Mastering Mindfulness: How to Stop Letting Your Mind Control Your Life

Mindfulness is about this. It is about finally waking up one day and saying, I'm the boss. I've been here. I have a mind. I can do better with it than letting it be a horror show, than letting it scare me all the time, than letting it remind me of everything that ever bothered me, than letting it worry about what will happen 10 years from now or 20 years from now. That's not fun, is it? Let's say you're going to give a talk. All right? A lot of people, the mind gives a little trouble before that, doesn't it? Oh my God, what if I forget my lines? What if I can't say, oh, I feel so stupid, I don't want to do this? Does anybody's mind ever do that to them? Doesn't that help you perform better? No, it doesn't. So I could just sit here for the whole hour and a half and remind you of how ridiculous it is what goes on inside your head. And some people sit there and say, but it's beneficial to go over this stuff. Yes, if something happens to you and you make a mistake, sit down, look at it, pay attention, learn from it. Then, for God's sakes, not for the next 20 years, right? Why did I do that? If I hadn't done that, this would have happened. You can't tell me there's a benefit. There is no benefit. It's just that you haven't learned how to work with this thing called mind.

Need motivation? Watch the top 10 Believe Nation. Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I make these videos because in my first business, I struggled to stay afloat. I quit on my business partner, and the thing that kept me motivated, that kept me going, was studying the stories of famous, successful entrepreneurs And in their stories, it gave me the hope, the drive, the ambition, the thinking that maybe I can do it too, that extra bit of belief. And I still need their stories today, and I'm honored to share them with you here as well. So today, let's learn from one of the best, Michael A. Singer, and my take on his top 10 rules of success.

Enjoy.

Rule number 2 is let go of yourself.

Let go of yourself. Let go of yourself. This thing you call yourself, your preferences, your desires, your needs, your bucket list, and so on, is just a projection of the stuff you stored inside. Well, what do you mean? If you didn't have it, you'd be filled with love and filled with light. You wouldn't be asking any questions. You'd love having a child. You'd love bringing it up. You'd enjoy every moment of it. If you homeschool, you don't homeschool, it doesn't make any difference. Everything, because you're fine. And that's the environment they grow up in. How would you like to grow up in an environment where it's just pure love and openness and understanding Understanding. If they have a problem, they bring it to you. You don't say, oh my God, what did I do? What's it? You just, you have clarity. You can share with them and help them come to the solution themselves, right? Yeah. So it's a healthy thing because you're healthy. So a parent shouldn't sit there and say it's so hard to bring up a child. It's hard because you didn't bring yourself up. You didn't let go of your own stuff, right? Yeah. So it's, it's, there's so many things to learn. Yeah. It's all about you evolving as a being, as a being of light, as a being of energy, and keep bringing yourself up and letting go, then you spread that light everywhere. That takes care of business. Somebody wanted me to, because I did business, can you give a spiritual talk on business? Right? I generally will say no. I don't want to focus like that. Right? But the truth is I would give the exact same talk. Right? How do you run a successful business? Let go of yourself. Then you're not making decisions based on your garbage and your fears in the past. Best experiences and all that kind of junk, you're bringing good energy into it and it will attract good energy and people around you will work with good energy and they'll enjoy working with you. Yeah. My company, we're technical, high-tech, very few people ever left. They loved working there. Yeah. Right? And I didn't pay them the top salaries either because we're out here in the middle of the woods, right? And basically you just create an environment for business, an environment for children, environment for love, an environment for everything you do that brings beauty and love and clarity and selflessness selflessness, true selflessness, into your environment, it will change everything.

Rule number 3 is reach a state of happiness.

What is love? Shakti, the energy rising up to the fourth chakra and pouring out the fourth chakra. That's what you call love. And tuning with somebody who you like, if, if they talk the way you want, dress the way you want, act the way you want, etc., etc., you open, and then the energy can come up and you feel this experience of love. But what if you're not closed? What if you never close? That is all love. You know what it should take for you to feel love anytime you want? Just wave your hand in front of your heart and bliss pours through your heart all the time, anytime you want. That is what it means to reach a state of happiness, a state of pure unconditional happiness. It's inside of you. It's available to you.

Rule number 4 is accept challenges.

