CHECK OUT: The Untethered Soul

Dear Friends,

If I had come across the book The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer in my teenage years my life would have been a lot less rocky. The whole point of the book directs you to come into harmony with the moments unfolding in front of you, so I have to accept my teenage years and all the years hence as they occurred with out grading them as either easy or difficult.

The core message is that we are all just people sitting on a planet spinning around and that the world just unfolds how it does and it has nothing to do with any of us. We only think it does.

All our difficulties stem from our tendency to either like something or dislike something. We spend all our life trying to control the outside world to fit into the scaffolding of the few things we want to keep close and the few things we want to keep distant in order to not feel that which we have already experienced. Our mind talks incessantly; one minute tormenting us with advice to not eat the cake, then telling us only a small bit wont matter followed by a scolding saying I cant believe you ate the cake, you never stick to anything!

This same ‘mind’ advises us on all our major life decisions; love, relationship, job, finance and we listen to it as though it is some kind of all knowing guru. If our mind was to materialize into a body form and sit with us for a day we would think it needed to be locked up. It babbles constantly, contradicts itself always and changes on a whim. My mind is not me. I am the one watching my mind. I am the consciousness aware of my mind and my body. When I looked in the mirror when I was 10 it is the same ME that looks in the mirror today and sees a different body. I/ME didn’t change as my body aged; I/ME was just aware of the body as it did change. When this body dies the ME does not cease to exist.

The feelings and emotions inside me and my mind are not ME either; I am the one observing them. Life happens, its not personal but I am afraid the let it pass through me, so I hold onto the things I like and push away the things I don’t like and this becomes my psyche, which is extremely sensitive. In an attempt to keep some balance in my life, it is triggered very easily. It has a tendency to close in order to protect itself and without ME being open to see every sensitive part of my ego I cannot grow and cannot evolve in this life.

When I accept that life is going to happen, things will hurt, things will be joyful and that I don’t /cant control any of it, then I don’t need to spend my whole life trying to protect myself from life. I live it instead. I put my whole being into what ever is happening in front of me instead of putting my whole being into defending my personal sensitivities. The minute I notice myself getting sucked into defending my sensitivity, I stop. I relax and notice what I am doing. Then I release. I don’t get sucked into it. Life is like when a stone gets thrown into a pond; it sends out ripples. These ripples hit my sensitivity. I can’t stop being hit by the ripples by jumping into the pond and trying to grab them and throw them out; that will create more ripples. I must see the stone, accept that it has been thrown in and wait until the ripples pass, because they will pass if I let them. My life is to work with the tendency to get sucked in and work with my commitment to accepting what is. My work is to let go.

Our consciousness tends to go where there is disturbed energy but we do not need to follow it. We can see it be triggered and then fall behind it rather than follow or get sucked in by it. We spend most of our day letting things pass by our consciousness; white lines on the road, trees and clouds. None of them disturb us. We get disturbed by the things we allow. It is the difference between consciousness and the object of consciousness.

The consciousness stays constant and centred and only watches the object pass by.

My consciousness has tremendous power and force and when I direct it to the object, it too becomes powerful. This is why thoughts and emotions get stronger the more attention you give them. If I have a thought and give it attention, it can grow. It can then become a very powerful force that draws even more attention from me. It can then potentially become the central focus of my whole life. And it just started out as a thought; a thought from my mind; the mind which babbles and flits and changes depending on what I happen to be looking at.

It sounds simple to do but it isn’t. When I feel even the smallest change in energy inside of me moving to a defensive mode, I must see it, and then remember the decision that I am not going to follow my thoughts. I have nothing to gain by following it and everything to gain by falling behind it and letting it go, like the ripple.

The whole book is a directive on how to be free, how to live our very short lives free. The planet is 13.8 billion years old, and we are here for an average of 75/80 years and we spend it being bothered by everything on it instead of experiencing it.

Embracing life, all of it as it happens, is the key to our evolution and happiness.

The decision is ours to make; the kingdom is within.