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THE BIG IDEAS The Untethered Soul

The Voice
The Journey Beyond Yourself
Inside your head. Notice it yet? BY MICHAEL A. SINGER · NEW HARBINGER © 2007 · 224 PAGES

The Witness
Work out your Witness muscles.

The (Crazy) Roommate

Time to give it the boot. “As you read these pages, you will find that you know much more than you thought
you did about some very deep subjects. The fact is, you already know how to find
This Is Your Life
Time to reclaim it! yourself; you have just gotten distracted and disoriented. Once refocused, you
Perspective will realize that you not only have the ability to find yourself, you have the ability
& The avoidance of pain. to free yourself. Whether you choose to do so or not is entirely up to you. But
Real Transformation upon completion of your journey through these chapters, there will be no more
& Change. confusion, no more lack of empowerment, and no more blaming others. You will
Begin w/Small Things know exactly what must be done. And should you choose to devote yourself to the
Rock it moment to moment.
ongoing journey of self-realization, you will develop a tremendous sense of respect
Unconditional Happiness for who you really are. It is only then that you will come to appreciate the full depth
Is the highest technique.
of meaning in the advice: “This above all: to thine own self be true.””
Stepping-Stones
Of our spiritual journey. ~ Michael Singer from The Untethered Soul

Michael Singer is a great writer, storyteller and spiritual teacher who has a profound ability to
communicate complex spiritual ideas in a simple, easy-to-grasp manner.

The Untethered Soul is packed with goodness. As Singer poetically puts it: “The chapters of this
book are nothing but mirrors for seeing your “self” from different angles.”

“Right in the middle of your If you’re feelin’ it, I think you’ll love the book.
daily life, by untethering
For now, let’s explore a handful of my favorite Big Ideas! Hope you dig it. :)
yourself from the bondage
of your psyche, you
THE VOICE INSIDE YOUR HEAD
actually have the ability
to steal freedom for your “In case you haven’t noticed, you have a mental dialogue going on inside your head that never
stops. It just keeps going and going. Have you ever wondered why it talks in there? How does it
soul. This freedom is so
decide what to say and when to say it? How much of what it says turns out to be true? How much
great it has been given a
of what it says is even important? And if right now you are hearing, “I don’t know what you’re
special name—liberation.”
talking about. I don’t have any voice inside my head!”—that’s the voice we’re talking about.
~ Michael Singer
If you’re smart, you’ll take the time to step back, examine this voice, and get to know it better.”

That’s pretty funny. And important.

My hunch is you’ve noticed that voice in your head. Yah?

As Singer tells us: “There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are
not the voice of the mind—you are the one who hears it. If you don’t understand this, you will try
to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you. People go through so many
changes in the name of “trying to find myself.” They want to discover which of these voices,
which of these aspects of their personality, is who they really are. The answer is simple: none of
them.”

Good stuff.

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 Now, let’s figure out what we can do about it!

THE WITNESS
“Come to know the one “Once you clearly see the disturbed part, then ask, “Who is it that sees this? Who notices this
who watches the voice, and inner disturbance?” Asking this is the solution to your every problem. The very fact that you
you will come to know one can see the disturbance means that you are not it. The process of seeing something requires a
of the great mysteries of subject-object relationship. The subject is called “The Witness” because it is the one who sees
creation.” what’s happening. The object is what you are seeing, in this case the inner disturbance. This act
of maintaining objective awareness of the inner problem is always better than losing yourself in
~ Michael Singer
the inner situation. This is the essential difference between a spiritually minded person and a
worldly person. Worldly doesn’t mean that you have money or stature. Worldly means that you
think the solution to your inner problems is in the world outside. You think that if you change
things outside, you’ll be okay. But nobody has every truly become okay by changing things
outside. There’s always the next problem. The only real solution is to take the seat of witness
consciousness and completely change your frame of reference.

To obtain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of
being lost in them.”

There’s a LOT of goodness in that paragraph.

First, “The Witness.” This is the real you—the part of you that is unaffected by your thoughts
and emotions and workings of the outer world. One of the primary themes of the book (and
spirituality in general) is the fact that we need to train ourselves to, as Singer says, “objectively
watch your problems instead of being lost in them.”

In order to do that, we need to step into The Witness chair and make our current problems the
OBJECT of our awareness—creating the subject-object relationship Singer talks about above.