The challenges of life are amazing. What's wrong with challenges? We play sports, we like challenges. Nobody wants to play a team that you beat 700 to 1 every time you play them. You want to be challenged. You want to have to bring out the best of your being. If you can get clean inside where you're not being run by all these past impressions, we call them some scars in yoga, all these past impressions which are telling you, and they are telling you constantly, you can only be happy if this happens and you can never be happy if it doesn't and you will never be happy if such and such happens, and then you go out into the world chasing this, as opposed to working inside on yourself to say, 'I don't need those conditions. Life is amazing. I'm sitting on a planet spinning in the middle of nowhere and there's all these events happening. Don't worry, they won't last. You're not going to stay here. But while you're here, do you want to run around and fight with life and people and places and things and even the weather to try to make it be what you think you want? Or do you want to work on yourself to clean up this mess inside, so you can be open all the time. That's what spirituality is about. It's not about renunciation. Renunciation is too late. You've already decided that you want something, you need it to be happy, but you're not going to do it. Depth spirituality is understanding you don't need anything. You don't need anything. Doesn't mean you don't do anything, but you don't need anything. You're whole and complete within yourself. If you open, there is tremendous joy, love, inspiration, that wells up inside of you the moment you open. The moment something happens that you like, watch how fast you feel joy. And if something happens you don't like, watch how fast you close. That is not teaching you about the outside, that's teaching about the inside, that openness is where it's at, closeness is not. Openness is what you really want because what does opening mean? It's like opening the blinds. If you close the blinds in your house, your house is dark. It's like that chapter in The Untethered Soul, Take Down the Walls. If you close the blinds in your house, your house is dark. Now you have to run around with artificial light trying to figure out how to get some light. If you open the blinds, you don't have to do anything, the light is coming in. But you won't open the blinds until you're sure nobody's out there and only the right people are in your house and everything's exactly what you want. You're afraid to open the blinds, you don't feel comfortable. So you either decide to spend your life trying to build artificial light inside, or you decide to work on yourself so you want to leave the blinds open. Yoga, true spirituality, is about taking off the blinds, take them off the windowsill, throw them out, and never ever close them ever again. What is the purpose of closing? It makes you sad. It makes you dark. What is depression? Total darkness, total closeness. You have closed off to the flow of the energy. There is no reason for that. There is no excuse for that. This is your world inside. It's your mind. It's your heart. It is your responsibility to not close it. How dare you think you're going to meet somebody who will overcome your tendency to close? What a job! Don't give me that job. You've been in there your whole life building all these impressions that bother you, scare you, and turn you on, and then you say to me as a relationship, that it's my responsibility to keep your mind open and your heart open when you're in there closing it all the time? I hope that seems silly and counterproductive. It is your responsibility to keep your mind open. It is your responsibility to keep your heart open. And once you learn to do that, they're your mind and your heart. Once you learn to do that, you will feel joy all the time. And I mean all the time, from the moment you wake up in the morning, you'll be inspired. You'll love to go to work. Even if you went to the same job for 30 years, you don't ever get bored. Why? Because there's energy flowing up inside of you. You will get the most out of your relationships. You will be able to give the most to all moments that are unfolding in front of you. Why? Because now you're a giver instead of a taker. When we come into interaction with the moments in front of us, we're looking to see what we can get. We're looking to see how we want them to be. We're speaking to change things. We're dressing certain ways. We're doing all kinds of things to manipulate the moment so that they will be the way we want. And when they come inside they'll turn us on. A being who has learned to be open all the time never does that. They don't need to do that because they're already feeling what they want to feel. They're feeling joy, they're feeling love, they're feeling inspiration. So now when the moment unfolds in front of them, they can give to it. They can take this joy and love that they have and they can shine it upon the moment, people, places, and things that are unfolding. So this is spirituality.

Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight all the lessons learned in this video, as well as pull out our 3 favorite learnings and quotes that will inspire you to actually do something. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video, absolutely for free, There's a link in the description below. Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business. I'll see you there. Rule number 5 is overcome negative thoughts.

There's always a voice in my mind, oh, I'm crazy. Like I'm doing something that's wrong. I'm going to be a gigantic failure. Like, you know, people will look at you and laugh at you and all that. But I think those voices are, I mean, you talked about actually in all 3 books about the preferences and things you like, the how your, our mind works. I think it's pretty common. Yeah. Have you had those voices and how do you deal with those voices? Well, and I explained at the beginning of the Surrender Experiment, that's how I started my spiritual journey, is I was sitting on a couch with a friend of mine back in, who knows, '69, '70 maybe. And there was a lull in the conversation. And somehow that's not comfortable, even with friends. You know, that you were talking and then there's nothing to say and you try to think of things to say to keep the conversation going, feeling comfortable. It's really about control. You have a certain amount of control that you know this person is interacting with you, they're okay. You know what I'm talking about. All right. And so I noticed that that was going on inside my head, that he was anxious even with a friend. All right. That there was this sense of discomfort. In the silence. And Mickey, Michael, was trying to think what to say. To this day, it was 52 years ago, I remember the whole exact moment where it is. And he's sitting there saying, "It's kind of hot out, isn't it?" Or, "Would you like to get something to eat? Maybe we can get a pizza." Jesse kept saying these things. And inside, I noticed that that's going on in my mind. They all seem very stupid to say. And I didn't say them. For the first time in my life, I didn't go along with that neurosis, with what the mind was saying. And then I realized, who am I that is noticing the mind saying that? And as simple and silly as that seems, that guided the rest of my life, period. That moment woke me up to realize, wait a minute, it's always talking, right? As I was trying to figure out whether to eat or something, it's always saying something. It's busy judging and thinking and liking and not liking and figuring out what to do. But now I'm not it. I'm watching it do that. Yeah. Right? Awakening to witness consciousness. But I had no background. I'd never met anybody. I didn't meditate. You didn't go to yoga, guru. There was nothing. Yeah. Nothing. Yeah. It just happened. Okay? And I'm watching it. And I started to feel, I don't want to be that. I don't want to be like that. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so I remember the first thing I said instead of, do you want to do this? Should we do this? So I'm watching this voice inside my head telling me what to say. but I'm feeling distant from it for the first time in my life. And so instead of saying, when I finally talked, I didn't say, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Isn't it hot? You know, do you remember what Nixon did the other day or something? I sat there and said, I have this voice inside of my head talking. Do you have one? And that's what I said to him. And he was a famous lawyer. He was my brother-in-law at the time and he was a big lawyer in Chicago and had never thought about these kind of things. And basically he looked at me and he looked at me strange with this kind of look. And then all of a sudden, bam, this light went on in his eyes. It was so beautiful. A light went on. He said, yeah, I know just what you're talking about. Mine never shuts up. And there it was. That was— and the rest of all my years, I mean, it stops so I don't have to work with it as much, but everything was about that voice. Yeah. Right. So you're talking about how yours was telling you you can't do this. My whole thing from that moment forward was Wait a minute, I don't need this junk going inside my head. It's so distracting. It's so negative. It tends to be negative, right? And so on. So, by the time I was building the house, I had started to work with that voice. And I started working with it by telling it to shut up. That's what I do. Shut up. Shut up. I don't want to talk to you. Right? Then you realize that's the voice telling the voice to shut up. It took quite a while for me to wake up to realize how to work with that. But at that time, I was not listening to it. If it said, "You can't build that house," I said, "Shut up." Which is not the right way. Do not do that. That is not the right way to deal with that voice in your head. All right? But so it wasn't a problem because I wasn't listening to it. Yeah. So I was just letting this unfold as it was happening. Yeah. And putting my whole heart and soul into this is what I need to do to get to where I want to go. Right. So I'm going to do it. Yeah, there was no complaining, no this, no that. Yeah. So there's the answer.

