Grounded In 7 Realities Of Truth, Love, And Freedom

In the shifting worlds of thoughts, feelings, and expectations, where is the singular home for your heart, body, and mind to find peace and sanity? Often lost and discombobulated, we grasp for stability only to be met with collapse. But there is a sacred opportunity to discover an unshakable home of strength, rejuvenation, and healing. Join us on a journey into reality, where we collectively connect with the home that has always been there.

Transcript

As human beings,

We go chasing for what we think is love in the world,

Not realizing that what we're chasing is our idea of love,

Our imagination of love.

What we think it is,

What we want it to be,

What we hope it is,

What we wish it was,

Disconnected from what the reality of love actually is.

When you chase love in another person,

You're chasing your fantasy of love.

Back in all the noise.

What we think.

Isn't that funny how we think we're chasing it in another person,

But we're actually chasing it in our thoughts about that person.

So where are we really chasing it?

In the mind.

Just like everything else,

We might be chasing in what we think is the world.

What is the world other than more noise in the mind?

My inspiration for this episode comes from watching the human experience in myself and then those people that I talk to.

There's this tendency to always feel ungrounded,

Whether that's the maybe permanent sense of non-security or that anxious tendency that watches something happen beyond your control,

Or it's just the constant wondering of what's actually happening.

And as I continue to travel this journey,

I'm constantly brought back to the same fundamental discovery.

And granted,

As it relates to these spiritual matters and these spiritual words,

My goodness,

The words hit you where they hit you.

But what I'm always brought back to realize is that there's nowhere to go,

Man.

In the mind,

There's this play of seeking,

Of wanting,

Of hoping,

Of wishing all with the assumption that there's some better moment than right now,

That there's somewhere to get to,

Which also implies that there's something fundamentally missing in this moment.

And so in the most playful way as possible,

I want to take a journey with you and share what I'm playfully calling to be grounded in seven realities of love,

Truth,

And freedom.

Now understand as with everything that I share,

I'm just making all of this up,

So don't take it seriously.

This in the most beautiful way is an expression of art for me to explore the inner landscape of my own heart and find words that can point in the direction of something that I find to be extraordinarily beautiful about the human experience.

So my plan today is I'm going to go through these seven realities,

And then I'm going to read the one or two sentences that I wrote for each of them.

And after I read the sentence for each one,

I'm just going to take a pause and see if there's anything else I'd like to say about it.

Maybe it'll be a lot,

Maybe it'll be a little,

Maybe the couple sentences were enough.

We'll see.

I'm curious to see what happens here.

And then after I'm done,

We can settle in for a super short and sweet guided meditation and see where that goes.

Actually,

Let me read the introduction.

Grounded in seven realities of truth,

Love,

And freedom,

In the shifting worlds of thoughts,

Feelings,

And expectations,

Where's the singular home for your heart,

Body,

And mind to find peace and sanity?

Often lost and discombobulated,

We find ourselves grasping for stability,

Only to be met with the painful collapse of whatever it is we thought might rescue us.

Yet there is this sacred opportunity to discover a home that does not leave,

Does not collapse,

And forever will be the final source of your strength,

Rejuvenation,

And capacity to heal.

In this deep dive,

Let's take a journey into the heart of reality and collectively hold space for us to remember the home that's always been there.

We will rest and we will surrender the chaos of both mind and the world and find ourselves grounded in the reality of truth,

Love,

And freedom.

Lesson of seven,

Ancient promise.

My dear,

The something you deeply crave is neither lost,

Distant,

Nor broken.

What you seek is here,

Present,

And alive,

Rested softly within the most real parts of what you are.

I feel like I have a lot to say about this one.

We'll see how far I get.

But I love this title,

Ancient promise.

It's something that I often speak to at the beginning of retreats,

Where can we just take a moment,

Start over,

And look at the totality of this human experience in context with the totality of the human history of humans being human beings.

And what I find here is a bunch of running around,

Human beings trying to get somewhere,

Trying to accomplish something,

Running from this and running from that,

Suffering all the while through.

