What Is Important For Joyful Living? Awareness & Discernment

Tiger explores the illusion of external control and the importance of awareness and discernment for a joyful life. He delves into the conditioning and false assumptions that prevent us from experiencing true inner peace and happiness. Join Tiger in this insightful exploration of what it means to live joyfully.

Transcript

What we might consider to be a lack of joyful living is simply a life full of disturbance.

Meaning,

I cannot experience peace and presence and compassion and freedom because life is not how I want it to be.

Which is saying that my inner life is determined by what's out there.

This is why what is most important for joyful living is awareness and discernment.

Just might be your greatest power and it's been stripped from you to convince you of things that aren't actually real.

To convince you of your own powerlessness.

The topic today,

What is most important for joyful living?

And I put the answer in the title awareness and discernment.

And I really intend for this to be profoundly obvious.

That if we would like to experience a joyful life,

We are going to need to connect with a deeper awareness for what is real and true.

And then playfully practice and cultivate our ability to discern the difference between what is really happening and what we imagine to be happening.

And I have a playful challenge happening right now,

Which is,

As I mentioned,

I already did this topic earlier today and it was a crappy recording and it was really good.

And so I noticed part of me is trying to remember what I talked about in an effort to duplicate that awesomeness.

But it's not going to work if I do that.

It's not going to work if I try and bring the past into this moment.

I'm going to have to just start over and say something brand new.

So often,

Especially with our conditioning and education,

We are trained in so many false assumptions about what is required for joyful living.

And these assumptions not only are false,

But they do the opposite.

They set us up for painful living,

They set us up for disappointment,

And they set us up to be a prisoner to other people in the world.

And so I'm going to playfully pull back the curtain on the way we've been trained to do things,

Exposing an adorable insanity while exposing a profound immediacy to joyful living through awareness and discernment.

First of all,

What is joyful living?

The word joyful is just a word that points.

We might all have different interpretations and definitions for what it would be to live joyfully.

Really though,

For myself,

This is pointing to a life worth living where we dramatically reduce the resistance we experience,

The conflict we experience,

And we dramatically increase the love,

Compassion,

And freedom we experience.

And with all those ingredients mixed together,

We might call that joyful living.

What I'm not speaking about as it relates to joyful living is amassing a collection of worldly things that you only think you want.

What is most important for joyful living?

Awareness and discernment.

Through awareness and discernment,

You will discover that the joyful life you crave is actually already happening right now.

Awareness.

Awareness of what?

I'm not talking about the awareness of this or that social issue.

I'm not talking about the awareness of what you want or don't want.

I'm talking about the awareness of what is actually here and now.

Of what is real.

Which also speaks to discernment,

Which is the ability to discern the difference between what you imagine to be happening with what is really happening.

And our conditioning has trained us to buy into the illusion that what we imagine to be happening is what is really happening.

And this conditioning has set us up to fail as it relates to living joyfully.

What do I mean by that?

Well,

I guess in the most direct and simple example,

We have been conditioned and trained,

Educated to believe that our internal experience is dictated or even greatly influenced by what appears to be happening in the world or by what other people say or do.

And we think that's real.

So when we get disturbed or when we experience resistance,

Tension,

Or conflict,

And we feel it inside of ourselves,

We assume that that is happening because of what is happening out there.

For example,

As of the past couple days,

The train transportation employees have been on strike here in Portugal,

Which means the trains are not running on schedule,

Which means you can get on Google Maps,

Find what time the train is coming,

Go down to the train station,

Make plans,

And there's no train.

That's the life I'm experiencing the past couple days.

Now,

If I get disturbed by that emotionally,

The common assumption is I'm disturbed or I'm experiencing a lack of joy because of the trains or because of the strike.

Underneath that is an if-only statement.

If only there wasn't the strike,

Then I could be at peace.

Do you see the belief,

The belief that my inner experience is determined by the outer world?

Do you see that we've been taught that this is real,

That this is true?