Rule number 6 is perfect your relationship with others.

One opportunity that always presents itself constantly in a workplace is perfecting your interaction with other people. It's a relationship, just like your personal relationships that you have at home. You have relationships with every single person you're interacting with, and we need to learn learn to perfect those. And by perfecting those, we perfect ourselves. Why? What happens naturally, as we've discussed earlier, is we've had experience in our lives. Those experiences have carved you. They've carved your sense of good and bad and, and what you like and what you don't like, what you're afraid of and what you desire, etc. These are not things you decided. They are things that your environment and your experience experiences, left these impressions. These impressions got left on top of you. So now what happens is when you look out into the world, what you see is yourself. You know that, you've all heard that before. So you look outside because you're looking through the glasses of your own personal experiences. Everything looks that way. Well, that's not a good foundation for working with other people. And what you're going to find out is that you become very critical of other people. So if you're a boss, when you look at other people, you think that your employees, they should be doing things the way you thought, the way you do them. So what it comes down to is, how do I use my interaction with the people in my workforce, in my workplace, to perfect myself so that I learn how to get along with people that are different than me? The beauty of when you go home, there's a handful of people, you know, 1, 2, 3, your family. When you go to the workplace, there's lots of people. And so you get this tremendous opportunity to learn how to work with diversity. People are diverse. So how do I go about working with people? First, you start by neutralizing yourself. You realize that your view of how it should be done, what everything is, is just your view. So you try to listen to what other people are trying to say through their actions about how they would go about doing it. Now, I could give you a nice talk about how everybody everybody has contribution, everybody has something to give, and just give them an opportunity. Let's say you're past that, and what you see is that things are not being done in a way that is constructive, or ultimately constructive, or ultimately efficient. You're the boss, you're somebody in a position, that's your responsibility to get things running as good as possible, as even, as smooth and effective as possible, efficient as possible. So how do I deal now with a person who's going about their business and it's it's not coming out that way. I look at it as an opportunity to perfect the universe. It is not something against the other person. I'm not criticizing the other person. Even within myself, they're not doing anything wrong. The universe created them. They are the result of everything that caused them to be the way they are. Everything's that way. And I've now been put in a position where I can help to raise the universe, to help it run more smoothly, help it run better. So you start off with a constructive view that if something is not perfect in front of you, that's a good thing. That's an opportunity for you. It doesn't get you upset, doesn't make you frustrated, doesn't make you angry. Therefore, when you approach the other person, you're not putting them on a defensive point of view. If you cause defensiveness in another person, you've not done your job, because nobody does good based on defensive or fear. That is is not a foundation for good work. So basically you approach it from the point of view of that person is me and I have these blockages, I have this inability to see something, how do I work with myself, how do I change this? And a lot of times you'll end up working with the person not even about the thing that you want to talk about. You start working at another level with the person and help them work through what issues they have that are causing them to be the way they are. And it becomes a friendship. It becomes a beautiful experience. You find that your entire interaction with every single person in your life is giving. You are serving. That's all you're doing. It is your job to help it be the best that it can be. They're not serving you. I'm CEO of a company with all these people. They're not serving me. I'm here to serve them. I'm here to help them be better.

Rule number 7 is get in harmony with life.

Once you get comfortable being with reality— this is very deep. This is what Lao Tzu I tried to talk about in the Tao. Now that you are willing to let go of yourself, your personal self, and interact with reality— your awareness is now experiencing reality— you will find that there's not one single moment that unfolds in front of you that is not calling to you to interact with it. It is there, you are there, because you are meant to be with each other. That's how perfect it is. It's like the most perfect relationship. People looking for their soulmates, it's right in front of It's called life. It is the most perfect fit for your being. That's why you're there and it's there, and you will feel it and you will know what to do. I'm telling you, you will never ever have trouble making a decision again for the rest of your life. You will never wonder. You will never have any angst or anything. It'll just be the universe. It's sort of like, listen to me, you're on the ocean on a surfboard. How do you know when to go up and when to go down? You don't. The wave does it for you. You just ride the wave. The wave comes up, you go up. The wave goes down, you go down. But what if I want to go down when it goes up, you fall. What if I want to go up when it goes down? You fall. It's like you just interjected yourself into a system that you're supposed to be in harmony with. And if you are in harmony with it, you will know exactly what to do, because it's telling you what to do. It's not telling you with words, but it is telling you what to do, isn't it? It's telling you what to do. It said go to the right, go to the left. Feel it. Be in harmony with it. That's how you ride a wave. That is the Tao. That is what Lao Tzu was talking about— how you ride life. If you're not busy in there wanting it to be other than it is, then you are in harmony with what it is. The The moments know where they're going. They're part of a harmony that's moving through time and space. You are here to experience that and participate in that. You don't have to do anything. It is happening to you. You're happening with it. And then you're going to see that what happens— you start just being with it, and everyone looks at you and says, oh, you're so good at everything you do. You're not doing anything. You're not doing a single thing. But you're neither doing nor not doing. That's the deepest of all the teachings. You are there with it It's doing something. The ocean is doing something. So obviously, if you're on the ocean and the ocean's doing something, it looks like you're doing something. You understand what I just told you is the entire Bhagavad Gita. It's the deepest teaching you will ever even come close to. Everyone will think you're doing things. You're not doing a single thing, but you're also not not doing either, right? You are just being on the ocean and being with it, and the ocean knows where it's going. Therefore, you will be the one who's in harmony with everything. It's so simple that we miss it. If you want to play baseball and You want to pick up a grounder. I do not think that what you should be doing is guessing where it's going to go next. You should be watching it. Why? Because it knows where it's going next. You see, that seems so weird. You're the smart one. You should be the one who can figure it out. I guarantee you right now that ball knows more about where it's going than you do. The ground and the ball and the interacting with them knows way more about what's going to happen next than anything you're going to figure out. That's why they say keep your eye on the ball. They don't say keep your eye on your mind. They don't say that. They say keep your eye on the ball in every sport. Why? Because the ball knows where it's going. It just— it's the forces of nature, therefore it knows where it's going. It is perfectly in harmony with all the forces that it's interacting with, isn't it? So if you keep your eye on the ball, you have a better chance of being where it's going because you're paying attention to where it's going. You're not guessing, you're not figuring, you're not using logic. You're not worrying, you're not angsting, you're not hoping, you're not praying. Even a good religious coach— if you say, 'Coach, when the ball is hit, should I close my eyes and pray that I get it, or should I watch the ball?' They're gonna tell you to forget the praying stuff at that time. Pray that you can keep your eye on the ball. All right, you are supposed to keep your eye on the ball. And it's the same thing with life. I'm telling you, it's exactly the same. You Come into harmony with the moments that are unfolding in front of you. Well, why would I do that? I'm not even going to answer you if you sat here this long, because they are the moments that are sitting in front of you. What if I don't like them? It has nothing to do with like and dislike, does it? It has to do with dancing with it. What if I don't like what the waves are doing? Then don't surf, because you're going to fall. And it's the same way with life.

