A Profound Expansion Of Love

In this profound talk, Tiger explores the nature of pain, forgiveness, and love. He invites us to see things on different levels, to become curious about our own growth, and to acknowledge the pain that comes with being human.

Please note: This audio is ripped from a video.

Transcript

To,

To see that.

And again,

We're going to see it on different levels.

Like oh yeah,

That's cute.

All the way to holy shit.

To see it is such an invitation to just be still for a second.

Because there's so much inner drama,

Restriction and tension that's predicated on the belief that it's out there.

That it's happening.

And in the stillness to see that,

I feel like it presents at least a little bit of a window that lets some light in.

Maybe in some people's circumstance we would call that hope.

That what I'm bothered by,

What I'm experiencing tension about,

Is fueled by my belief that something's happening that's not really happening.

So I wonder if I can become open to embracing the truth of things that it's not really happening.

Or do I just really want it to be happening even though it's sufferable?

That's an interesting question.

Why would I believe something's happening when I see that it's not happening?

I wonder if there's some truth that I actually want it to be happening.

Maybe not consciously,

But subconsciously.

And there's something to be said about that,

Actually.

There is really something to be said about that.

Because we can often put ourselves in situations in an effort to keep ourselves safe,

But really is just keeping ourselves small.

It's like the mechanism of blame.

We can blame others as an easy way of avoiding radical responsibility for our own creation.

Why would I blame others when if I look at it,

It's very clearly not about them?

Because it's more painful to realize that it's about me.

And so I will disempower myself so that I don't have to come to terms with that.

And I'll just put it on someone else.

And then maybe that will help me breathe.

And it might for a little while.

And you see,

And that's not even necessarily you consciously doing that.

That's an unconscious pattern of conditioning.

So it's not so much true that it's you doing that.

That's what's happening.

And it's beautiful.

And you know what?

It's funny.

Watch what happens.

Watch what happens when you buy into the idea that it's you that's doing that.

It creates a little bit of tension.

Almost like it's personal.

But it's not.

It's just what's happening.

You're watching the character of you unfold.

Unfold its conditioning.

And in the unfolding of that conditioning,

There's going to be an awareness that wakes up and starts to say,

Hey,

What's going on here?

This doesn't make any sense.

And then you become curious.

And then you start watching the unfolding rather than identifying with the unfolding.

And then that's where real growth happens.

Again,

The real growth happens beyond the judgment of the unfolding,

Because the judgment of the unfolding can only happen if there's identification with the unfolding.

And so without personalizing it,

Without attaching yourself in the story about what's happening and to just observe what's happening,

It's just curious.

It's like,

Wow,

This is interesting.

But I mean,

My goodness,

At least we can acknowledge that.

Yeah.

I mean,

I know it's tough sometimes.

I know it's difficult.

But maybe we can just acknowledge what's happening.

Like oh,

There's identification happening.

And again,

In a real way,

Of course that's happening.

Of course the identification is happening,

Because that's the conditioning.

Of course it would be doing that.

That's what we do as human beings,

Where we're at right now.

And so we can either judge that,

Or we can open up to a profound compassion for that and understanding for that.

Again,

I tell this analogy all the time,

Because it's so amazing.

I mean,

Imagine a child comes to you with their conditioning of taking something personally and their feelings are really hurt.

Do you say,

That's not true.

What's wrong with you?

No.

You say,

Oh my goodness,

I understand.

I've been there.

I know what it's like.

Come here,

Let me hold you.

And you don't hold them in an effort to fix the confusion.

You hold them because you know it's okay,

That it's just a confusion.

It's like it's just a dream.

And so let me hold you in such a way that invites you to see that everything's okay.

And as beautiful as that illustration is,

It's even more beautiful to recognize that it's pointing to the relationship you have with yourself on this journey.

And it's,

Again,

It's very much like the relationship dynamic that speaks to the primary opportunity between a child and a parent.

It's like the opportunity is for real love to be discovered,

Right?

Like the confused relationship between the parent and the child.

The parent says,

I need you to be how I want you to be so that I can feel like a good parent because I want my friends to think I'm cool.

I want society to think I'm doing a good job.

And so in order to get society's approval,

I need you to look like this and I need you to act like this.

You're my child,

You're going to do what I say so that I can feel like I'm in control.

That's not love.

That's not love.

And then over time,

During all the suffering and the struggling,

There's a monumental breakdown and then the parent collapses into a profound rawness of their humanness and they realize I've been wrong about the whole thing.

I'm sorry.

I haven't loved you in the way that I wanted to love you.

I was scared.

I was scared of being rejected.

I was scared of not being seen.

And in my confusion,

In that fear,

I couldn't love you well.

I'm sorry.

Do you see how life points us towards this discovery?

Life points us in a direction of loving well.

It's the whole point.

And this is the same thing with our relationship with ourselves.

Everything I just said about the parent-child dynamic,

It's the same for the relationship with the self.

I want you to be like this,

I want you to look like that,

I want you to go here,

Don't go there,

Da da da da da da da da.