We talk about this Idea a bit in the Note on Anthony de Mello’s great book, Awareness, where
he tells us: “Never identify with that feeling. It has nothing to do with the ‘I.’ Don’t define your
essential self in terms of that feeling. Don’t say, ‘I am depressed.’ If you want to say, ‘It is
depressed,’ that’s all right. If you want to say that depression is there, that’s fine; if you want to
say gloominess is there, that’s fine. But not: I am gloomy. You’re defining yourself in terms of
the feeling. That’s your illusion; that’s your mistake. There is a depression there right now, but
let it be, leave it alone. It will pass. Everything passes, everything. Your depressions and your
thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are swings of the pendulum. If you seek kicks
or thrills, get ready for depression. Do you want your drug? Get ready for the hangover. One
“When a problem arises, end of the pendulum swings over to the other.”
don’t ask, “What should So, there’s a quick look at The Witness + subject-object goodness. We assume the subjective
I do about it?” Ask, perspective of The Witness and make our challenges the object of our awareness. Powerful stuff
“What part of me is being to practice!
disturbed by this?””
I also love the idea of a “worldly person” vs. a “spiritually minded person.” To be a worldly
~ Michael Singer person is to think that the solutions to our problems exist “out there”—if only this person
changed or that situation was different, THEN we’d be happy. Um, yah.

The spiritually minded person realizes that it’s our perspective that makes things good or bad. As
Shakespeare says, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

De Mello has a great way of describing this in Awareness as well. He says it’s kinda like being
sick but going to the Doctor and getting medicine for our *neighbors*! :) In his words: “Imagine
a patient who goes to a doctor and tells him what he is suffering from. The doctor says, ‘Very
well, I’ve understood your symptoms. Do you know what I will do? I will prescribe a medicine
for your neighbor!’ The patient replies, ‘Thank you very much, Doctor, that makes me feel

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 much better.’ Isn’t that absurd? But that’s what we all do. The person who is asleep always
thinks he’ll feel better if somebody else changes. You’re suffering because you are asleep, but
you’re thinking, ‘How wonderful life would be if somebody else would change. How wonderful
life would be if my neighbor changed, my wife changed, my boss changed.’”

THE ROOMMATE
“Once you’ve made this “Basically, you’re not alone in there. There are two distinct aspects of your inner being. The

freedom the meaning of first is you, the awareness, the witness, the center of your willful intention; and the other is that
which you watch. The problem is, the part that you watch never shuts up. If you could get rid of
your life, there are spiritual
that part, even for a moment, the peace and serenity would be the nicest vacation you ever had.”
practices that can help you.
These practices are what Singer tells us we’re not alone in our heads.
you do with your time in We have what he calls a “roommate” up there. And this isn’t any ol’ roommate. This is one
order to free yourself from CRAZY person who’s constantly narrating our lives and telling us WACKY things, jumping from
yourself.” subject to subject to subject ALL. DAY. LONG.
~ Michael Singer He has us play a game where we take that inner voice and project it out into a real person: a
roommate who hangs out with us all day, every day.

He continues: “How would you feel if someone outside really started talking to you the way your
inner voice does? How would you relate to a person who opened their mouth to say everything
your mental voice says? After a very short period of time, you would tell them to leave and never
come back. But when your inner friend continuously speaks up, you don’t ever tell it to leave. No
matter how much trouble it causes, you listen.”

Hah.

Seriously, though.

Imagine if you had *anyone* in your life who talked to you like your inner voice incessantly talks
to you. You’d boot them out of your life, right?

Well, we need to do the same thing with our inner roommate. The first step is to REALIZE that
we even have this wacky roommate inside our head. Then we just need to hop into our “Witness”
chair and OBSERVE the non-stop thoughts rather than get swept up by them!!

THIS IS YOUR LIFE—RECLAIM IT

“What differentiates a “If you want to free yourself, you must first become conscious enough to understand your
predicament. Then you must commit yourself to the inner work of freedom. You do this as
conscious, centered being
though your life depended on it, because it does. As it is right now, your life is not your own; it
from a person who is not
belongs to your inner roommate, the psyche. You have to take it back. Stand firm in the seat of
so conscious is simply the
the witness and release the hold that the habitual mind has on you. This is your life—reclaim it.”
focus of their awareness.
It’s not a difference in Amen to that.

the consciousness itself. Reminds me Joseph Campbell’s reminder (see Notes on A Joseph Campbell Companion): “Sri
All consciousness is the Ramakrishna said, ‘Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire
same. Just as all light from seeks a pond.’”
the sun is the same, all Here’s to understanding our predicament and doing the work necessary to free ourselves!!
awareness is the same.”
~ Michael Singer PERSPECTIVE & THE AVOIDANCE OF PAIN
“To get some distance form this [pain], you first need to get some perspective. Walk outside
on a clear night and just look up into the sky. You are sitting on a planet spinning around in
the middle of absolutely nowhere. Though you can only see a few thousand stars, there are