Rule number 8 is practice gratitude.

I'm here for a little while on the planet Earth, just a very little time, a few years. And I get to see— I don't get to see much. It's really embarrassing. I only get to see the little tiny bit that's in front of me at a given moment. I miss everything else. You understand that? Those of you think you know something, you don't know anything. Here's a book. It's just the most brilliant book. Read one word. Give me the book back. Do you know the book? Here's a moment in life. There are 700 billion, quillion going on at the same time. You saw one, you know what's going on? No, you don't know what's going on. You know the slightest idea what's going on. You only know what you picked up. I told you, statistically, what you picked up is statistically insignificant. In fact, it rounds to 0. Am I right or wrong? You see it? So therefore, what you picked up can't be anything. It's nothing. It's zero. But you think it's everything, and to you it is everything because it's the only thing you picked up. So your universal set is like nothing. It's just— God, I'm trying to talk to you intelligently. So the right way to come into the moment is to sit here and realize I'm a conscious being. That's a blessing. How, where it came from, I don't know, but I'm here. I know I'm here and I'm conscious, and there's this moment unfolding in front of me. I am well aware that there are 700 billion zillions going on everywhere that I'm not experiencing, but I can't do anything about that. Let me at least experience the one I'm experiencing. Wow, it's kind of neat. Let me at least experience what I'm experiencing. It's like a gift. This is the gift that's being given to you. There's another gift being given to everybody else. There's 7 billion people on the planet Earth. Every single one of them experience something different every single moment. That's what they're experiencing. That's the gift that's being given to them. And so you actually come You come into the moment— I'm afraid to say it— with a sense of honor, with a sense of respect, with a sense of gratitude. You sit there and say to the moment, wow, thank you. This is the one I got to experience. Has nothing to do with what I want, what I don't want, what should be or shouldn't be. It has to do with my humility of realizing I'm not the creator of the universe. I am the experiencer of this moment. That's what I am. There are forces that are creating the universe. You do know that. You want to call them science? I love it. You want to call it God? I love it. Makes no difference. Just call it not me. That's the nicest name for the creator of the universe— not me. Because you know it's not you, don't you? Okay, you're just kind of sitting here picking up the moment that's in front of you. Then honor and respect that experience.

Rule number 9 is be kind to you.

You start by honoring, respecting, and accepting the blessing and the reality and the right of what is unfolding in front of you. If you don't like it, you look at that as disharmonious. You let go of yourself. And that's— Christ said you must die to be reborn. We're talking about you literally do the process. Don't get mad at yourself for being a certain way. Just don't participate in that part of your being. You don't have to mad at your hand because it wants to pick up a cigarette, just don't pick up the cigarette. In fact, if you get mad at your hand, you'll probably be so stressful you will pick up the cigarette. Then you definitely need a cigarette. It's the same thing with drinking. Just don't do it. Don't get mad. Don't do anything. Just don't participate in the process that will not take you where you want to go. So if you find yourself making up an alternate reality, I am begging you to just let it go. If you find yourself not liking the reality unfolding in front of you, I am begging you, relax and let go. All right, that's not the end of your relationship with life. That's the beginning of your relationship with life.

And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is value your experiences.

