Book Summary - 1/52 - AN UNTETHERED SOUL: THE JOURNEY BEYOND YOURSELF

My most recent read, An Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself (2007) is an engaging read that focuses on what it means to free yourself from limitations, exploring people’s relationship with their thoughts and the spiritual source of their energy. A striking early metaphor is the human dichotomic inner presence:

The experiencer of things, full of drama, with a never-ending dialogue, who spins whatever narratives necessary to establish & maintain a comfortable place to process & control reality, trying to protect us by creating a relationship with the world, who sometimes says things we like or feel aligned with but often says things that upset us or leave us feeling drained, and

The observer, who is capable of stepping back to make measured assessments

Singer suggests that we draw power from staying in the timeless state of the observer and separating ourselves from the monkey mind, asking us how long such a voice would be allowed access to our energy if they were a roommate, considering how persistently obnoxious & reality-blinding it can be.

I know people say there’s nothing new under the sun, that the same truths are just being said in new ways appealing to different people at a certain place on the inward journey: if so, this book certainly appealed to me in mine, especially in its investigation, over five sections, into awareness as something central to consciousness: I’ve been concentrating recently on introducing intentionality in more areas of my life, and I certainly agree that our ability to observe ourselves is what allows us to let go of pain - if only we’re willing to put in the work.

PART 1 - AWAKENING CONSCIOUSNESS

The notion of self & the inner dialogue that all of us live with

CHAPTER 1: THE VOICE INSIDE YOUR HEAD

• Your constant inner dialogue, trying to make sense of the world, roots your experience of life more in your thoughts about reality than in reality itself.
• You is what you want to change, but when the voice is you & the listener is you, you get stuck in a loop.
• Power comes from remembering that you’re not the voice, so often a source of anxiety - you’re the one noticing the voice.

CHAPTER 2: THE INNER ROOMMATE

• When encountering problems, a worldly person asks “what should I do about it?” and satisfies themselves temporarily with a plan & its outcome. A spiritual person asks “which part of me is having the problem?” and separates that part to change & let go of it.
• Imagine the disturbed part as your roomate. Spend the day with them. Don’t try to shut them up - consciously observe their neurotic rambles, how they leave you feeling: if this were an external person, would you want them in your life?

CHAPTER 3: WHO AM I?

• Looking outside the window, you immediately notice a myriad of details. If you had to actively describe it, think of how much more energy it would take! Your consciousness is capable of awareness beyond what your logical mind can verbalise.
• Internal and external forces compete for your attention constantly. Remind yourself you are not these hectic thoughts, but an observer. As you contemplate, you become aware that you have some qualities. That is awareness & intuitive sense that you exist.
• Who am I? I am the one who sees, without attachments, I observe. This centre, this home from where you watch, that is the seed inside you.

CHAPTER 4: THE LUCID SELF

• Consciousness is self-awareness. Amongst a mental landscape constantly bombarded with stimuli, you need focus. If you can be aware that you’re observing the world, any thought that rises is just a thought.
• When you’re invested in a movie, it attracts all five of your senses: you experience anxiety at a high-stakes action scene, mouth-watering at a buffet scene - most of your awareness is directed towards that movie’s world, therefore your existence outside of it is limited in that moment. The same thing happens every time your senses get so engaged in the external world that you forget your separateness from it. When you are centred, focused on being, your consciousness is always aware of being conscious: you awaken.

PART 2 - EXPERIENCING ENERGY

experience of energy as it flows through you and how to open your heart to the energy of experience that permeates your life

CHAPTER 5: THE INFINITE ENERGY

• The effort we spend on our thoughts comes from an infinite source of intuitive energy in our heart. The best way to keep this source open is to never close it, which means choosing to react positively to sources that you consider negative.

CHAPTER 6: THE SECRETS OF A SPIRITUAL HEART

• Experiences that the body is unable to leave beyond through logical or emotional reasoning tend to get stuck as impressions, called samskara, which add up to form a certain bias conception of the world; filtered glasses, or pre-established assumptions through which you’ve unconsciously decided to view things before you even step into a situation, forming future impressions in turn.
• Positive samskara release positive energy: unending inspiration, unending love! But it was stored with pain, it will come out with pain. You can either change the entire world so that it doesn’t stimulate your samskara, or you can let it go.

CHAPTER 7: TRANSCENDING THE TENDENCY TO CLOSE OUR HEART & ENERGY FIELD

• Hundreds of thousands of years ago, survival instincts were vital to our every interaction. But even in an evolved contemporary landscape without such external threats, you naturally withdraw when you’re scared, to protect yourself, and hyper-sensitivity to how the world may impact you constricts your ability to freely draw upon the great asset that is your heart.
• The reward of making an effort to loosen your grip on extreme impulses towards self-preservation is freedom! When your chest starts feeling tight, it’s time to stop talking and go within. Most people go outside - they fight, become defensive. Being centred means letting these thoughts pass by.

PART 3 - FREEING YOURSELF

ways to overcome tendencies to close down to the rest of the world

CHAPTER 8: LET GO OR FALL

• Most of us end up fighting with others when things are not the way we want them to be: if you disturb me, I will make you so sorry that you would wish you had never done it! And I will extort promises from you however I can to not do it again. But I will be watching so carefully that I will distrust the fabric of reality itself to create that situation where you will mess up again & make yourself an object of my wrath. 
• How do you make it better? When things hit you, immediately let it go. You have already been impacted by all the stuff that you have not been able to let go of from the past: why accumulate more? If you don’t let go, the energy of your consciousness is drawn away from more noble pursuits.

CHAPTER 9: REMOVING YOUR INNER THORN

• Reframe your problems as opportunities for growth. When you see something as a thorn in your side, it ends up running your entire life, interfering with every movement and decision you make. Everything you do is to propel yourself away from it, to safeguard yourself. What you really need is to let go of the thorn. The thorn can be removed.