How many people in some way or another heard their parents or a teacher say,

If only you weren't you,

Then I could relax.

If only you did what I wanted you to do,

Then I could be at peace.

If only you were not how you are,

Then I could experience something different on the inside of what I am.

Teaching the lesson that says in order for you to be undisturbed,

You must control the outer world,

Which includes controlling other people to be how you want them to be so that you can be at peace.

Which leads us to the conclusion that living a joyful life includes having control of the life you see existing outside of you,

Which sets us on a quest to get to the future.

Implying that the joyful life we crave is not here right now.

We must work towards it.

We must earn it.

We must struggle in order to get to that something not here right now.

And if we can somehow figure out how to control ourselves,

Control the world,

Then we might have a shot at living a joyful life.

And all of this is based on a lie.

All of this is based on an assumption about something being real that's not real at all.

Meaning there's no awareness of what's actually happening.

And when awareness enters the picture,

When we see more clearly what's actually happening when I experience disturbance or the apparent lack of a joyful life,

When I see what's actually happening,

Then almost immediately the joyful life returns.

Not through doing anything.

Not through changing someone or something.

But only through awareness.

Seeing the truth of what's happening.

Discerning the difference between what I imagine to be happening and what is really happening here and now.

For example,

With the trains,

If I encounter a disturbance,

The knee-jerk reaction,

The conditioned assumption says that I am disturbed because of the strike.

And so it is proclaiming that the strike has power over my internal state of being.

That's the declaration.

That's the statement of blame.

But really,

My disturbance is responding to my story about the strike.

Which is a story that in turn projects a meaning about myself as less than.

As disadvantaged.

As missing something.

My disturbance is not responding to the way of life where there happens to be trains not on schedule.

But my disturbance is responding to my interpretation of said event.

There's something magical that happens when you really see this.

And not just repeating it because you heard someone say it.

But you really see it.

Which is awareness.

To truly see that the strike is not the cause of my disturbance.

I release the strike.

I release the trains.

Which is the release of what?

Resistance.

Conflict.

Blame.

Projections of guilt.

All of these things which are used as evidence as to why I can't be joyful right now.

What I am presented with in my disturbance is an opportunity to clarify what I'm really seeing.

I cannot clarify the perception,

Meaning that I cannot see reality more clearly,

If I'm determined to give my power away.

As human beings,

Through our conditioning and education,

We have become determined to give our power away.

We have become determined to blame the world for our internal experience.

Which is really,

Really interesting.

We are determined to assume that our inner state of wellness is caused by something beyond our control.

And in the process of that,

We then withhold love from that something that we blame.

Which means we don't get to experience love because we're not letting it flow.

Because we blame that thing.

I won't extend love to the train workers because I blame them for the story I'm telling about my own worth and value.

And so I will not allow myself to appreciate them because of my own misunderstanding.

Do you see?

And we've been taught this completely unconscious.

It's not seeing reality clearly.

It's seeing a conditioned pattern of thinking that is sprung from a profound misinterpretation of experience.

How often do we encounter this play of perceivably giving our power away?

And I say this intentionally.

Because you don't really give your power to something else.

You surrender your own power.

I don't give my power to the train.

I can't actually do that.

I can only relinquish my own power.

And so it's just a manner of speaking to say that I give my power away.

I can't actually give it away.

And there's nothing out there that can take it.

How many times do we encounter this during the day?

Where we watch this adorable insanity unfold.

Relinquishing our power and proclaiming that we are having internal experiences based on what is or isn't happening in the world.

Everything from someone not responding to a text message,

To burning your food,

To not being somewhere at the time you thought you were going to be somewhere.

It's unending.

And you see that this comes from a lack of awareness,

Not clearly seeing what's happening.

Do you see this story that gives power away?

Do you see that that's just imagination?

I'm imagining that the train caused my disturbance.

I'm imagining that.

It's not really there.