And yet somewhere along the path,

There's this spiritual invitation,

Even though we might not recognize it to be spiritual,

But there is this invitation that I call the ancient promise.

And naturally it's been pointed to throughout all the different spiritual traditions.

And it's ungraspable as it relates to these silly words.

But using words,

I'm going to say that the ancient promise in some way is inviting you to be still and see what's really true.

Because when I examine the chaos of my own human experience,

And again,

Those I talked to,

It's so obvious that the agitation,

The discomfort,

The tension is in result to something that we only imagined to be happening.

We think we're experiencing what's happening in life,

What we think is happening to us.

But what we're really experiencing are the imaginary monsters contained within the stories we're telling about what we're experiencing.

Like in this moment right now,

There could be anxiety,

There could be suffering,

There could be this,

That,

And the other that seems to steal the joy from your life.

But yet in the reality of this moment,

That which we blame isn't here right now.

That which seems to be at fault for our inner experience isn't a real something.

It's a play in the mind that's lost in yesterday or racing towards tomorrow.

Both of which,

Yesterday and tomorrow,

Are products of our imagination.

And another thing I find to be so fascinating,

That we can say,

Oh yeah,

There's yesterday.

And how do you find yesterday in your imagination?

You tell a story about what you think happened,

What you think it means,

Combined with 10,

000 other assumptions that you pretend are fact.

But yet none of it's here,

None of it's real.

And yet it's that which is not here,

Not alive,

That we are blaming for the dis-ease that we might be experiencing.

And same with anxiety about what may or may not be tomorrow.

It's not the reality of what may or may not be,

It's our imagination about what may or may not be and what we think it means about us.

Again,

Painting pictures of imaginary monsters that aren't really here right now.

And this of course speaks to the fundamental challenge of being human and where we find the source of all of our suffering.

Which is to not see the truth of what's actually happening.

To not be present.

To not be here in life,

Where the miracle actually is.

Where the gift is to be alive.

And this has been the pointer through it all.

Be still and know.

If you see what is true,

Then what is true will set you free.

This is the ancient promise.

And naturally,

It comes down to a question,

Are you even interested in seeing what's true?

Or are you so concerned with protecting yourself from imaginary monsters?

Are you so concerned with getting what you think you want tomorrow,

Thinking it's going to save you?

Or are you so concerned with your story about yesterday,

Thinking something went horribly wrong and shouldn't have been and if only it was different?

Or do you really want to see what's true?

As we journey through this life and we gather some experience and maturity,

This becomes more and more obvious that the enemy isn't really out there.

The enemy,

If anything,

And not even to say there really is such a thing as an enemy,

But it's our own ignorance,

Ignoring the reality of what is and being lost in some fantasy of yesterday and tomorrow.

Number two,

Beyond the noise.

In the chaos of 10,

000 stories of a mind fearful of what it cannot find is a heart that's deeply connected to the source of all that is real,

Sacred,

And true.

And this is where I just want to stop talking altogether and just be quiet and not contribute to more noise in your life,

More distraction and hope that maybe in this rested stillness,

You might see something ancient and profound.

You might see that beyond all this noise,

Beyond the mental commotion from here to there,

There is this sincerity of your precious heart,

A heart that is deeply intertwined with the heart of life.

Also recognized beyond this noise is a wellness amidst any story,

But a wellness here right now where it's seen that actually what I am is really okay.

Sure,

The mind might be lost in chaos.

The mind might be determined to figure something out that can't be figured out,

But what are you really looking for in all that commotion?

What are you really trying to figure out?

It's like we're trying to get back to a wellness,

Not realizing that wellness is already here.

In order to connect with that stillness beyond the noise,

One must be willing to surrender the noise.

Of course,

In the noise is everything you think you want,

Right?

All the anxiousness that's wrapped around think you want in the future or how you want the past to be different.

That's all noise.

And we think what we want is in the noise,

Which is also to say that we think what we want is in the imagination.

Is that what you want?

Something imaginary?