Your mind is a very great thing. It is brilliant. It took metals and sand and taught the sand to think, and silicon, and took metals and made a rocket ship, got inside and flew to the moon. Oh my God, you are brilliant. You have a brilliant mind, okay? That's not the problem. The problem is what you're doing with it. When you go to that brilliant mind, you say, I'm not okay because I store all this junk inside of me. Figure out how everybody else needs to be so I can be okay. That is a total misuse of mind. Stop it. That's what you do. That's your technique. Stop doing that. Don't use your mind for that. That's the personal mind. Don't use your mind for that. Use your mind for great things. Don't use your mind for sick things. Well, but then what do I do about the fact that I'm not okay? Fix it. Don't make everybody else be different so you can be okay. Don't have all these rules of how everything needs to be so you feel better. Find out why you're not okay. How's that? Buddhists say work at the root. That's the root, right? Well, why am I not okay? I told you, you just weren't listening. You're not okay because you shoved all this stuff inside of you of every single experience you ever had in your life that bothered you, that you weren't comfortable with. There are going to be things that are not comfortable. You see a rattlesnake all coiled up, rattling. That's not comfortable, I promise you. I've seen them. All right, that's supposed to scare you. You got it straight? That's why he's doing it. It's not wrong, it's not bad, it didn't ruin your life. It's a heck of an experience, in fact. Does that mean I should go pick it up? No. You respect the experience you're having and then you let it pass. You're a greater being because you had that experience. Every experience you have makes you a greater being. Because you had the experience. I don't know how to explain that to you. Why do you practice tennis? Why do you— when you practice tennis, you just have the ball, you know, ball server, the automatic server, you just have it come exactly where your strength is every single time so you can get better at where you're strong? No, you hit it all over the place. Why? Because every single angle you get better because you use those muscles and because you came in tune. Right or wrong? Practice makes perfect. Well, if practice makes perfect in sports, why does practice not make significant life. Experience is your best teacher. Therefore, every single experience you have, you have it and it passes through you. Don't hold on to the rattlesnake so that you miss the next experiences. Honor and respect the experiences you had. Everyone— the divorce, the this, the children, hot dog traumas— I don't care. I'm serious. Stop it. You're not a victim. You're somebody who received the gift of experience. How's that? The fact that it wasn't comfortable with the rattlesnake wasn't comfortable. Fine, that's part of the experience. Let it go. I'm glad I had that experience. Now I know better about rattlesnakes. I met one. Okay, I know how to deal with it. Well, okay, fine, you've met divorce. Your parents got divorced. Wonderful, you win. The person whose parents didn't get divorced, they lost. They didn't get to have that experience. That's how you have to look at it. Every single experience you have is just waiting gold. It's a gift from God, and it's your gift because nobody else had your experience. So you process these, let them go. That's your spiritual path. If meditation helps, meditate. Mantra helps, do mantra. But the purpose is not meditation or mantra or any of the techniques. The purpose is, are you willing to stop storing inside of you the things that were difficult when you had the experience? Because otherwise you store difficulty inside of you. It's going to be there all the time. You understand that? If you have a bad smell, don't collect them and take them home so you put them in a room and remember how bad it was and how much you didn't like it. Just let it pass. Open the windows, or don't. I don't know what to do when I get a skunk. I always forget. But just let it go and it'll be over. It'll pass. Don't never drive down that road again. Don't— you hear me? Let your experiences pass and they will have fed you. You'll become a whole person because you had them. You don't need to hold them in your mind. That is spirituality. And now I showed you why spirituality and life are the same thing, aren't they? That's the highest way to live your life. That's the highest way to become spiritual. So find a way to work with yourself inside instead of trying to use your mind to avoid yourself. Don't let your mind say how you want things to be or not. It's so foreign to No, I want things to be the way they are. And what I want is to be able to honor and respect the reality of the moment in front of me. That's the last want that gets left. That's your work. And you work on that one, it's over, isn't it? So little by little, work with the things that are unfolding in front of you. Don't store them. Honor them. Respect them. Let them pass. And because you're not putting more stuff down there, the old stuff will come up by itself. Itself. I promise you, don't worry, it will. You'll come complain, the old stuff will start coming up. Let it go, let it go. You do not want any of it in you. Let it go. If it needs to come up, let it. Welcome it. Sing, hey, come on up, you're welcome here. Kiss it, throw a party. Really telling you, the worst stuff you have in there, welcome it up. Just relax and release as it comes up, and it'll go. It'll pass. Not all at once, but it'll pass. And wait till you see. I'm telling your energy will come free inside. You'll wake up in the morning with ecstasy pouring through your being, not worries about what happened. And then all through the day, it feeds you. It rises up inside of you, feeding you all the time. That's what your life's supposed to be like. You can start with positive thinking. That's one level that at least you should be doing that, right? You sit there and say, we'll make it through this, and even if I don't, whatever it is, I will be a better person because of this. If you're into God running everything, if that's your state, God knows what he's doing. There are so many different things that you can do with positive thinking to create a nicer environment inside. In my opinion, you have an obligation to do that, both for yourself, for the health of your body, for people around you. You just lift yourself up. The Gita says one should raise the selfless self, not trample down the self. This is a time to be doing that work. So you can't say, I can't do that. You can make your mind say things. You're going to be used to say, every time there's a negative thought, replace it with a positive one. It's a good time to practice that. So it's woeing for itself, oh my God, this is terrible. I'll be fine. This is okay. God knows what he's doing. Or no, this is just reality. It's just reality. Accept it either way. And then the next level is you sit there and if you do mantra, and mantra doesn't have to be an Eastern, you know, Sanskrit mantra, but just get something going behind. That you're hanging onto at a deeper part of your mind, 'I'll be okay, this is okay,' I'll use whatever it is, right? Then what will happen is when the lower self starts, these situations happen, you just settle back into it. So you have a choice, which mind you want to listen to? The lower mind, which we know what it's like, or you've built something beautiful inside. And then ultimately the highest state is you relax every single time something hits your stuff, You relax, you relax, relax and let go. Relaxing itself is letting go. People sometimes say, 'Well, I relax, but how do I let go?' The very fact that you chose to relax, relax your shoulders, relax your tummy, etc., and just relax inside, that is letting go. You're not getting all involved in what's going on. So that's the highest state, is you just keep letting go. And the worse it is, the better. You just keep letting go. You're just the commit yourself, I'm going