And then I believe in that imagination,

Which is I confuse my imagination for reality.

How often are we confusing our imagination for reality?

Tell me that is not the single source that stands between you and a joyful life and has nothing to do with having what you think you want.

Because we can say clearly what we might consider to be a lack of joyful living is simply a life full of disturbance.

Disturbed by this,

Disturbed by that.

If only this,

If only that.

I cannot experience peace and presence and compassion and freedom because life is not how I want it to be.

Which is saying that my inner life is determined by what's out there.

This is why what is most important for joyful living is awareness and discernment just might be your greatest power.

And it's been stripped from you through a social educational experiment to convince you of things that aren't actually real to convince you of your own powerlessness.

And I could also playfully insinuate that there is a concerted effort from let's call it the establishment for you to not wake up and be more conscious.

Intentionally,

I don't say that there is a conscious effort because if it was conscious,

There wouldn't be that effort.

So it's a concerted unconscious effort to keep you unconscious because the status quo that is unconscious needs you to be unconscious in order for it to continue.

Do you see how this could be?

It's like saying it needs you to rely on it for your sense of wellness.

It needs you to be dependent on it for its survival.

So it doesn't want you to become conscious.

So you see you don't need it anymore for your own inner wellness,

Which makes perfect sense why we have the education that we do.

And again,

It's all unconscious.

And so there's no one to blame about it.

This is just where we are as silly human beings believing their imagination is reality.

But what a monumental opportunity we have here to discern the difference and to realize,

Holy shit,

I'm not powerless at all in the regard of my own inner well-being,

My own joyful life,

My ability to be present and full of love,

Compassion,

And freedom.

You can see that all of these disturbances are the result of a misunderstanding of experience.

All of these disturbances are a result of me not seeing life,

What's real,

What's true.

It's seeing my imagination and confusing it for reality.

So I'm not seeing what's real.

The only conclusion here is that what is real is a joyful life,

Which is also to say the life that has been created for human beings to experience reality to be experienced is a joyful one,

Is one where there is no judgment,

One where there is no condemnation,

Because that's all an extension of imagination,

The unreal.

The landscape that we've already been given is a joyful one that invites you into a joyful life.

If we would just be willing to lay down our dream of what we think we want,

And what we think we want is for the world to be how we think it should be,

Rather than just coming home and seeing the reality you've already been given.

The invitation is to inspire a devotion for life,

For what's real,

For what's true,

For what you've already been given.

It's one of these holy shit moments where you've been frantically running around the earth,

Trying to get what you want,

Only to realize with a big playful smack in the face,

It's already been given to you.

And you just haven't seen it.

You've been consumed by your imagination.

You've been living in the mind,

Thinking it's reality.

Come back to reality.

Wake up to life.

Now would be the time to post your questions,

If those are happening.

And if there's no questions,

Then I will ramble a little bit more,

And then we'll end with a super short and sweet guided meditation.

Julia says,

I can apply that to my life,

But struggle with applying it to those in the world without basic needs being met.

Because,

Compassionately,

You're trying to apply it to your imagination of other people and their needs being met.

You cannot apply this anywhere other than the one I am.

It cannot be applied to something out there,

Because what is out there,

What you see out there,

Is to see your imagination about what's out there.

It's kind of like saying,

I can't apply it to the trains being on strike.

You don't see trains being on strike.

You see your imagination about trains being on strike.

It's a good inquiry to question if you really see that something,

Or are you seeing your projection about that something,

Especially suffering.

We are so good at projecting our own suffering onto other people,

And then thinking that that's their experience.

If you look at your most profound moments of discovery,

They were birthed through some experience of suffering.

You went through something that you didn't want to go through,

And it invited you to see something profound,

But you had to walk through a fire of fear to see it.

Somebody else can look at your experience and say,

Oh,

That was scary.

Nobody should ever have to go through that.

So,

You're saying that you shouldn't have discovered something beautiful about life because it scared you?

