The Untethered Soul

Michael A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, originally published in 2007, is a spiritual self-help book about living life from the point of view of centered consciousness. Identifying with the nonstop chaos of thinking, emotion, and stimulus in our minds causes most of our problems, and Singer offers insight about how to identify as pure awareness and simply notice our experiences pass by without identifying with them. He discusses how our levels of happiness and energy are directly related to staying centered and keeping our hearts open all the time. The publication of The Untethered Soul marked Singer as an important figure in spiritual self-help literature; it became a New York Times bestseller after he gave an interview to Oprah Winfrey about the book. Singer’s other works include The Search for Truth (1974), The Surrender Experiment (2015), and Living Untethered (2022). This guide refers to the original 2007 edition of the book published by New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Summary

Singer opens Part 1 with a reflection about the endless and confusing chatter inside our heads. By default, we filter raw experience through a haze of thinking so we can feel in control and comfortable with reality, but we should try not to identify ourselves with this inner voice. The solution to most of our problems is to realize that we are not our problems; we are a witness to these experiences. Singer characterizes this inner chatter as a bad roommate who never shuts up.

By asking ourselves the question “Who are you?” and peeling away all of the superficial answers to this question (one’s name, one’s relationship to other people, one’s experiences), we come to find that the essential “you” that remains is simply a being who is aware, who sees, and is conscious. This inner witness is similar to the self in Buddhism or the soul in Christianity. Instead of watching the world from the seat of consciousness, most people spend their lives lost in object-consciousness or identifying with the world and its problems. True meditation is not simply the ability to be aware that one is watching the world go by but also the ability to make consciousness itself the object of our awareness. Mastering this leads to a true understanding of the nature of the Self.

Part 2 opens with a discussion of the unlimited inner energy we all have. We often choose to block access to this infinite energy by closing ourselves off when we encounter unpleasant situations. Choosing to stay closed is a habit that can be broken; we can choose to stay open forever and experience a maximum of love and joy. Singer focuses on the heart, an incredible and misunderstood energy center that allows energy to flow through, but which is often blocked. Blocked hearts store energy patterns that get released through triggers in our life and immediately affect our mood.

The price of freedom is being willing to experience pain when the world disturbs and hurts us, including the willingness to confront fear. Holding on to inner blockages causes people to live a life based on fear. When this happens, one’s existence becomes dedicated to arranging life to protect oneself from experiencing problems instead of living freely. Refusing to let go of problems and manifesting them in the world creates a negative cycle that comes back to hurt you and can cause a lifelong spiral of misery. Singer uses the analogy of a thorn to show how inner blockages end up governing our lives. If you have a painful thorn sticking out of your body, you have the choice of either setting up your life in such a way that nothing can ever touch the painful thorn, or you can choose to remove the thorn once and for all.

It is possible to decide not to suffer anymore. The mind spends all day trying to solve all of our problems, and it is our job to understand that we do not need life’s problems solved in order to be happy. We must stop demanding that our minds fix our problems for us. Freedom comes when we can simply witness the mind going in circles from the point of view of centered awareness and not identify with this endless supply of problems and solutions. Furthermore, If we decide to close ourselves around our suffering instead of letting the pain go, we can build up layers of sensitivities around the core of our pain which make everyday situations uncomfortable.

Singer compares the thoughts and emotions that whip around our minds to a house that we’ve built in the middle of a vast field. We grow comfortable in that house and spend all our time in there, forgetting that there is a beautiful bright world outside. Instead, we try to create our own artificial light inside our self-made house. Moving past one’s mental boundaries means being willing to leave one’s comfort zone. Singer offers a choice: spend your life trying to remain comfortable or work toward freedom. Spirituality is a commitment to going beyond, to push through the edges of our mental barriers until one day we’ve trained our minds well enough to inhabit the boundless infinity every moment of our lives.

Our psyches are constructed through the act of clinging or holding onto emotions, thoughts, and energy flows that would otherwise pass through us. Freedom comes when we become comfortable with psychological pain and simply watch the feelings of fear and loneliness that arise from the point of view of centered awareness. Choosing unconditional happiness is a commitment to keeping an open heart even when things are bad. We resist the events of life through our willpower, which is a force created by the concentration of our Self onto a specific object. Singer notes that this resistance is a waste of energy: To achieve freedom, one should accept everything that happens and deal with events without resistance.

Singer urges readers to be grateful for death because it gives life meaning and teaches us how to live. Living with a deep appreciation of death means living every moment as fully as possible and prioritizing deep experiences instead of wishing for more time on this Earth. Chapter 18 discusses The Tao, or “The Way” as explained in the Tao Te Ching. Tao is about the harmony of all the different balance points in our lives; it’s about not wasting any energy living at the extremes of life, but instead using our energy to maintain a balanced path forward. The final chapter explains that we all have a connection to the Divine, and that when we look through the loving eyes of God, all judgments disappear. It is only possible to know God through personal experience rather than through books, and when we merge with God we come to know his transcendental love, which shines on everybody whether or not they choose to acknowledge it.