And it's not even about that.

And that's for all of the enormous amount of silly ideas that are as silly as the parent wanting to be approved of by the other women in the social club.

Or the other men on the golf course.

Just to be stereotypical about it.

Naturally,

The question is,

What if they never get to that point of breaking down?

Here's something that might make that incredibly easy.

It's not about them.

It's about you and your breakdown.

As much as we want other people to see it,

That's not the journey.

The journey for the one that's having the journey,

The journey is about that one.

The journey is not about deciding what is somebody else's journey.

Again,

Completely understandable.

And I say that because it's very,

Not only is it difficult,

But it's impossible to understand somebody else's journey.

In another way,

It can be said that there isn't ever not the breakdown,

Because the breakdown happens every day.

It happens every day in the form of disturbance.

This is a miniature breakdown that also comes with the same invitation.

And in some profound way,

I'd also suggest that the big breakdown is coming eventually.

But it doesn't look how the mind wants it to look.

It doesn't look like our perception of reality.

It doesn't fit in it in that context.

It's like the fulfillment of the primary lesson of being human will not be ignored.

The evolution of that primary opportunity will not be denied.

And to illustrate that meaning,

That even if somebody lives a quote-unquote terrible life,

There's still the fulfillment of life's purpose,

Which is for more love to be seen.

Even though that love might be outside of the scope of your spectrum,

Given your life experience.

But to their life experience,

There is the same play of expansion and contraction,

Exposing some discovery that can only be seen behind their eyes,

Given their journey.

So life is exploring all of these different paths,

All of these different walks of life,

All of these different hardships,

To find out where the love is.

And that's how love expands.

In order for love to keep expanding,

Which is also like saying in order for life to go on,

Life has to seek out where love seems to be lacking.

Because where else is love going to expand other than where love is yet to be seen?

And so as you travel those dark paths,

Those difficulties,

Those things that seem like they shouldn't be happening,

There is a profound opportunity to discover an extraordinary amount of love.

Even though beforehand that seems totally impossible.

And we've all had that experience.

We've all had the experience of going through a really shitty experience,

Wondering what the fuck,

And then to reflect back,

There's the,

Oh shit,

I didn't see that.

I'm sorry.

That sorry is love's expansion.

My goodness.

And it's not supposed to be easy.

It's really not.

Because in the fire that comes with being human,

The pain,

Even though we add a tremendous amount of resistance to it,

It's part of the growth process.

You cannot grow as a human without experiencing pain.

You cannot.

You cannot not get hurt.

Because in the hurt is the pointer.

Just like touching a hot stove.

How many times has that come out of my mouth?

I should probably find a new example.

Oh,

There's another example that I use a lot.

I'll switch to that.

It's like grabbing a rose that's full of thorns.

It hurts.

And what is the pain saying?

It's not for you.

Those thorns are saying I'm not meant to be grabbed.

And if you keep grabbing,

It's going to hurt.

And so the pain and see,

And this is,

This is so great because look,

Look at that pain of grabbing a stem that's full of thorns.

Yes,

It hurts.

Yes,

It invites you to let go.

And the pain is incredibly temporary.

It comes and goes.

It comes to serve a lesson and you get the lesson.

And then the pain goes.

The pain hangs around when you're not getting the lesson.

And that's not a judgment.

That's an invitation to see the urgency in the inquiry.

There's pain,

Then there is something that's really asking for your attention.

And what we are so good at doing as human beings is finding ways to avoid that pain,

To numb that pain,

To distract ourselves from that pain.

Because we don't want to look at it.

It's such an interruption and it creates so much fear about our future.

It's like it destroys the future.

Like if we really look at the pain,

It's like this pain just reminds me that the future is unknown.

Well,

Yeah,

That's part of the truth that we're invited to look at.

And resisting the unknown is also like holding a rose stem that's full of thorns.

You see that?

The resisting the unknown,

To not want the unknown to be the known,

Hurts.

In the same way of grabbing a rose whose stem is full of thorns.

The pain of that says,

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

And that pain,

That pain is life saying,

I love you.

I love you.

Wake up.

In our silly humanist,

We interpret the pain putting a meaning on it that says you're less than.

It doesn't mean that.

And if you have that interpretation as pain,

Oh,

It means I'm a failure,

Then you avoid pain.

Which means we hide from it,

We numb it,

We do all these things to not listen to it.

But when you see that the fundamental nature of pain is to wake you up,

Is there to serve you,

Then when pain comes,

You get curious.

Ooh,

What's going on here?

Life is asking me to see something,

To see how I'm creating this pain by what I'm holding on to that's not mine to hold on to.

What a beautiful thing to let me know about.

I'm holding on to something that's creating pain.

And if that's true,

Then it also means I don't need to hold on to it.

Sure,

I might want to hold on to it,

But I also only think I want to hold on to it because I think I need to hold on to it.

Isn't that not the truth?

I'm holding on to it not only because I want to,

But because I think I need to.

