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Are you looking for The Untethered Soul quotes by Michael A. Singer? What do these quotes teach about spiritual awakening?
In The Untethered Soul, Michael A. Singer teaches you how to use your direct self-knowledge as an intuitive tool for spiritual awakening. The following quotes highlight some of the key themes discussed in the book such as your inner monologue, your spiritual energy, and your psychic pain.
Keep reading for the top three quotes from The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer.
The Untethered Soul: Quotes and Passages to Ponder
In his book, The Untethered Soul, spiritual teacher Michael A. Singer, founder of the Temple of the Universe meditation center and a pioneering figure in the world of medical software, teaches you how to free yourself from false identities and how to live an enlightened life of peace, joy, creativity, and divine love. The following The Untethered Soul quotes and passages will help you distill the key lessons of the book.
“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.”
In The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer stresses the importance of learning how to distance yourself from your inner voice because overidentification with it prevents you from realizing your true self. Because this voice speaks to you as the voice of your own mind, you’ve mistakenly come to believe that it is you. But the real you is not the voice, it is the awareness behind it i.e. the phenomenon that listens to it but doesn’t identify with it.
“The psyche is built upon avoiding this pain, and as a result, it has fear of pain as its foundation. That is what caused the psyche to be. To understand this, notice that if the feeling of rejection is a major problem for you, you will fear experiences that cause rejection. That fear will become part of your psyche. Even though the actual events causing rejection are infrequent, you will have to deal with the fear of rejection all the time. That is how we create a pain that is always there. If you are doing something to avoid pain, then pain is running your life. All of your thoughts and feelings will be affected by your fears.”
Singer likens inner pain to a thorn stuck embedded in your arm. Should you handle the pain by removing the thorn, or by making sure nothing touches it? Further, he goes on to say that most people choose to do the latter. They decide to protect the thorn, and this work consumes their life.
However, any behavior pattern for avoiding pain actually becomes a doorway for that pain to enter, because when you attempt to avoid your deep pain, you build layers of sensitivity around it. For example, if your pain is about feelings of rejection, you may build a busy social schedule. You may dress, act, and talk in ways that your mind thinks will earn your friends’ approval. And with these instinctive actions, you’ve now sensitized all of these areas with your original pain, so that any one of them can now make you suffer. Other real-life examples might include sensitivities about loneliness, your physical appearance, your level of ability, or your intelligence. You have the same two choices with all: either build your life around protecting yourself from the pain, or remove its source.
“The most important thing in life is your inner energy. If you’re always tired and never enthused, then life is no fun. But if you’re always inspired and filled with energy, then every minute of every day is an exciting experience. Learn to work with these things. Through meditation, through awareness and willful efforts, you can learn to keep your centers open. You do this by just relaxing and releasing. You do this by not buying into the concept that there is anything worth closing over. Remember, if you love life, nothing is worth closing over.”
Your inner energy is the subtle energy drawn from the inside of your being. Inner energy behaves by surging and receding, depending on the condition of your spiritual heart. When the energy flows, you feel supercharged and able to take on the world. When it doesn’t, you feel drained and depressed. You can know its current state within you by paying attention to your relative level of vitality, joy, and inspiration.
According to Singer, the key to keeping your inner energy flowing lies in relaxing and releasing: letting go of the old, stored energies whenever they come up in the course of daily life.
- First, notice your energy flow starting to tighten into anger, jealousy, or whatever it is.
- Second, relax and remember yourself as the self, as the objective witness of the disturbance. Remember that your spiritual heart isn’t you. Rather, you’re the one who experiences your heart.
- Third, use the opportunity to release the negative energy through non-reactiveness. Just let it flow through you and out of you.
He encourages the reader to cultivate this process of spiritual purging and cleansing until it becomes your automatic, default approach. Learn to let your entire psyche surface. Accept anything that wants to present itself, no matter how unpleasant it feels at first. It might be helpful to initially practice this discipline with small upsets, like accidentally locking your keys in your car. Then progress to bigger ones like broken relationships and the death of loved ones.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Untethered Soul summary :
- How to find your true self instead of your false identities
- Why getting lost in the moment is important
- Why death is the greatest spiritual teacher about life