CHAPTER 10: STEALING FREEDOM FOR YOURSELF

• People suffer because they have never known what it’s like not to suffer. You’re either suffering or worrying about suffering someday or trying to control the environment to stop suffering. That constant inner talk is suffering.
• Look at your past. The thoughts that bothered you then are the thoughts that bother you now! Things you wanted, REALLY wanted - when you got them, did it quench every desire, quell all problems? Of course not! You’ve given your mind an unending task - to fix the world to solve your inner problems.
• It’s not your job to fight everything your mind says - just stop participating in its games; its tantrums & screaming fits! Separate yourself. Sit back.

CHAPTER 11: PAIN, PRICE OF FREEDOM

• Let’s say fear of rejection is your main problem. Even if true rejections are few & far in between, you will focus on the possibility of rejection in each situation, limiting your experiences and making the world seem far scarier than it is. You will tie a rope around your fear of rejection and willingly drag it around your life like it protects you. Before even giving things a try, there will inherently be more rejection in your perception of reality than in somebody else’s. You will choose to see, even attract, the opposite of success, and that pain will drive your life.
• You don’t see it on a day-to-day basis - only looking back over wasted years, or on certain striking moments. On a day-to-day basis, you may only be aware of the more surface impacts of your fear. For example, your fear of rejection may lead you to establish a certain appearance, and if someone were to say something about your clothes, you would immediately feel as if you had been rejected in some way. Even if it’s about something as superficial as clothes!
• Imagine how tiring a life-full of this would be. Think of how big the universe is and how small these grievances are. Are you going to build a life around running from experiences that might bring pain? Or around creating experiences that will bring joy?
• Pain is a fact, just a thing, just a part of the world. If you can’t let go of the possibility of encountering it, it will become part of your psyche. Go and touch that scared part of you. Relax it. Let it go.

PART 4 - GOING BEYOND

enlightenment and the embrace of universal consciousness

CHAPTER 12: TAKING DOWN THE WALLS

• Unless you take the time to understand your inner voice by observing yourself, escaping the constant bombardment of our mental landscape by experiences feels like an impossible task. But as an observer, away from it all, our consciousness can be untethered, going beyond the confines of our mind.
• The barriers around you exist because what’s on the other side of them once hurt you and in order to be safe, you felt you needed to create them. But oftentimes, when you live with them for a really long time, you no longer even remember why you have that barrier. What if someone challenges the concepts you’ve built around you? If you allow the walls to be cracked open, what will come up will usually be better than whatever the walls were made of, whatever fear drove them into place, or whatever bricks you’ve stared at for so long instead of straight through to the world.

CHAPTER 13: FAR FAR BEYOND

• We select many walls to create a conceivable life within which we can be comfortable, finding a sense of control in finite, defensible ground. Whatever doesn’t align with this conception is labelled bad.
• Some see this as protection - I see it as a cage. You can decorate it, but it will always be smaller than what we can be. To escape, you have to be willing to consider that what you know is not true. There is a world beyond your ontology, free of your comfort-zone limits. The infinite soul belongs there.

CHAPTER 14: LETTING GO OF FALSE SOLIDITY

• In a world full of uncertainty, we fight feeling lost by clinging to passing objects or thoughts to create an island of solidity from whence we draw certainty, something to focus our consciousness on, something to define ourselves by.
• In order to stop this, we need to understand who is lost, who is clinging. You are not your thoughts and feelings - you are an awareness of them.
• You will never find yourself in what you have built to define yourself! You are the one who is doing the building. The same lost one who is confused and in trouble is the one who has defined the plan. This entire model that you have around yourself is the cage you are locked in. And the core element of this cage is about our interaction with the world around us. When the world acts as per our expectations, we are nice to it and feel good about it. When it is not, we feel lost! The whole thing can stop, the noise, the fear, the confusion. The passing through of these means peacefulness. There is no winning in staying stuck with the current struggle. The struggle that happens in the moment belongs to the moment. It has nothing to do with you. Just be aware that you are aware!

PART 5 - LIVING A LIFE

daily life and the pursuit of unconditional happiness.

CHAPTER 15: THE PATH TO UNCONDITIONAL HAPPINESS

• If someone asks “do you want to be happy?”, you’d say yes. Then your partner acts in a way & you’re unhappy. You make your happiness conditional to other people’s behaviour.
• You need to make a vow of happiness to which you are committed to returning constantly. Every time a part of you starts being unhappy, do what you need to do in order to let it go: quit your job, practise gratitude for what you do have, whatever. Great things will happen.

CHAPTER 16: THE SPIRITUAL PATH OF NON-RESISTANCE

• Events exist independent of us. So if we spend our energy on resisting events that have happened or will happen, it only affects us! Use this energy to let go instead, so you can observe events as they are.

CHAPTER 17: CONTEMPLATING DEATH

• Time’s scarcity is what makes it important: if you were dying in a month, how would your priorities change?

CHAPTER 18: THE SECRET OF THE MIDDLE WAY

• Is it good to eat? Yes. Is it good to eat all the time? No. Everything has two extremes. You exist between them, in a balance of yin & yang, where there is no energy pushing you in either direction. The middle is where harmony creates effortless action.

CHAPTER 19: THE LOVING EYES OF GOD

• Make love your normal state. When you start seeing everything as a part of you, you start loving everything, and that is the glimpse of ‘God’.

Final Thoughts:

This was a gem hiding in plain sight. I knew about this book since years but somehow didn't get around to it.

Just a week of finishing this book and I can see the relationship between different parts of me.

I hope reading the above makes you curious about this book - it will change your life!

Kapil