it. Don’ t judge anything. It’s only when you didn’ t do your best—you
got personally disturbed and gave in to it—that’ s when you build karma and
things become really complicated. Practice letting go, and eventua lly you will find yourself in a seat of
awareness that can’t be disturbe d by anything you are experien cing. There
will always be a beautiful energy feeding you and raising you. At that point,
there are no more techniques; there are no more teachings. It all happens
naturally from then on. Intuitive ly, it dawns on you that this beau tiful energy
flow must be coming from somewhere. Yogananda wrote in Whispers from
Eternity (1949, 156), “O, what has become of me. Intoxication on
intoxication. Endless, indescribable throngs of divine intoxications
ceaselessly come to me. ” Where is this energy coming from. You feel it as
a flow, just as if rushes of water were flowing upward within you. This is
not theoretical, it’s real. There is a constant experience of shakti, of spirit
flowing up inside you. It must be coming from somewhere. It has to have a
source. You are now ready for the next stage of your journey home—you
begin to seek the source. You will very quickly realize the mind cannot help you on this journey. Any focus on thoughts draws consciousness away from Self and diminishes
the energy flow. This is not an analytical or philosophical journe y. Only one
thing can seek the source of the energy flow: that which is exper iencing it—
your consciousness. To seek the source of a freshwater spring, you swim
toward the flow. You feel the current and go into it. It is the same when you
are seeking the source of the shakti flow. Your consciousness feels the flow
and melts into it. This becom es your entire spiritual practice. This is
surrender, real surrender. Heretofore, you’ve practiced surrender by letting go of your lower self. Now that you’ve learned to feel this higher energy flow inside, you
surrender to it. Until this final surrender, there is still a subject-object
experience: consciousness (subject) is experiencing the shakti flow (object). If you want to truly know the flow, you must fall into it, become one with it. To get closer to becoming one with flow, you must surrender your
entire sense of separation. It’s not enough to experience the energy, you
must release yourself into it. As you let go, the flow will pull you in. That’ s
where the great  masters went. In Sanskrit, the word yoga means “union. ”Meher Baba said that when he first went into the highest state of
enlightenment, it was like a drop of water fell into the ocean. T ry to find that
drop. You can’t—it merged with the ocean. Christ said, “I and my Father are
one” (John 10:30). These teachings are the same. When you cease to
separate your sense of self from  this flow of the energy, it starts  to pull you
into it, and you become one with it. Yogananda called it a river of joy
flowing inside you. Your path is to find it, go there, get in, and drown. Now
we’re discussing the highest state, and everyone is capable of achieving this
state. Remember how we got here. We got here by letting go of the
blockages to this flow. The higher states are totally natural, but you
shouldn’ t be seeking them. Don’t be blocked and then try to experience
what it’s like to not be blocked. Get unblocked and the deeper  meditations
will come completely naturally. You’ll be minding your own business
watching TV, and you’ll fall into states that you couldn’ t reach after hours of
meditation. You will become a being of shakti, and she will take you into
ecstasy over and over again. There is nothing  more beautiful than the shakti flow. She is so fulfilling
that you would never block her again. If something happens and you feel
you want to defend yourself, don’t touch it. First let go of the part of you
that wants to close down, then deal with the outside. Use everything to let
go of what stands between you and the God-realized state. Start with the low-hanging fruit throughout the day and then progress
to letting go of your past. That’s a perfect way to begin meaningful
transformation. Once you learn how to let go of self-generated disturbances,
inevitably something bigger will happen. Because of the work you have
done on yourself, it will be totally natural for you to let go during more
challenging times. Don’ t wait until a terrible bomb goes off in your life to
wonder what to do dif ferently. You need to do the work of releasing yourself
in your everyda y life. You will then be able to handle anything life brings
your way. Like most things in life, these deeper spiritual states take time. Just do
the inner work, and the energy will start flowing. Once the floodgates open
within you, you’ll have all the help you need for the ascent. You are not
walking this path alone—all who walked before you are liftin g you. Just
keep letting go. No matter what happens, keep letting go. These states are
not going to happen all at once and then stay there. You’ll get rushes fromtime to time because something  opens up. It’s okay if it closes back down;