Do you want an imaginary wellness where you can pretend everything's okay because life looks how you think it's supposed to look?

Or do you want a real wellness,

A wellness where the very heart of what you are is held by the very heart of life,

That you are not separate from all that is.

The support that is extended to the ocean is the same support that holds everything that you are to know that you are a part of all of this,

That you are not forgotten.

You're not separate.

You are a part of it.

And such a discovery in one way is so obvious when we just rest in the moment and see beyond all that noise to see what I really am.

Because in the noise,

There's this character called tiger,

Yada,

Yada,

Yada,

Yada,

Yada.

Is that even real?

Or is that just part of the noise?

What am I really?

What a question to bring you to a stillness and to see that what you are is untouched by all that noise.

To see that what you are has never been touched by that noise.

And to see that,

Holy shit,

I'm okay.

I'm not missing anything.

I'm not not enough.

I'm not too much.

I'm not this and I'm not that.

More noise in the mind.

I'm simply here right now,

Rested in this miracle called life,

Held by this vast unknown that knows I don't need to get anywhere.

No sense in trying to complete that which is imaginary.

I'd much rather see the completeness of what I am for reals.

Number three of seven,

Unspeakable truth.

What is true?

Please see that the mind cannot say.

The mind cannot see that which comes before the mind moves.

Noise cannot touch silence,

Yet silence can hold space for the noise.

It's funny to me that as human beings,

We think we can find out what's true in the mind.

Right,

Because in some way we can admit that that's what we're looking for.

We're looking for what's true,

Which is also like asking,

What can I hold on to?

What can I know?

What can I know is real?

And yet without even realizing it,

We're looking for the real in the unreal.

We're looking for what's real in the imaginary,

Which is everything that comes from the mind.

How much time is spent in the mind thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking,

Oblivious to the truth of life,

To what is real.

And there's such an opportunity here for a deep dive into the nature of the mind and to see that the mind only sees the mind's content.

When you think about the bird,

You're not thinking about the bird.

You're thinking about your thoughts about what you think is a bird.

When you're thinking about another person,

You're not really thinking about the reality of another person.

You're thinking about,

You're thinking about a person.

Your ideas about the person.

You think you're thinking about the person,

But yet the person you're thinking about is your idea of that person.

You're thinking about your thinking and you're trying to find out something true about the person,

The unreal person that you're thinking about.

Even thinking about yourself.

You think you're really thinking about yourself?

No,

You're thinking about your thoughts about who you think you are.

It's so utterly contained within this imaginary world.

It's like painting a picture and trying really hard to make the picture reality.

It doesn't matter how detailed your picture is,

How many words you use to describe.

Your picture will never even begin to get close to the reality of the sunset you're painting.

You can paint 10,

000 pictures of a sunset.

It'll never be the sunset.

It's such a profound question.

What is really true?

And in that question,

What is really true?

The mind has to shut up.

We must go before the mind even moves.

Not look to the mind to give us an answer because the mind cannot give us a real answer.

If you ask the mind,

Yes,

It'll give you answers,

But it doesn't mean they're true.

In this inquiry to discover not only what is true about life,

But also what is true about you.

Are you going to find that in the mind?

Are you going to think and think and think about yourself?

Or are you going to get still and meet the reality of what you are?

Same with life.

Are you going to think and think and think about life?

Or are you going to meet life?

Which is to shut up and be still.

Such is the power of silence.

Such is the power of holding space for someone where nothing needs to be said.

And yet you can fully be there in presence and meet them as they are without anything to say.

It's like listening to a bird song.

The moment you start thinking about the bird song,

You've stopped listening to the bird song.

The moment you start thinking about life is the moment you're no longer listening to life lost in the mind.

Number four,

Love everlasting.

There is a love that permeates throughout all things.

A love that touches even the most fearful of appearances.

This love,

Unafraid,

Isn't going anywhere.

Open to its touch and let it take you.

Let it heal all that was never broken.

You see,

Adorably,

As human beings,

We go chasing for what we think is love in the world.