to use this. All right, then you of course put aside some time in the morning and evening to remind yourself that this is what I'm doing. Mindfulness is about this. It is about finally waking up one day and saying, I'm the boss. I've been here. I have a mind. I can do better with it than letting it scare me all the time, than letting it remind me of everything that ever bothered me. That's not fun, is it? Right? And to say you're going to give a talk in your class, all right, a lot of people the mind gives a little trouble before that, doesn't it? Oh my God, what if I forget my lines? Does anybody's mind ever do that to them? Doesn't that help you perform better? No, it doesn't. So I could just sit here for the whole hour and a half and remind you of how ridiculous it is, what goes on inside your head, right? It is worse than an arm that won't stop doing this. And some people sit there and say— they want to sit there and say, but it's beneficial to go over this stuff. Yes, if something happens to you and you make a mistake, sit down, look at at it, pay attention, learn from it. And for God's sakes, not for the next 20 years. Why do they do that? If I hadn't done that, this would have happened. Do you understand that? You can't tell me there's a benefit. There is no benefit. It's just that you haven't learned how to work with this thing called mind. You're trying to make your neurosis or your anxiety relax. No, anxiety doesn't know how to relax. Anxiety is anxious. Do you understand that? It's just nature, right? It's all jumpy and stuff like that, right? But you who's noticing it, you has the hands in there, you can relax. You can sit there and say, okay, fine, just relax and lean away from the noise. Just go to that place, okay? That zone. It's like a zone, right? You know what I'm saying? Athletes talk about being in the zone, right? There's a zone inside. If you relax behind that noise, There's a peace back there. There's a quiet. That doesn't be a big spiritual experience, but it's a heck of a lot nicer than hanging out with anxiety. Yeah. It's the observer. It's what it feels like. And you're the observer and you relax. And if you do that over time, not immediately, but over time, you will find that that which was making you anxious, the neurosis downstairs, oh my God, my boss is gonna be mad. I told him I'd be there. I'm gonna be late. You can be just as late anyway. Sorry. It's not gonna change a thing. You look at that and you realize I'm okay. I'm okay. It doesn't do any good to show up neurotic. Okay? So you let go, and as you let go, you'll notice amazing thing. That energy that was all weird because you didn't touch it, it changed. It was able to come up. All right? Or you start using affirmation, right? You sit there and say, oh, come on, this is probably an older person like my grandmother, my grandpa, right? I do. Yes, yes. And I get to make a difference. That's right. They get to drive, and I should not be honking at them or bothering them or even sending them bad vibes. Maybe they should not be driving any faster. Well, and the point is, it's the latter part of their life, and at least they get to go some places and do something, and it means a lot more to them than this neurosis means to me. And you feel like you're giving something instead of demanding and taking. You can change yourself. It's not about suppressing. It's not about denying. It's about raising. You raise yourself. Pausing almost feels like it generates compassion a little bit. What you'll find out is you back there are the most beautiful thing in the whole universe. You are filled with love. You're filled with compassion. You're filled with inspiration. You're filled with, I call shakti energy, just spirit energy, call it whatever you want, filled with it all the time. But you're busy looking down at this garbage. And so you learn to raise yourself. The other example that I like to use, because I'm very much into being broad and seeing the whole universe instead of just your little tiny world, right? Is let's say it's hot out. Nowadays we have global warming, we're hot. Okay? It's very hot out. You're standing there and you have to go from one place to another and you're actually outside with no air conditioning. Isn't that terrible? And as you're walking, you're complaining, oh my God, it's so freaking hot and I'm sweating. I don't wanna sweat. I don't like this sort of thing. And I, oh, it's had to be so hot. What's wrong with these people? Blah blah. Okay, well, that doesn't help anything. It doesn't make it cooler. It doesn't do a single thing. It's the same thing like the car. But what if you sat there? I know I trained Mickey this— I trained Michael this way. All right, as I sit there and I look and I say, how did it get hot? Be quiet. How did it get hot? What do you mean? Why is it hot? Well, because there's a sun out there. You mean there's a star 93 million miles away and it's hot. It's so hot that you feel this heat here. I'm in Gainesville, Florida. Miami is about 300 miles away. I asked them, how big would a fire have to be in Miami for you to feel it in Gainesville? If the whole town caught fire, you would not even know what happened. That thing's 93 million. You hear that, Dr. Cook? It's 93 million miles away. And you can feel the star shine. Okay, you can feel— is that neat? And all of a sudden you say, that's neat, that's— yeah, I can feel a star. The stars are neat things, right? And you start working with yourself that way, and it works. You raise yourself and get curious. Karma yoga is about everything else. That's why karma yoga is the deepest yoga. It's not about your relationship with your body, with your heart, with your mind. Or even with your higher bodies. It's about your relationship with the rest of the world, with the rest of what's unfolding in front of you. How do I interact with the reality of life that keeps manifesting before me? That is the topic of karma yoga. And it's often considered the deepest yoga because it is so expansive in one's life. In fact, one of the deepest spiritual scriptures in yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, is considered a treatise on Karma Yoga. So, what is Karma Yoga? What is our relationship with the world around us? In order to understand that, to begin to truly understand that, you have to understand two things. One, who are you? Who's in there looking out? What is the nature of your being that has a relationship with the world around you? And the second is, what is the nature of the world outside of you? The first is actually quite simple. You are the one who's in there looking out. This is what the essence of witness consciousness, and Krishnamurti used to talk about objective observation. You are the indwelling being who looks out through your eyes, hears through your ears. You are the one who knows you have a body. You were the one that was in there when you were 6 years old, and when you looked in the mirror, you saw a 6-year-old's body. Now you see see whatever age you are, and it will continue on. You are the consciousness, the awareness of being. You see the emotions that are coming up from your heart. You see the thoughts that are created in your mind. And ultimately, you experience great love and sometimes bliss as you get deeper within yourself. It's all the same you. There's just one of you there. That's you. Well, what is the nature or the reality of the world outside of you? That is one of the most fascinating and beautiful topics. If you turn to science, they will tell you that 13.8 billion years ago, there was this Big Bang, and subsequent to that, there were these thick gases of hydrogen and helium that fused together based on gravity and built the universe as you know it. A wise person realizes that every single moment of their life What is unfolding in front of them is the result of 13.8 billion years of the universe unfolding and evolving until it finally landed at their doorstep and presented the moment that's in front of them to them. So the world outside of you is not of your own making. The world outside of you belongs