I just finished reading Michael Singer’s The Surrender Experiment again. I bought the book seven years ago and I’ve forgotten how incredible his story was. It started out nice and easy but it just got crazier and more amazing! And this time I have a different understanding. I know because I wrote down some notes in the margin years ago when I first read it. For example, I wrote “positive thinking?” beside the line “the Bhagavad Gita says that one should raise the self with Self.” Now I think he meant acceptance.
He wrote “come to peace with myself.”
That line really touched me. Maybe I haven’t even come to peace with myself totally. Thinking back, I am always trying to get to a better place. Maybe I didn’t even accept that I am a mom now (my son is 12 already) and that I chose to stay home and take care of my family. My mind would get pulled away to the future all the time. I remember thinking about going back to work when my baby was just a few months old. Maybe I still haven’t really accepted that. Sometimes I enjoy cooking or cleaning because I know I am taking care of my family but a lot of time I just hated all the mess and chores that I had to do around the house. It made me grumpy and mad at the people who I love the most because I blame them for being messy, using too many cups/dishes (aka drinking/eating too many times a day) and not helping to clean up. I also realized that sometimes, I ignore my problems and push the negative emotion away. I thought that was staying positive but I didn’t really deal with the emotion and it’s probably stored in my body somewhere.
What stood out to me reading The Surrender Experiment this time, was how much he kept saying that it was enough. He was happy where he was. He just wanted to go back to the woods and meditate. He was totally content. He was at peace. He was always talking about this perfect person, employee, or situation and how perfect they were.
Even when crazy things happened to him, things that would make me so mad and try to fight the situation, he would say this was what life had brought to him, it’s an opportunity for him to let go of his personal preferences and he faced it with all his heart. He did everything to the best of his ability, stayed present and just took one step after another. He’s totally content with this step, not even thinking about the next step and whatever life brought him, he just embrace it with his whole being. This is not what I was taught to do growing up or by our society. I set goals, I work towards it and there are always more things I want. I am always on a treadmill chasing after something and not feeling content. Whereas Michael Singer is totally going with the flow of life, content of being wherever he is and life just kept bringing him more and more amazing things. I love how he said to just get out of the way and let Life do its thing. Eckhart Tolle said life is the dancer, we are the dance. At first I thought that didn’t make sense but now I am starting to understand.
I think Michael Singer’s story is a great example of what Abraham Hicks was talking about when you quiet the mind, you raise your vibration and allow all the things you’ve ever wanted to come to your life in perfect timing and combinations that you couldn’t even imaging in your current understanding. Abraham kept saying getting ready to be ready. I was confused about what it meant but now I think it’s the inner work like quieting the mind and letting go of personal preferences. Once you quiet the chatter, you are able to hear your inner being who knows the answers.