Are you stripping away everyone's lessons in love because you don't understand them,

Because they scare you?

In the same way,

I could describe things that I've been through,

And people can easily say,

Oh man,

Nobody should ever have to go through that,

But it's only because I went through that,

That I'm sharing the things with you that I'm sharing today.

So,

If nobody ever went through that,

Then I wouldn't have this degree of love to share with you.

And why should nobody go through that?

Because you don't understand it?

Because you don't understand the opportunity underneath it?

Because you think life made a mistake?

You think life doesn't know what it's doing?

Which again,

Is like saying life shouldn't be life because we get disturbed,

Which is saying we get disturbed by life.

No,

You get disturbed by your imagination about life.

Life cannot disturb you.

Only you can do that.

To connect with the reality of these things,

The truth of these things,

The only place you can see that is in the one I am,

Which is you.

You have to look at your direct experience.

And the fastest way to avoid looking at your own direct experience is to look at somebody else's experience,

Which is why human beings spend so much time talking about other people's lives,

Avoiding the heart of the issue.

Alan says,

Is control a real thing?

Since the me is an illusion,

Who has this control?

Yes,

Control is an illusion.

However,

We're using words and the words themselves are an illusion.

It's all an illusion.

But if it's all an illusion,

Then saying it's all an illusion is an illusion.

And so we still have to use words if we're going to communicate.

Something like that says,

What is the easiest way to wake someone else up?

Wake up yourself.

Why would you want to wake somebody else up?

Who are you to decide that someone else should or shouldn't be awake?

Like it's possible life is making a mistake.

Life doesn't know what it's doing.

How do you know that not being awake is the appropriate lesson for them right now?

Just as you've had your appropriate lessons and profound realizations through not being awake,

Which have woken you up in its appropriate time.

When you're ready,

Maybe that too is something you can let go of wanting somebody else to be awake.

Maybe you're wanting them to be awake because they disturb you,

Which is you not being awake.

That's also something that's kind of interesting.

This movement of wanting to wake up the world.

If only the world was awake,

I wouldn't be disturbed.

Says the unawake one.

When you really wake up,

You will see that the whole world is awake and you were the only one sleeping.

What is most important for joyful living?

Awareness and discernment.

If there is disturbance,

There is something that's not being seen.

And here's the beautiful thing.

If that's true,

If that's true,

What's the invitation?

To run around and change something?

To get control of something?

If there's disturbance and it's the result of not seeing something clearly,

What's the invitation?

Be still.

Come back to reality,

Which is the function of every spiritual practice.

FYI.

Whether you're doing a silly little dance,

Singing a silly little song,

Holding silly little yoga postures,

Doing silly meditations,

Listening to silly talks.

What's the point of all that?

To bring you back to the present moment.

It's a doorway into presence so you can see reality more clearly.

And as you see reality more clearly,

You recognize that the monsters you're imagining aren't really here.

You recognize that the things you think aren't missing aren't real things.

And you realize,

Oh,

Actually I can enjoy myself.

Oh,

Actually I don't need to be stressed.

There's nothing to be stressed about in reality.

Comically,

People engage spiritual practices,

Thinking that they are there for you to get to the future.

Like if I do enough spiritual practices,

Then I will get to a future that matches what I want.

And then you end up doing spiritual practices that don't resonate anymore because you still think it's going to give you a prize in the future.

Not realizing the prize of the spiritual practice is the practice itself.

To connect with more peace and wellness.

And if that's not happening on your spiritual practice,

You need to find a new spiritual practice.

Preferably one that's a little bit playful.

Ellen Berry says,

So how do you engage in life with this knowledge?

When a loved one tells you something of something bad is happening,

I can't say that it's just their perception of something.

No,

But that's what would be assumed if one thinks this is knowledge.

Because then you try and share the knowledge.

It's not knowledge.

It's awareness.

And there's so many things that we think are realities that we only think that because somebody else told us and they scared us.

