This is a curated selection of Michael Singer quotes (personally curated by me on my own lifelong learning journey). This page is intended as a learning resource for educational purposes and only meant to offer an overview/introduction. Short quotes aren’t a substitute for source material, so if this page sparks your interest, explore more deeply by checking out Michael Singer’s books (Amazon).
Page Contents:
- Spirituality & Spiritual Growth Quotes
- Ego & Suffering Quotes
- Awareness & Witnessing Quotes
- Surrender & Letting Go Quotes
- Liberation & Self-Realization Quotes
25 Michael Singer Quotes on Surrender, Witnessing, Self-Realization, & More
Michael Singer Quotes on Spirituality & Spiritual Growth
“Find out who you are. Who are you in there that’s watching? Who are you in there that sees me? Who are you in there that notices the heart hurts? Who are you in there that notices all of this? That is what spirituality is about; it’s not about anything else. It’s about self-realization. That’s what that word means. Realize who you are … You start exploring the nature of your being instead of exploring how to make the psyche be okay … You spend your life freeing yourself from yourself. You spend your life realizing me who’s watching this disturbance is not disturbed … You’re seeing it, but you’re not it. You’re the one who sees it.” — Michael Singer
“Spirituality doesn’t sit there and say, ‘Renounce the world. Don’t deal with it. Go live in a cave somewhere.’ No. Spirituality says, ‘Don’t live in what your mind is making up because it takes you out of harmony with reality’ … It’s not Eastern or Western. It’s not weird. It’s not Christian or Jewish or Hindu. It has nothing to do with any of that. It’s reality. Who is willing to come in harmony with reality?” — Michael Singer
“The most important thing to learn is how to be okay with reality … The truth is, everything will be okay as soon as you are okay with everything.” — Michael Singer
“There is nothing else to do on your spiritual path except remove the obstacles to spirituality. Once you do that, and to whatever degree you do that, it just is the natural state of things. Spirituality is the natural state of things … If you remove the obstacles, you are spiritual. There’s nothing else to do. Period. Nothing.” — Michael Singer
“As you become clearer in life you realize that spiritual growth and personal growth are exactly the same thing … One of the greatest realizations and gifts is when you realize that your spiritual journey and your life journey are exactly the same thing … The highest spiritual path is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience.” — Michael Singer
Michael Singer Quotes on Ego & Suffering
“‘Ego is the masquerading self’ (Yogananda) … In other words the facade you pulled over your consciousness to define yourself.” — Michael Singer
“I’ll do every single thing that a spiritual person would do, then I’m spiritual. No, you’re not, it’s nothing. It’s the biggest trap that could possibly exist … Do not try to put nice white lights around your garbage and sit there and say, ‘I’m pure’. That is spiritual ego.” — Michael Singer
“There should be no cage. The soul is infinite … Decorating your cage with beautiful experiences, fond memories, and great dreams is not the same as going beyond. A cage by any other name is still a cage. You must be willing to go beyond.” — Michael Singer
“What are you having a problem with? What you’re going to find out is you’re having a problem with your mind. Your mind has decided what you want to be happening and what you don’t want to be happening, and that’s what you’re having a problem with.” — Michael Singer
“The cause of suffering is that you have a way you want it to be … The cause of suffering is that you decided how you want it to be and now you suffer when it’s not that way … You honestly believe that you get to make up what the moment in front of you should be like and that it really should be that way, and you get upset when it’s not that way, and therefore you suffer. — Michael Singer — Michael Singer
Michael Singer Quotes on Awareness & Witness Consciousness
“There is an alternative way of life and what it says is: if you are in there, and you are, then you are not the hurting heart, it is just something you’re experiencing. You are not the disturbed mind, it is something you’re experiencing.” — Michael Singer
“Take the seat of objective observation and notice what is going on inside. Don’t judge what’s going on inside. Don’t decide what’s supposed to be going on inside. Just notice … You realize that you are not that part; you are the one who’s noticing that … The only part that is safe and consistent is you who’s noticing … You just notice that you’re noticing.” — Michael Singer