PhilosophersNotes | The Untethered Soul 3

 hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy alone. In fact, it is estimated that there
“This is the core of
are over a trillion stars in the Spiral Galaxy. And that galaxy would look like one star to us if we
spiritual work. When you could even see it. You’re just standing on one little ball of dirt and spinning around one of the
are cmfortable with pain stars. From that perspective, do you really care what people think about your clothes or your
passing through you, you car? Do you really need to feel embarrassed if you forget someone’s name? How can you let
will be free.” these meaningless things cause pain? If you want out, if you want a decent life, you had better
~ Michael Singer not devote your life to avoiding psychological pain. You had better not spend your life worrying
about whether people like you or whether your car impresses people. What kind of life is that?
It is a life of pain. You may not think that you feel pain that often, but you really do. To spend
your life avoiding pain means it’s always right behind you. At any point you could slip and say
the wrong thing. At any point anything can happen. So you end up devoting your life to the
avoidance of pain.”

Singer spends a chapter on pain and how we work so hard to avoid feeling it.

Powerful stuff.

One way to address our pain is to get perspective.

You do realize we’re just little creatures spinning on a tiny little piece of dirt in an unfathomably
huge Universe, right?

Let’s keep that in mind the next time we’re about to get worried about what someone thinks
about our hair. Or our clothes. Or our car. Or our furniture. Or any other silly little thing that
really doesn’t deserve that much of our attention, eh? :)

REAL TRANSFORMATION & CHANGE

“To go beyond, you must “The spiritual journey is one of constant transformation. In order to grow, you must give up the
keep going past the limits struggle to remain the same, and learn to embrace change at all times...
you put on things. This Real transformation begins when you embrace your problems as agents for growth.”
requires changes at the
Two Big Ideas here.
core of your being.”
First, the goodness of change.
~ Michael Singer
Reminds me of another Anthony de Mello gem: “As the great Confucius said, ‘The one who
would be in constant happiness must frequently change.’ Flow. But we keep looking back, don’t
we? We cling to things in the past and cling to things in the present... Do you want to enjoy
a symphony? Don’t hold on to a few bars of the music. Don’t hold on to a couple of notes. Let
them pass, let them flow. The whole enjoyment of a symphony lies in your readiness to allow
the notes to pass...”

Marcus Aurelius (see Notes on Meditations) puts it this way: “Time is a river, the resistless flow
of all created things. One thing no sooner comes in sight than it is hurried past and another is
borne along, only to be swept away in its turn.”

And second, the fact that real transformation occurs when we embrace our challenges as agents
for change.

I love the way Robert Emmons puts it in Thanks! (see Notes) where he tells us: “The religious
traditions encourage us to do more than react with passivity and resignation to loss and
crisis; they advise us to change our perspective, so that our suffering is transformed into
an opportunity for growth. Not only does the experience of tragedy give us an exceptional
opportunity for growth, but some sort of suffering is also necessary for a person to achieve
maximal psychological growth. In his study of self-actualizers, the paragons of mental
wellness, the famed humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow noted that “the most important
learning lessons... were tragedies, deaths, and trauma... which forced change in the life-

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 outlook of the person and consequently in everything that he did.””

BEGIN WITH SMALL THINGS

“Begin with the small things. We tend to let ourselves get bothered by the little, meaningless
“A wise person remains
things that happen every day. For example, somebody beeps at you at the stoplight. As these
centered enough to let go
little things happen, you will notice your energy change. The moment you feel a change, relax
every time the energy shifts
your shoulders and relax the area around your heart. The moment the energy moves, you simply
into a defensive mode.” relax and release. Play with letting go and falling behind this sense of being bothered.”
~ Michael Singer
If we want to make transformative strides in our spiritual path, we need to begin with the small
things. As the Buddha tells us (see Notes on The Dhammapada): “Little by little a person
become evil, as a water pot is filled by drops of water... Little by little a person becomes good,
as a water pot is filled by drops of water.”

Plus: “Make your mind pure as a silversmith blows away the impurities of silver, little by little,
instant by instant.”

Yes, it’s much sexier to talk about the latest nuanced theories about spirituality. But, it’s much
more effective to use every small opportunity for personal transformation. :)

So, the next time you find yourself irritated by someone or something, see if you can notice it.
The moment you feel a change, take a deep breath and relax your shoulders. Relax the area
around your heart and let it go.