Not realizing that what we're chasing is our idea of love.

Our imagination of love.

What we think it is,

What we want it to be,

What we hope it is,

What we wish it was.

Disconnected from what the reality of love actually is.

When you chase love in another person,

You're chasing your fantasy of love.

Back in all the noise,

What we think.

Isn't that funny how we think we're chasing it in another person,

But we're actually chasing it in our thoughts about that person.

So where are we really chasing it?

In the mind.

Just like everything else we might be chasing in what we think is the world,

What is the world other than more noise in the mind?

You can take this moment right now and think about the world.

Is that really the world?

Are you just thinking about your thinking?

Thinking that what you're thinking is out there.

But what you're thinking is imagination.

There's no imagination in reality.

Whatever you think is out there isn't really out there.

In the most silly example,

You could be chasing a supercar and you think,

Oh man,

If only I had this supercar,

Oh gosh,

Then I could be happy.

And you think you want the thing that we're calling a supercar,

But what you want is your idea of it,

Which you think will make you important or make you special or whatever.

So what you really want is the thing in your mind.

You don't really want the thing in the world.

You want that thing to give you your idea.

So what you really want is an idea,

Which is to say what you really want is something that's not real.

What is it going to give you other than an idea about yourself that isn't really yourself?

It's just going to be another story that you can temporarily hide behind until you realize that's not working.

Now I need a bigger car or whatever.

And so the seeking continues.

Why does the seeking continue?

Because everything we're collecting isn't a real something.

We think it is.

We think it'll work.

But then you get it and it slowly evaporates.

It's not what I thought it was.

No,

It's not real.

Such is the invitation of this pointer towards love everlasting.

And my goodness,

Another deep dive on its own.

And I'm sure I've done an episode of this show that focused on the reality of what love actually is.

Love everlasting.

This love is what we're actually looking for,

Which is just another way of saying that we're looking for the truth of life,

The truth of what we are.

Because the closer you get to the truth of life,

The truth of what you are,

You start realizing that it resembles this something called love.

And maybe love is just the word we use to describe its eternal nature of acceptance and non-judgment.

This eternal embrace for every part of you that is unfailing in every way and will never not be that way.

Such is the way of everything in life by life where everything is held and allowed to be what it is.

No demand.

No expectation.

No you should this or you should that.

It's only I love you as you are.

Be what I made you to be.

Stop all this trying,

It says to the flower who tries to be a tree.

It says to the bird who wishes he was a flower.

No,

My dear,

Be what I've made you to be.

I love you as you are.

You don't need to be this.

You don't need to be that.

It's not possible for you to be anything other than what you are.

And quite obviously,

In your effort to be something that you're not,

You clearly don't see what you are.

Because of course,

If you saw the truth of what you are,

Well,

How easy it would be to forgive yourself instantly,

Which extends to an automatic forgiveness for everyone.

Such is the gift rested behind all the noise.

Number five,

Eternal freedom.

There is freedom beyond this world.

A freedom not given by another,

But a freedom that is your birthright.

Before the body is even born and long after the body dies,

This freedom is untouched by anything in between.

Once again,

Here we are invited to see the reality of something and to gently release our imagination about it.

The human being imagines freedom as having unlimited choices.

I can go anywhere I want.

I can do anything I want to do and then I'll be free.

Not realizing the complete insanity of such a thing.

This is not freedom at all.

What is real freedom if it is not to see that the truth of what you are is untouched by any appearance in this world?

Like realizing the thoughts in somebody else's mind have nothing to do with you.

That's one degree of freedom,

Is it not?

How much do we feel like a prisoner thinking about what somebody else might be thinking about us,

Bringing us to a place of internal disease?

That is not freedom.

That is being a prisoner to the content in somebody else's mind that literally has nothing to do with you because they're just thinking about their character of you.

And now I can't be myself because I've got to be what I think other people want me to be.

And so I turn into this little robot that's desperate for the world's approval,

All the while thinking it's happening on the outside,

But it's just happening in the mind because I don't see the truth of what is.