And so we bought into it.

When really,

If you get silent and still in your own space and ask,

What do I really know?

Not what have I been told?

Not what have I been taught?

Not what have I been scared into believing?

But what do I actually know?

And then trust what you know,

You'll find a great emptying out of all the things you're anxious about.

How many times have you convinced something somebody else told you?

Or how many times have you convinced yourself of something that somebody else told you and created all sorts of stress and anxiety believing it only to find out it wasn't true.

And then looking back,

You're like,

Oh,

Wow.

I didn't have to be anxious about that at all,

But you really thought it was true.

Did you know it was true?

No,

But everyone else thought it was true.

So I thought I had to think it was true.

And everyone else said that if I didn't believe it was true,

That I'm a bad person because I don't go along with it.

I can't say that it's just their perception of something.

No,

Absolutely.

I wouldn't say that.

I don't encourage you to say that.

When a loved one tells you something bad is happening,

I can't say it's just their perception.

No,

You can't.

However,

If there is the awareness that is not disturbed by them expressing their experience,

Then there's no need to reject their sharing their experience.

If there is the awareness that another person's perception of me cannot disturb me emotionally,

Then there is a greater freedom to allow them to express anything they think about me.

There's a deeper listening.

There's no,

That's just your perception.

It's no,

Tell me more.

There's an open space that's not afraid of what they might say.

There's an allowing for them to be them.

This is an open heartedness to life.

It's like telling somebody that's just your perception,

But really that's your perception of their perception.

And when you see that there's no more need to say that's just your perception because it's not,

It's your perception.

You're perceiving what you think to be their perception.

So you're perceiving your own perception.

This just leaves everyone alone.

And you come back to the real heart of the experience,

Which is how you see,

Not about how other people sees.

Okay.

Let's do the guided meditation.

Awareness,

Awareness in this very short time together,

We are going to discern the difference between what we imagine to be happening and what is really happening here.

And now in the awareness of what is real and true,

We will draw nearer and nearer to a joyful life.

Just come home.

Yes.

The mind thinks about a thousand things,

But can you see that those things are not here in life right now,

In your immediate moment?

This is life where the breath is happening,

Where the body is connected to the ground,

Where your sensations are alive.

This there is a great stillness here.

And this stillness holds space for the commotion in the mind.

It allows you to imagine whatever.

This can be playfully beautiful,

But don't mistake your imagination for reality.

We're going to take three deep breaths.

And on the inhale,

We are going to invite ourselves into the heart of life that desires for you to experience a joyful existence.

And on the exhale,

We are going to release all that is imaginary.

Let's breathe.

Please see this,

That beyond our imagination,

Beyond that which we blame for our innocent misunderstanding,

The landscape of life is a joyful and playful one.

Let this discovery inspire a devotion for life,

For what's real and true.

Thank you for meditating with me today.

Reviews

Tiger you are the guru of the mind matrix 🤩🤩🤩 I’ve listened to this talk three times now and i especially like the part about me having a perception of the other person’s perception. That is effing brilliant.!!! thanks for keeping it real 🙏🌹🙏🌹🙏🌹🙏

Thank you for sharing this. I feel empowered. Namaste.

Beautiful talk and such valid points on how we can manage ourselves and our power. It is interesting how easily it is to give our power away to things or people, that when seen from another perspective, our entire life can and will shift to a much better space.
Thank you for this wonderful talk and reminder, Tiger!

Very tricky this understanding…Cancer diagnosis scares everyone and if I am not scared I am told by those around me “I am in denial”. Only when I say I am scared do people turn towards me and I am not alone in this journey. We can all be scared together. Cancer is happening to this body, my vessel of travel. It is not really happening to me. I hope the drugs, the science, works but am open to the journey and all outcomes. I’m sure that joy is present.

So good!!! Or is that imaginary? Lol…. Just teasing!!!! Excellent! Thank you 😊