Might not sound like a big deal, but if you can do that consistently, you’ve pretty much arrived.

As Singer advises, “If you can learn to remain centered with the smaller things, you will see that
you can also remain centered with the bigger things. Over time, you will find that you can even
remain centered with the really big things.”

So, let’s rock the little things, shall we?

UNCONDITIONAL HAPPINESS
“Unconditional happiness is “If you decide that you’re going to be happy from now on for the rest of your life, you will not
the highest technique there only be happy, you will be enlightened. Unconditional happiness is the highest technique there
is.” is. You don’t have to learn Sanskrit or read any scriptures. You don’t have to renounce the world.
You just have to really mean it when you say that you choose to be happy. And you have to mean
~ Michael Singer
it regardless of what happens. This is truly a spiritual path, and it is as direct and sure a path to
Awakening as could possibly exist.”

Unconditional happiness.

I love that.

As Singer says, it’s the highest technique there is—a happiness that is chosen in every moment,
independent of whatever’s going on in the world.

Marci Shimoff wrote an entire book on this called Happy for No Reason (see Notes) where she
tells us: “Happy for No Reason isn’t elation, euphoria, mood spikes or peak experiences that
don’t last. It doesn’t mean grinning like a fool 24/7 or experiencing a superficial high. Happy
for No Reason isn’t an emotion. In fact, when you are Happy for No Reason, you can have
any emotion—including sadness, fear, anger, or hurt—but you still experience that underlying
state of peace and well-being... When you’re Happy for No Reason, you bring happiness to
your outer experiences rather than trying to extract happiness from them. You don’t need to
manipulate the world around you to try to make yourself happy. You live from happiness,
rather than for happiness.”

PhilosophersNotes | The Untethered Soul 5

 Back to Singer. He tells us: “Billions of things could happen that you haven’t even thought of
yet. The question is not whether they will happen. Things are going to happen. The real question
is whether you want to be happy regardless of what happens. The purpose of your life is to
“It is not life’s events enjoy and learn from your experiences. You were not put on Earth to suffer. You’re not helping
that are causing problems anybody by being miserable. Regardless of your philosophical beliefs, the fact remains that you

or stress. It is your were born and you are going to die. During the time in between, you get to choose whether or
not you want to enjoy the experience. Events don’t determine whether or not you’re going to be
resistance to life’s
happy. You can be happy to just be alive. You can be happy having all these things happen to
events that is causing
you, and then be happy to die. If you can live this way, your heart will be so open and your Spirit
this experience. Since
will be so free, that you will soar up to the heavens.”
the problem is caused by
using your will to resist How beautiful is THAT?! :)

the reality of life passing

through you, the solution STEPPING-STONES OF OUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
is obvious—stop resisting.” “You truly can reach a state in which you never have any more stress, tension or problems
~ Michael Singer for the rest of your life. You just have to realize that life is giving you a gift, and that gift is the
flow of events that takes place between your birth and your death. These events are exciting,
challenging, and create tremendous growth. To comfortably handle this flow of life, your heart
and mind must be open and expansive enough to encompass reality. The only reason they’re
not is because you resist. Learn to stop resisting reality, and what used to look like stressful
problems will begin to look like the stepping-stones of your spiritual journey.”

Here’s to embracing reality with a commitment to unconditional happiness as we see our

challenges as stepping-stones of our spiritual journey!!!

Brian Johnson,
Chief Philosopher

If you liked this Note, About the Author of “The Untethered Soul”
you’ll probably like… MICHAEL SINGER

Awareness
Michael A. Singer received a master’s degree in economics from the University
The Dhammapada of Florida in 1971. During his doctoral work, he had a deep inner awakening and
Happy for No Reason went into seclusion to focus on yoga and meditation. In 1975, he founded Temple
of the Universe, a now long-established yoga and meditation center where people
The Bhagavad Gita
of any religion or set of beliefs can come together to experience inner peace... He
The Conquest of Mind has previously authored two books on the integration of Eastern and Western
philosophy: The Search for Truth and Three Essays on Universal Law: Karma,
Will and Love.

About the Author of This Note

BRIAN JOHNSON

Brian Johnson is a lover of wisdom (aka a “Philosopher”) and a passionate

student of life who’s committed to inspiring and empowering millions of people
to live their greatest lives as he studies, embodies and shares the universal truths
of optimal living. He harts his job.

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