don’t worry. You still have work to do. Be diligent, but give it time. Eventually, the upward flow will never leave you. You will become a
knower of your soul, a knower  of spirit. When you can relax and release
into the deeper states, you will finally awaken to full self-realization. That’ s
what true enlightenment is. Enlightenment is not a spiritual experience—it
is a permanent spiritual state. No matter how deep you have gone, please do not say you’re
enlightened. Let that word be reserved for the great masters. Just be content. Don’ t build a spiritual ego. Spirituality is not about hanging out a shingle
that says, “I’m a spiritual perso n. ” It is about letting go of that too. It is
about perpetually letting go of yourself completely. If you never stop doing
this, the energy will take over. Where you used to see your personal self
expressing, you will now see nothing but the flow of shakti. Surrender to the
flow. Give your life to it. Merge into it, and it will take you the rest of the
way. That is the final surrender. It has been such an honor to share these teachings with you. Please,
don’t let this be just another book you read and then go back to your normal
way of life. Do this work. This work is not about renunciation of life—it’ s
about truly experiencing life at the deepest level. If you let go of yourself on
a daily basis, under all circumstances, you will find what is greater than
yourself. That’ s just the way it works: Where you’re not, God is. Where
God is, you’re not. Now do you understand why Christ said the Kingdom is within you. It
is the very essence of your being. Your heights are incompreh ensible, and
you are perfectly capable of doing this work. Your inner states will just keep
getting higher and higher as you keep letting go. The fact that you are even
interested in these teachings means you’ve changed the world. You who do
the work of liberating yourself are to be deeply respected. With great love and respect,
Michael A. SingerAcknowledgments
Life is a great teacher. If you are open, every single situation has something
to teach you about yourself and the moment unfolding in front of you. I
begin by acknowledging how much this flow of life has taught me and has
led to the writing of Living Untether ed. I also acknowledge all those wise
beings who have walked this path before me and managed to guide me on
my exploration within. It is with deep humility and appreciation that I recognize the
tremendous work that my friend and product manager, Karen Entner, did on
this book. Her tireless and selfless service has instilled this work with a
sense of commitment and perfection rarely found in this world. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my publishers, New
Harbinger Publications and Soun ds True, for their heartfelt work in bringing
Living Untether ed to fruition. They worked together seamlessly to meld
their great talents into one unifie d force behind the development, marketing,
and distribution of this very special book. There were many early readers, all of whom deserve thanks. I would
like to single out James O’Dea, Bob Merrill, and Stephanie Davis, who
contributed detailed suggestions during the early writing of the book. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge you, the reader, for being
interested in deepening your relationship with yourself and the world around
you. Your willingness to take a second look at what is really going on,
outside and in, has the power to change the world. Section summary: 

This passage discusses various aspects related to mental health, emotional regulation, mindfulness, intentional action towards oneself's improvement, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude. For accurate summarizing purposes:
1. In Chapter [insert chapter number], Michael A. Singer emphasizes. (Insert relevant points)
2. , etc.
To learn to be present and work on oneself, not to achieve a specific state or experience.
According to the author, what is the purpose of spiritual techniques?
Let go of your personal reaction and focus on the situation at hand, rather than getting caught up in your emotions.
What is the author's advice for dealing with difficult situations, such as a child getting in trouble?
Enlightenment is not a spiritual experience, but a permanent spiritual state that comes from letting go of blockages and embracing the higher states.
What is the author's view on the concept of "enlightenment"?
The mind is the object of consciousness, and one must learn not to listen to it; instead, focus on something else, such as the breath, to gain control over one's attention.
What is the author's perspective on the role of the mind in meditation?
It is essential to work on oneself and release blockages to experience true freedom and fulfillment, as this will allow one to live a life of service and love.
What is the author's message about the importance of inner work and self-reflection?