to science, belongs to God, it belongs to evolution, it belongs to cause and effect. It is indeed the moment in front of you, took 13.8 billion years to get there. You can't call it your own. You didn't make it, you weren't even here. The other way to know that the world outside of you has absolutely nothing to do with you, it belongs to itself, is to realize that the moment in front of you is no different than the moment to your left or the moment to your right or the moment behind you or the moment the moment anywhere else in the universe. The universe is expressing itself everywhere. You're just seeing one particular moment, one particular point. You can't say that because it's the part that you see, there's something special about it. It's just the part that you see. So a wise person comes to the point of realizing that they are inside looking out. What is outside is the result of creation. It is is not theirs. It doesn't belong to them. It is just passing by and they just happen to be seeing that moment. So karma yoga raises the deep question, what then is my relationship to the world that's unfolding in front of me? If it doesn't belong to me, and it doesn't— again, let's spend one more moment with that. If I picked you up out of the moment you're in and dropped you onto a street in Paris then that would be the moment you see. Obviously that moment was there before you got there, and if I take you away, the moment will be there after you leave. It has absolutely nothing to do with you. Eventually a wise person realizes that is true of every moment. If I walk in a restaurant, that restaurant existed before I got there. It was going on. The people were there. Conversations were going on. Music was going on. Whatever food was going on, going on. I then step in. I'm just seeing a moment that already exists. When I step out, the moment will keep going on. It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to itself. Belongs to science. Belongs to God. It's such a beautiful thing to see that the world outside of you exists independent of you, but you are experiencing one particular moment of it. We call a mindset. It's the conditioning of the mind that makes it so that things turn you on and turn you off. And that's where you get your list of what you want and what you don't want. It is not true that you want those things. What you want is something that will open you so that you can feel the joy that is natural when you're open. And you don't want the things that close you so that you get blocked off from any joy and you get this sense of depression. So you have a choice even right at that point and we haven't even gone deep yet. You have a choice. Do you want to spend your life deciding what you want and what you don't want and then chasing it outside? Or do you want to sit there and work inside to realize all I really want is the joy and the love, and if I stay open, I can have those. I don't need outside conditions to keep me open. So I make a very important point because in spirituality it gets mixed up. Spirituality is not about renunciation. There's no renunciation. Renunciation says, "I've decided what it is that will make me happy and I'm not going to do it." Well, that sounds rather absurd, right? Spirituality says, "It was stupid of me to decide what will make me happy instead of being happy with life, instead of being grateful and turned on by all of the amazing things that are happening in front of me and all the past experiences I got to have." Why don't I just enjoy all that and then come into life filled with love, filled with joy, and give the whole of my being to the moments that are unfolding in front of me? That's what spirituality says. So it's not about renunciation, it's not about things are wrong and things are right, it's about understanding that you did this. You did this with your mind. You set up conditions in which your mind would open and then your heart opens, and conditions in which your mind will close and your heart closes. So spirituality is very, because some people say spirituality is not logical and rational. It is so. It's saying to you, why are you doing that? If you want to have a beautiful life spinning around a planet in the middle of nowhere, why don't you just open? It's your heart, it's your mind, it doesn't need conditions to open. It's just you don't know how to do it. It's you've become used to, programmed, habitual that you had a past experience, By the way, this is where it comes from. How did you decide? How did your mind decide what it is you want and what you don't want? You did not make those decisions. They were programmed into you by your past experiences, all of them. So you had a past experience where something was nice with a certain person, they looked a certain way, they had a certain name, they drove a certain kind of car, whatever it is, and it really was high for you, it was beautiful, years and years ago. Now one of those things shows up, you meet somebody with that name, as shallow as that sounds, don't kid yourself, you meet someone with the name of your ex, you close down, even though it's not the same person. You meet someone with the name of who you had your first date with in high school, that it was a wonderful relationship, and you open up. And likewise, when you see a car they had a nice experience in, it turns you on. So you are programmed by your past experiences such that if they were good experiences, they tend to open you when something reminds you of them. When they were negative experience, they tend to close you. And that is where you get your list of what you want. That's why all of our lists are different. Everyone's list is totally different. Someone tells you the list is the same as yours, they're manipulating you because everyone has had different experiences. And based upon those experiences, it left these impressions on your mind and you came up with this list of what I want. So when you make the list of what you want and what you don't want, you're really making a list of your past. That's how you came up with those things, even colors that you like, anything. They are impressions. Skinner, the psychologist, said, 'Man is the sum of his learned experiences.' It's not true. It's true that your mind and your heart, your personal heart, are the sum of your learned experiences, but you are in there noticing this. So I make a big distinction with BF, right? That you are in there and you are noticing that your mind is a sum of your learned experiences. And it is. That's where psychology meets spirituality. Psychology is right. All of the psyche, your thoughts, your patterns, your likes, your dislikes, your problems and neuroses, etc., are the sum of your learned experiences. But you are in there. You're the consciousness, the awareness of being who notices that what I'm saying is true. So basically you come to the point where you have to decide, do I want to continue letting my past leave impressions on my mind and my heart such that only certain things will open and close me, and then I will spend my life chasing after, manipulating, controlling, conniving, whatever you want, the world around me so that sometimes it unfolds the way I want? Or do you want to sit there and understand that you're the one who's making these decisions? It's your mind who's setting up the conditions. Why don't you just not do that? Basically, there are three categories or groups of objects of consciousness that your consciousness is aware of. One is the outside world. If you close your eyes, you don't see the outside world. If you open your eyes, ah, there it is. Okay, it comes in. I discussed in the book, goes deep, tries to be somewhat scientific so that we fit into an intellectual model because everything is logical and intellectual and reasonable. So the fact of the matter is, most people don't think about this, you don't really see through your eyes. Your eyes are sensors, we call them senses, but they're sensors, just like computer sensors that are picking up light, turning it into signals that are being sent up your nervous system, your optical nerves, and then it is rendering it inside your mind. Just like you look at a flat screen TV and you look at it in there. That's hard for us to relate to. 