By Michael A. Singer, author of Living Untethered
Logically, it doesn’t make sense to store inside of you the experiences that bothered you the most. If you do that, you will build your own internal house of horrors and will struggle to be comfortable inside. This is the root cause of all anxiety, tension, and psychological disturbances. This cannot be fixed until you deal with it at its root. As long as you are holding inside of you that which bothered you ten or twenty years ago, you are going to suffer.
Once your intent is to use every moment of your life to free yourself, the question becomes how to do that. Believe it or not, your sincere intent to be free is more important than any technique you can use. You’re in there, and if you understand these teachings, you realize you don’t want blockages in there. They make life extremely difficult. So you commit to letting them go. Traditionally, there are some powerful techniques for freeing yourself during your everyday life, and we will discuss three of them in very broad terms.
The first technique is called positive thinking. Yogananda used to teach that every time you have a negative thought, replace it with a positive one. This is a very basic and useful technique for bringing about change. It is based on the two types of thoughts we discussed earlier: those created willfully and those that happen automatically. If you notice your mind giving you a hard time while you’re driving—those are automatically generated thoughts. You are not purposely creating them. Now try purposely creating positive thoughts about the situation. If the person in front of you is driving much slower than the speed limit, you might say inside your mind, “Wow. What an opportunity to relax. I can’t be in a rush because the person in front of me won’t let me. I guess it’s time to watch my breath, calm down, and learn to enjoy the experience.” You’re welcome to do that in everyday life. You’re not fighting with your mind or pushing away the negative thoughts. You’re simply replacing the automatically generated thoughts with willfully created ones. Don’t fight, just replace. It doesn’t matter if the negative thoughts continue in the background; just focus on the positive thoughts you are willfully creating. Over time, your willfully created thoughts will replace the automatically generated ones. This is a very healthy thing to do. Simply apply your will to offset or neutralize the effect of your samskaras. Over time, this will develop a more positive mind, which is a much nicer environment to live in.
The next technique is very traditional and is broadly referred to as mantra. In the most general sense, “mantra” means training your mind to repeat a simple word or phrase over and over until it gets stuck in your mind. Just like a song can get stuck in your mind, a mantra can get stuck in your mind. We all experience that our minds can work in layers. You can be paying attention to someone speaking, and there can still be thoughts going on “in the back of your mind.” Your mind is so brilliant it can multitask. It can create thoughts at multiple levels, and you can be aware of these layers simultaneously. Mantra is offering you a layer of mind that is always there—balanced, pleasant, a safe place to rest. As the mantra effortlessly goes on in the background, it gives you the choice of which layer of mind you want to focus on. When the habitual thoughts come up from your samskaras, you don’t have to fight with them or even replace them. You just shift your consciousness onto the mantra. With positive thinking, you are continually using your will to neutralize negative thoughts with positive ones. With mantra, you are simply using your will to shift the focus of your consciousness from the samskara-generated thoughts to the mantra.
Mantra is a gift. It’s like a built-in vacation. If you do the work necessary to instill the mantra in a layer of your mind, it will change your life. First off, the mantra does not have to be a traditional Sanskrit mantra like Om Namah Shivaya or Om Mani Padme Hum. It can be a name or word for God, like Jesus, Adonai, or Allah. In fact, a very powerful mantra is simply God, God, God. If all these seem too religious for you, a great thing to have going in your mind is: I’m always fine, I’m always fine, I’m always fine. How nice would it be to be reminded of any of these throughout your day?
It is not difficult to instill the mantra in your mind—all it takes is repetition. You can start practicing mantra during the time you put aside each morning and evening for your spiritual practices. Even just fifteen minutes will go a long way. A good technique is to tie the mantra to your breath going in and out. Then during the day, come back to it whenever certain events occur. For example, you could say a few repetitions of the mantra before you pick up the phone and after you put it down. It just takes a moment, and you are making a major investment in becoming a more conscious, centered being. Do it whenever you get into or out of your car, as well as when you enter or leave your house or office. No one will even notice. It is just a moment’s pause that will change everything over time. Before you eat, say the mantra. If you are eating by yourself, you can have fun inwardly repeating the mantra while you chew your food. Make it a game—how many recurring events in your everyday life can you set up to remind you to practice the mantra? Here’s a good use of your smartphone: set up a repeating reminder to do the mantra. Over time, you will train your mind to always have the mantra going on in the background during your daily life.
Even if you have done this work on yourself, a fateful day will inevitably arrive. Something will happen and your emotions or thoughts will start to get upset. You’ll be on the verge of losing it, but the mantra will catch your attention just enough to give you the choice—go down or go up. You immediately shift your awareness off the mess and onto the mantra, and your life changes. The mantra does not stop you from having constructive thoughts; it just sits there as a safety net to catch you if you start to fall. When you have some time to actually rest back into the mantra, you will become filled with peace and well-being. It’s like a vacation from the personal mind. How would you like it if the moment you sat down, tension and stress melted away as you fell back into the lap of the mantra? All this is available to you—free of charge. Just be willing to make the investment in yourself. Notice that with mantra you are learning to surrender the hold that the personal mind has on you.
The final technique we will discuss for freeing yourself from yourself is generally termed witness consciousness, and it includes the powerful practice of relaxing and releasing. Witness consciousness is deeper than the other techniques because, in the end, it doesn’t require working with the mind. Positive thinking involves creating positive thoughts to replace the negative ones. Mantra involves creating a layer of mind that provides a peaceful and steady environment for rising above the lower layers. Witness consciousness is simply noticing that you are noticing what the mind is doing. You don’t need to interact with the mind. You don’t need to do anything. Just be the one who notices that the mind is creating thoughts, and you are aware of them. In order to do that, you can’t be disturbed by the thoughts that are being created. If the thoughts bother you, you will leave the seat of objective observation and try to change the mind. To truly achieve witness consciousness, you must be willing to let the thoughts be as they may and simply be aware that you are aware of them.
If you want to experience true witness consciousness, just look in front of you. Do you see what’s there? Don’t think about it, just see it. That’s witness consciousness. It’s just seeing. You are simply witnessing what’s there. Now, turn your head and look around. Practice the immediacy of just seeing. Notice that your thoughts often have something to say about what you see. Can you simply notice these thoughts like you noticed what was outside, or do you have to do something about them? Thoughts, emotions—they come up by themselves. Good, now simply notice them.
PP. 151-154 Excerpt taken from Living Untethered
Michael A. Singer is author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Untethered Soul, and the New York Times bestsellers, Living Untethered and The Surrender Experiment, all of which have been published worldwide. He had a deep inner awakening in 1971 while working on his doctorate in economics, and 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 of any religion or set of beliefs can come together to experience inner peace. Along with his nearly five decades of spiritual teaching, Singer has made major contributions in the areas of business, education, health care, and environmental protection. Visit www.untetheredsoul.com for more information.