E126: Work at the Root—Why the Mind Is Restless

Michael Singer Podcast

Michael Singer

Religion, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The mind’s natural state is pure, quiet, and expansive, but it appears restless because of unresolved experiences that were not allowed to pass through. These stored impressions generate the personal mind, a constant stream of likes, dislikes, fears, and desires that you mistake as “you”. Liberation comes through the daily practice of handling life’s experiences and living from the witness rather than from these stored impressions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Michael Singer podcast presented by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications.
0:22.5	For more information about Michael Singer's work, access to all prior episodes, and information
0:28.7	about upcoming releases, we invite you to join us at Michael Singer Podcast.com. I'm decorative.
1:00.0	One thing you learned when you become very mature on your path is that when you play
1:08.0	with the surface of things, you're going to get anywhere.
1:13.7	If you work at the root, the rest takes care of itself.
1:18.7	The Buddhists always say work at the root.
1:20.9	So let's take an example of the mind.
1:25.1	We're taught to quiet the mind.
1:27.2	We're taught to be positive with the mind. We're taught to do all kinds of things with the mind. We're taught to quiet the mind, we're taught to be positive with the mind,
1:29.3	we're taught to do all kinds of things with the mind. The trouble is, if you haven't noticed,
1:34.3	it's a struggle. It's a struggle to quiet the mind. It's a struggle for the mind to be positive.
1:41.3	Shouldn't be, but it is. I always tell people, they say to me, but I practice
1:45.3	positive thinking. Why? Because it's negative otherwise. Why would you practice positive thinking
1:50.7	if you didn't have to? Who wants to do that? And so you start catching on. The natural state of
1:55.6	things is, the mind is very negative. It is. and it's very difficult to turn it around.
2:02.6	And it's way more difficult, by the way, to make it be quiet, for the mind to be quiet.
2:07.6	It doesn't want to be quiet. Well, a wise person says, why would the mind not want to be quiet?
2:13.6	What's going on? And that's when you start to, instead of questioning, how do I quiet my mind?
2:19.3	You ask, why is it not quiet?
2:22.3	It's like the natural state of my mind neurotic?
2:24.7	No, it's not.
	...

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