'Cause we're used, our mind is so intelligent that it creates 3D and depth perception and everything, even though you're actually back in here watching what's coming in. And I like to have fun with people. I say, I'll prove it to you that it's really just light that's bouncing off of objects and coming into your eyes, right? Turn off the lights and you won't see anything 'cause then there's no light bouncing off of things. That's not how we think. We think you turn off the lights, therefore I can't see. No, it's 'cause I turned off the light, there's no light bouncing off. Bouncing off the objects and coming reflecting back into your eyes. It's kind of neat, isn't it? All right, so it's, it's fun to talk about this stuff. So one thing of the Three-Link Circus is there's an outside world with all of its objects, and there's a lot of objects out there. The second is that's not all you receive inside, not all you're aware of inside. You're also aware of thoughts, which I'm sure we'll be talking about deeper, uh, so I'll just surface level it. You're aware the thoughts that go on in there, are you not? Right? You notice your thoughts are talking to you. You notice you can make your thoughts think different things. So you, the consciousness, exact same consciousness that is aware of the outside world, is aware of your thoughts. They're not separate, not categorizing it. This is the consciousness, here's my thoughts, and that's the consciousness that sees the world. You can do them both at the same time. They could be looking at something and thinking about it, and your same consciousness is seeing both. And then the third is your emotions, which are quite different than thoughts. And I'm sure we'll talk more about that. But basically emotions are feelings. They're vibrations that come up. They're not thoughts or thought forms. You actually see a boat in there. You can see, you don't see words, but you can hear words. They're talking to you, that voice inside your head. Emotions are like that. They're just basically shifts in energy patterns, vibrations that you pick up, but they're very strong. And they catch your consciousness. So those are the 3 things in the 3-thing circus: the outside world that you're aware of, the thoughts that are inside your head, your mind, and the emotions that emanate from your heart. And the consciousness gets distracted by those things. That's— so it's really funny that the word distraction becomes a spiritual word. People don't think of it that way, but deep spirituality deals with distractions. That's what it's all about. If you weren't distracted distracted by your thoughts or distracted by the outside world, you'd be sitting in samadhi. The consciousness would be able to come back into its source. All you can be responsible for is yourself. Your starting position is, right? You have to evolve with the different situations that are presented to you. And my experience is, if you do that, the rest will happen. The people around you will be raised naturally. Understand that. Like, if you bring anger into a situation— imagine a household where it was always fighting. If all of a sudden somebody's not, and somebody's bringing understanding and love, that's all they have to do. It will change things, right? But you, you can't sit there and say, I won't change it until everybody else does. You know, I'm going to protect myself. That doesn't work. That's the chicken and the egg. Right? So that you're asking, you like, they're so surprised, you're like, this is big things. All right? It's like, can it be better? Of course it can be better, but it requires that everybody work on themselves because while they're not working on themselves, they're working on everybody else. They're just trying to manipulate. The world has its ebb and flows. It has its cycles and it should have its cycles. And you do not understand those cycles and you will never understand those cycles. How could you possibly? You only see this tiny bit of life. It's a whole. Its cycles are in harmony with its universal self. You only see the wave when it passes by. You say, oh, it shouldn't be doing that. Why? Because it messed up my face in the reflection. That's why. You'll always do it in relationship to you. You want to know how wrong you are? Every single time you say something's good or bad or right or wrong or better or worse or preferred or not preferred, I'm going to ask you, based on what? Every one of those things are relative. A relative term. Good, bad, right, wrong, preferred, not preferred— those are relative terms. She doesn't agree. She doesn't agree. Everyone's got their own thing, don't they? They're relative. And I'm going to ask you, based on what? And if you're honest, you're going to say, based on me, based on my view of the world, based on my value system. So what? Who cares about your value system? There's narcissist again. There you are, looking into the universe and seeing the reflection of yourself and saying that's what So it's— you just get to the point where you stop putting so much weight on yourself. Stop being narcissistic. Your face is just one of 700 billion things in the universe. Your spiritual journey is about ceasing to think that you matter. It is about ceasing to think that you are the center of your universe. The universe is the center of the universe. It's about lake, not about face. It just keeps coming back to the same thing. You have to wake up to that. So your spiritual growth is not It's not about getting into yourself or changing your views or— ugh. Even to go in there and mess around with your mind is crazy. Your mind doesn't matter. It's a nothing. You know how long it takes to erase a hard disk? Just take a good magnet, pass it across, it's gone. So it's just meaningless what you have in there. Stop rearranging the darn thing. What matters is life itself. God. The universal. Get to know her. How? By ceasing to be so interested in yourself. So when you look into the lake of life— and that's what you're doing every minute of every day, you understand that? You're looking into the lake of life. When you look into the lake of life, will you please stop seeing yourself? There's lots and lots and lots of things out there. Stop seeing yourself. How do I know that I'm seeing myself? I will give you the biggest clue that ever was: it offends you. You feel a change in the force, in the energy, in the Shakti flow. Sometimes you do, don't you? Like lots of times, if you look out into this lake of life and it causes a change in the flow of the chi inside of you, you have projected yourself into life and it hits your projection. I want this to happen. I want that to happen. The cause of suffering is desires. Buddha. It's all the same teaching. You are projecting from inside out. Therefore, the innocence of life is hitting your projections, causing you to suffer, causing change to happen inside your peace. Is disturbing the peace. You want to stop that? You want to find true spirituality? You have to let go of projecting yourself onto life.

Because you made it this far in the video, I want to celebrate you. Most people start and don't finish. Most people never actually follow through. Most people say they want something, but they don't ever do the work to actually get it. But you are different. You are special. Believe Nation, you made it here all the way to the end, and I love you. So as a special celebration, if you put a hashtag #believe down in the comments below on this video, I will showcase you and celebrate you somewhere on the screen in a future video because you are awesome. For 10 more amazing rules from Bruce Lipton, check the video right right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

Consciousness is creating your reality. If you put a picture of fear into your reality, then your biology behavior will manifest things to be afraid of. Because this is a, a short statement, but to me it's the most powerful one.