“Your relationship to what you see is always one of subject-object. You are the subject, and what you are looking at is the object. There are many different objects coming in through your senses, but there’s only one subject experiencing them—You … You have become separate from who you are because you’re busy paying attention to the object of consciousness instead of your seat of consciousness.” — Michael Singer
“Start with what we call ‘witness consciousness’ … You are always the witness. You are always there … The highest growth and the one that really leads to deep spirituality is, ‘I’m the witness’ … I’m talking about the deepest state. I’m in the witness. I see what’s going on.” — Michael Singer
“Don’t ever misunderstand what’s meant by objective observation or witness consciousness. It is not something you do, it is not an act of will, it is not a place you go—it is the state of being aware of what is going on inside your mind … You are not in your mind. You’re sitting on the couch of Self watching the mind just like you sit on the couch and watch the TV … Whatever the mind is saying, you are watching that.” — Michael Singer
Michael Singer Quotes on Surrender & Letting Go
Pair with: Hot Air Balloon Metaphor: A Simple Story of Surrender (Michael Singer Excerpt)
“When it’s all said and done, and you get to that edge where you feel energy pulling you in and you’re approaching the high states, there’s only one thing that’s going to take you across and that’s surrender—the complete letting go of your will, of your concepts, of your views, of your practices, everything. It’s just a melting into the absolute, a melting into the higher. That in the end is the highest state. Everyone taught that: Christ taught that, Buddha taught that, they all taught that. You need to just completely let go of yourself.” — Michael Singer
“Surrender is the highest place, letting go is the highest state. Once you learn to do that it all takes care of itself all by itself … You always let go. There is never ever a time that the highest dharmic right thing to do is not let go … It is always the highest thing to do to let go.” — Michael Singer
“There’s no duality in any way, shape, or form. I find that it’s always coming from the same place if you are willing to let go of your personal self … Christ said, ‘You must die to be reborn.’ That is exactly what we’re talking about. You let go of the personal self … It’s not that your consciousness expands, it ceases to contract … As you let go of yourself, you start to experience the nature of who you are.” — Michael Singer
“There’s this fount of inspiration and creativity that’s always flowing inside of you, and it connects with what’s unfolding outside. It’s almost as if they’re coming from the same place. I always feel that’s what Lao Tzu meant by the Tao—that there’s a way in which the unfolding of the world in front of you and what is going on at the depth of your being are coming from the same place, and they are really the same thing, and you just surrender to that and you allow this fount of beautiful creative inspiring energy to interact with the beauty, no matter how ugly it is, of creation exists in front of you.” — Michael Singer
“Learn to stay open no matter what happens. If you do, you get for free what everybody else is struggling for: love, enthusiasm, excitement, and energy.” — Michael Singer
Michael Singer Quotes on Liberation & Self-Realization
“‘Hi, are you in there?’ Then the question is, ‘Who is aware that they are in there?’ Our tendency is to think that I am the body—I am this package of body, and mind, and emotions … Self-realization, in its simplest sense, is to say you have realized who is in there—you have realized that you are not your mind, you are not your emotions, you are not your body … Self-realization is that you have returned to the seat of being.” — Michael Singer
“The higher Self has freed itself of the bondage of the lower self by doing what? By knowing it’s not ‘me’, and I don’t have to spend my time servicing it. I can rest back into the nature of my being. That’s the beginning of true self-realization and true liberation.” — Michael Singer
“If you’ve worked enough on yourself, you don’t need anything, you’re not looking for anything. It’s like the joy of interacting with life is what feeds you … You are complete and whole within yourself. You need nothing.” — Michael Singer
“If you are fulfilled, you don’t sit there and think what do I need in order to be okay … If you are living every experience fully, then death doesn’t take anything from you. There’s nothing to take because you’re already fulfilled. That’s why the wise being is always ready to die.” — Michael Singer
“All of a sudden you realize life is so simple: it unfolds in front of you, and you dance with it … The highest life you can live is that every single moment that unfolds in front of you is better off because it did.” — Michael Singer
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