The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself Kindle Edition

I read the audio version of this book multiple times, bought copies of it for clients, and shared it with friends. Never have I read a book that so radically transformed the way I think. It was remarkably freeing to become so aware of how much I allowed my own thoughts to run my life. After reading Michael's book, I simply allowed irrelevant, erroneous, totally made up thoughts to just float on by without attaching my emotions to them. THAT was freeing!

Most human beings are completely unaware that most of the thoughts in our mind are complete untrue. YET, we believe them, follow them, become emotionally entangled in them, allow them to change our mood, allow them to change our behavior.

This book was also freeing in the sense that I let go of needing others to behave in a certain way in order for me to be OK. The reason I was't OK had nothing to do with anyone outside myself. It was a miraculous shift within me (to say the very least), when I realized I was trying to manipulate outside circumstances for me to feel OK in life.

When I realized the shift needed to be made within ME for me to be OK in life, total game changer! I let everyone off the hook and stepped into unconditional peace and unconditional joy! Have you ANY idea what life is like when your own peace/joy is totally UNCONDITIONAL? It means you don't need anyone to change or be different for you to be happy. It means no-one outside yourself controls how you FEEL. It means you're no longer an emotional puppet on the string of everyone else's behavior, attitudes, decisions, choices, etc. YOU feel inner joy/peace no matter what. Hello?! Total game changer!

I LOVED the audio version of the book because the person who read it was perfect for the content. Not to mention the ability to hit replay a million times on the parts that were SO transformative.

This was a unique book. I've read TONS of other books on similar topics but the way Michael conveyed the material was unique and different and I really GOT IT! Thank you Michael Singer for the growth, expansion, and transformations you inspired within my very soul. My soul now largely "untethered" from the constant (and mostly irrelevant) chatter of the mind. :) I am a new person as a result of this book (and a few other audios I purchased from Michael's website which expanded upon what he taught in the book).

Some of the points made in The Untethered Soul are:
1. Happiness can only be found within.
2. The mind is not the place to look for happiness.
3. Learn to relax and stay open no matter what.
4. Identify yourself as the observer. Do not identify with the experiences you are observing.
5. You are not the voices in your head. You are the listener.
6. Facing the fact of bodily death can help you to realize that all of the observed is temporary.
7. Do not allow painful experiences from the past to influence the present.
8. Your thoughts are not you. You are the observer, not the thoughts.
9. If you want a life full of joy and love you must make a commitment to having a life full of joy and love.
10. Learn how to live from your heart, not from your ego.
11. Take refuge in the Divine, not in the temporary.
12. Peace is always within.
13. Learn to control your mind, do not let the mind control you.
14. It is possible to never have a problem in your life again.

The Untethered Soul is my second most favorite book on the subject of how to transcend the ego and how to realize the true Self and directly experience that perfect infinite consciousness that has only joy and love and has no suffering.

My most favorite book on that subject is THE SEVEN STEPS TO AWAKENING which is a collection of quotes by these seven authors: 1. Ramana Maharshi. 2. Nisargadatta Maharaj. 3. Sankara. 4. Vasistha. 5. Sadhu OM. 6. Muruganar. 7. Annamalai Swami.

I wanted to like this book! It is clearly one that has resonated with so many people and changed lives, but sadly it fell completely flat with me. I kept hoping that at one point it would start to resonate, but it did not. I believe these are some of the reasons why -

1. I'm suspicious of authors who claim it is possible to live life free of worries, problems, and unhappiness. This author makes such claims throughout the book and many times indicates that freedom from suffering should be the goal of the spiritual journey. I see life and the spiritual journey differently, and though I do believe we all should strive for a happier life and a more peaceful spirit, I don't believe it is desirable to live without some unhappiness, some worries, some fears. We need to experience and honor both the dark and the light in order to live in balance. That is my view at any rate, and this book did not make a strong enough case for me to change it.

2. Contradictions. The author contradicts himself many times, but more importantly doesn't indicate any awareness that he has contradicted himself. In one chapter he is claiming that God only likes to be around happy people, but in a later chapter he points out that God does not judge, that the sun shines equally on us all, etc. Confusing, right? Thus, while the author makes many statements throughout that I agree with, he also constantly is making other statements that contradict previous ones, giving me the impression that he is just writing a stream of consciousness of statements cherry-picked to resonate with a broad range of spiritual-enlightenment-seekers, without much regard to whether those statements gel together to form a cohesive whole. Which brings me to. . .

3. Structure. To me the book reads like a long-winded, disorganized, repetitive lecture on how the reader should be living his life. While there may be many helpful suggestions and kernels of wisdom sprinkled throughout, the lack of structure, evidence, and strategies for how to go about actually doing what the author is suggesting really rubbed me the wrong way. For me, these types of commands - "just open" or "just do it" or "let go of fear" - are never helpful. These types of life-suggestions happen on every single page, as if it just takes reading the words enough times to know how to actually go about doing things that take enormous amounts of courage and practice. I need help with the how, and I found this book was like a list of ingredients with no recipe, assuming that the reader was already an experienced chef.

Perhaps the book is simply not written in a way that speaks to me. As I said at the beginning, it has clearly resonated with many, and so I feel badly giving it such a poor review. If the book has helped you to find happiness and live a more peaceful life, then wonderful! I would not want to take that away from anyone, but sadly, it is not the book for me.