That truth being I am free.

I always was free and I will always be free.

And it's only my misunderstanding of reality confusing my imagination,

Thinking it's something that's real that's not at all.

And I stray away from the home from which I came.

And again,

In this stillness,

This is where we come back to reality and we see the truth of things to see,

Holy shit,

I am free.

I don't really need this or that to happen.

I don't need tomorrow to look a certain way.

I don't need life to do what I think it should be doing.

That's ridiculous.

I can just be.

And what a joyfulness in that being,

A joyfulness that ultimately ends up expressing itself in some way,

Expressing itself as a form of play,

Which we'll get to.

That's real freedom.

Number six,

A playful heart.

Might we remember if only for a moment,

Life is not a serious affair.

There is but only a temporary dance,

A song of remembrance,

A melody that smiles with the passing of what was,

Is and will be.

This life is not a serious affair.

Oh my goodness.

How easy is it to be convinced that life is serious?

But of course it's serious because we're afraid of not getting what we want.

Yet if we discover this space where we don't actually want anything,

Where we're not actually missing anything and the thing that we have that is so valuable can neither be taken from you nor lost,

What is there to be serious about?

Do we see all this seriousness in the mind?

I mean,

Can we for a moment,

Not be serious about the mind and see all the seriousness in the mind?

Again,

Here we are living our life.

It's like here I am.

I'm on the island of Crete in Greece.

I'm looking out the window and I'm up on this cliff and I can see the beach and then the town.

And so of it,

This isn't serious at all.

In this moment,

There's a stillness and in this stillness,

There's nothing missing.

It's the same stillness that's been there my whole life.

Regardless of where I find myself,

Regardless of what I imagine to be happening,

There's always this stillness and this stillness is untouched by everything that has come and gone and everything has come and gone.

And the seriousness implies that there's something that isn't going to come and go.

The seriousness implies that there's either something missing now or there's potentially something missing.

And what is that something missing other than only my imagination of something missing?

My belief in an idea that something is missing.

Like for example,

Sitting here with the windows wide open,

There's flies coming in here and buzzing on my face and landing on my legs.

And in my playful irritation with the flies,

I could think,

Oh man,

If only there weren't flies,

Then life would be great.

There's something missing.

I can turn it into a serious thing.

And that's a very small example,

But that small example can stretch itself into the most serious of things.

Naturally,

Everyone's going to have their own line of where it doesn't stretch into,

Which I think is funny that everyone has a different line.

And everyone thinks their line is the right line.

But yet the lines you had yesterday are not where your line is today.

What you thought was so serious 10 years ago is something you laugh about today.

But 10 years ago,

It was a very serious line.

You thought that line wasn't moving.

You're like,

No,

This is serious.

And in the absence of this seriousness that tries to hold on to something that I can't hold on to,

I see that this is all play.

This is all not real.

Everything I'm imagining,

It's not real,

Man.

And it's funny how the more I think it's real,

The more serious it becomes.

And the more I see how imaginary it is,

And then it's not here.

It'll never be here.

It'll never be real.

It becomes playful,

Much more manageable.

Beautifully serious life.

Number seven,

Coming home.

The past is gone.

The future will never arrive.

Forever,

There is only the sacred home of right now.

Here,

In this moment,

Everything that is real is already given.

Everything unreal will pass away.

Let it go and come home.

Can you be here where life is real?

Can you see that the past is gone?

Can you see that the past is imaginary?

Can you see that the future will never arrive because your future is an idea,

Which is to say it's imaginary.

And what is imaginary will not become reality.

Where else is there to go if you're looking to go somewhere that's real?

Everything that is real is already given.

I love that part.

And again,

I say these things and I wonder to what degree you hear them.

Everything that is real is already given.

Do you see that everything that is real,

You have it right now?

You can't go looking in the mind because what's in the mind isn't real.

Everything that is real about life is already within you right now.

The reality that there's nothing in life that is missing is yours,

Which extends to the reality of you that there is nothing real about you that's missing.