Because I think I won't be okay without holding on to it.

My goodness.

This speaks so much to what we talked about when we started.

We are projecting meanings and the happenings of life simply isn't there.

So let's just take a moment and just forgive ourselves,

Really.

Let's not forgive ourselves as if we did something bad.

That's so funny.

That was what the talk was about this morning,

Was about forgiveness,

Just spontaneously and seeing how we think forgiveness is forgiving something that was bad,

When really forgiveness is seeing that there's nothing to forgive.

Seeing something that's bad is forgiveness that's tied to a judgment.

And if there's judgment,

Then there's no forgiveness.

So that equation doesn't work at all.

Forgiveness is realizing that what I thought was happening wasn't really happening.

And in that,

There's nothing to forgive.

And I understand it gets so scary and so confusing sometimes.

But you know what exacerbates that?

You know what makes that worse?

Is not taking care of ourselves.

That's important.

You know what?

Put it this way.

How well do you function when you don't get enough sleep?

Right?

When you don't take care of yourself in that regard,

Which is to let yourself rest,

Let the body sleep,

It needs to sleep.

If you deny that fundamental care of your being,

Do you notice how your system starts to break down?

You can't think straight?

There isn't the energy to enjoy?

Everything gets on your nerves?

And that just makes everything worse.

And so if it is rather difficult,

You might investigate in what ways are you not taking care of yourself?

In what ways are you poisoning yourself?

In what ways are you contributing to a non-optimal state of being?

Again,

Not as a judgment,

Not as a should or shouldn't.

But what's happening?

You know,

As a playful example,

Because this visual comes in my head.

I mean,

Imagine you're a pot smoker,

Right?

You like smoking the weed and you have a job and you get really stoned and you go to work and you're like,

I can't function very well.

This isn't working.

Right?

So you've put something in you to relax,

To maybe avoid something,

Maybe.

And you're trying to function,

But you can't function very well.

And so it's not like a judgment that says you shouldn't smoke pot.

It's a question of how's it going?

And then we can just acknowledge,

Oh,

That doesn't seem to be helping.

But I can't seem to stop.

Well,

That's interesting,

Isn't it?

And then it's super interesting to watch the difficulty in stopping it,

Because there's a pain that arises that really needs to be avoided.

And there's all sorts of things that can really help you avoid that pain that shows up.

And we are so super creative and maybe not so original in the ways that we do that.

In this moment,

I'm reminded of my friend with the chocolate addiction.

And for her,

Chocolate is a fantastic way to run from that.

And then the next day she says,

Oh,

Why do I feel like shit?

Because you ate half a kilo of chocolate,

My dear.

Might have something to do with it.

You see,

And it's funny.

It's actually very sweet and very adorable.

It doesn't have to be a should or shouldn't thing.

It's just,

Let's just pay attention.

Because I would be willing to bet that you actually want to feel good.

That you actually want to feel alive.

To the point where the cells in your body are celebrating being alive,

Even if those cells don't form the shape that you think they should.

I bet you there's still a willingness in those cells to celebrate life.

This is so playfully and immediately important.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Not for the rest of your life,

But just right now.

Wake up.

Take a deep breath.

And you know,

I'm not implying that you should change everything and fix everything.

No,

When you can see that it's playful in nature,

You just start where you are and do what you can.

Little things.

Little I love you's.

Little I'm sorry's.

Little thank you's.

Little your welcomes.

Present ones.

We can come back to ourselves and release the world.

We can release other people.

We can come home to our own life and finally take care of ourselves.

Finally give ourselves the love that we've been looking for our whole life.

Realizing that,

Oh man,

No one else can do it.

No one else is going to do it.

It's up to me.

As we go through life and as things change,

We can get so scared that we're never going to find that love in the world.

Which is almost like saying we're never going to get what we want.

You know what,

My friends?

I think there's a profound truth to that.

That we're never going to get what we want in the world.

Because what we want underneath our want isn't in the world.

Because what we want underneath all of those wants in the world is love.

And you might stumble upon a facade of it,

A synthetic version,

An ephemeral cloud.

But it's always going to slip through the fingers in some way or another.

And you're going to be right back to this very moment called life with you.

On your journey.

On your very unique journey that no other human being will ever experience.

What an adventure,

Huh?

That no other human being has or will have the journey that you're having.

Yes,

Granted,

They're all the same journey.

But my oh my,

How diverse and unique they are.

Life has asked you to take this journey.

And I know it might seem like a curse at times.

But that's only there to expose profound blessing.

Which will give rise to another curse.

And expose another blessing.

Round and around we go.

And when we see that that's okay,

Then we don't have to fight it,

We don't have to resist it.

We can just enjoy the show.

Let's open the eyes of our heart.

And see what's really happening.

Love you.

Reviews

Thank you, Tiger

Yeahhh, Holy Shit! Yep. Making more room for love to be seen, again & again. You know friend, the parent/child example resonated...umm, yeah. Always deepest gratitude for sharing with us, while you share with yourself 😉 Love you 💜💫