Beautifully so,

As it relates to coming home,

This just really invites you to come home and just be and allow whatever's here,

Whatever's moving through you.

Because is that not the difficulty?

Is that not the agitation?

The idea that somehow I'm a mistake.

I shouldn't be feeling what I'm feeling.

I shouldn't be this way.

Something's wrong with me,

Which only creates a bigger agitation,

Which makes you act out in more crazy ways.

But yet to find that beautiful space of acceptance that nothing is missing.

So whatever is showing,

That's okay.

No need to repress it.

No need to hide from it.

No need to run away from it.

Let's see that it's okay.

Let's see the reality of it rather than running away from our idea of it.

Come home and meet yourself in this love everlasting.

See that all is well and surrender all the noise.

Just be.

And then the mind says,

But then what?

What am I supposed to do with that information?

What about yada,

Yada,

Yada,

Yada?

Just be.

Because it's funny from a practical standpoint,

It's amazing how easy it is to move through this life and all of the human challenge from that space of stillness.

The more you realize there's nothing to lose,

The more that eliminates fear because fear is always tied to the fear of losing something.

And so with less fear,

How much easier is it to navigate the human experience?

And if that's not obvious,

Then look at how much fear there is in the difficulty of navigating the human experience.

It's not the human experience that is the obstacle.

It's battling our imaginary monsters that think there's something to fear.

Thus is the invitation or the spiritual pointer to connect with what's real,

Which is the beautiful remedy to fear.

Because as one sees more clearly what is real and true,

The natural byproduct of that is to see that there's less and less to fear.

This is why it's the most important thing.

Wonderful.

Thanks for hanging out with me with that.

That was fun.

All right.

Let's do a super short and sweet guided meditation.

Hey,

You want to join me for a guided meditation?

Be super short and sweet.

Let's call it a playful heart.

My goodness,

My goodness,

My goodness,

My goodness.

My goodness,

My goodness,

My goodness.

Let's hang out here for just a very short while and see if we can come home to the present moment and reconnect with a playful heart.

Let's just find our way back to right now by inviting some breaths and relaxing to whatever degree we can relax.

To whatever degree a playful heart might seem absent.

Can we just take a moment and find some humor in the mind's determination to be so serious?

Maybe.

I mean,

Really.

Here we are in this moment.

It's just you and I here now.

Yet the mind can be lost in 10,

000 serious things that have absolutely nothing to do.

It's like the mind is just determined to be serious.

And so in the spirit of that,

We're just going to come back to reality and give the mind a break.

And in coming back to reality,

Maybe we can recognize that actually right now,

There's nothing to be serious about.

And sure,

The mind might have its argument with that.

And if it's so determined to be serious,

We can invite the transformation of a serious affair into a great adventure to play with what we imagine to be a serious thing.

Because,

Oh my goodness,

How many serious things have we imagined in all the years past?

To find ourselves here right now in the reality of what we are,

To be totally taken care of.

And even in that,

The mind might have its list of things it thinks is missing,

Its serious list.

Yet those things are just thoughts about things aren't really here right now.

So again,

Can we see the difference between the minds?

I understand that's difficult sometimes,

But can we get close to seeing that right now?

That like,

Oh my God,

There's so much noise,

So much serious noise,

So many serious thoughts,

But that's not here right now.

What is here?

It feels like in the release of every gram or ounce of seriousness,

Playfulness has a chance to emerge.

With every deep breath of relaxation,

We start to remember that life is an opportunity,

An opportunity to explore,

To discover.

Which is all to say,

This is the great gift in life.

To be here,

Not really understanding anything that's going on,

But yet it's beautiful.

Beauty can be seen.

I guess the question is,

Am I looking to see the beauty?

Or am I looking for things to validate my seriousness?

I have a feeling you're going to find whatever you look for.

Life seems to be a bit magical that way.

Reviews

Always amazing what you contribute to the world, Tiger💗💗💗

Reaffirming. Life is magical that way. Much love ❤️