Journey inward and explore the landscape of your inherent connection with all that is. Tiger Singleton lifts the curtain of perception and exposes the profound truth of what you are. This is day 1, track 3, of a 5-day retreat experience held in Sweden, August 2019.

Transcript

There’s a very ancient question for human beings and that question is, “Who am I?” It’s so ancient that I would say, in a very real way, it’s the only question you’re ever asking. “Who am I?” It’s the only question you’re trying to figure out,

I invite you to recognize this, that even if you were to ask questions about life ultimately, you’re trying to understand YOU to ask questions about another human being. You’re asking because you want to understand you. Just notice this – you could come up with 10,000 different questions and they’re all trying to get at the same thing, “Who am I?” In your most sufferable times, you have no clue who you are. Do you ever notice this, those times that are terrifying, you thought you knew who you were and then something happened and you realize, “I don’t know who I am”? It’s like you’re thrust into the unknown. Yes, that can be terrifying.

Part of the game that human beings play is that they will lose who they’re thought to be. They’ll go through some sort of sufferable experience, lose their identity. Then build another one, only to watch that one collapse as well. Maybe you’ve done this more than once, whether it happens in a relationship, a job, and in everything that we might be chasing after, in some way or another, we’re trying to find ourselves, trying to answer this question, “Who am I? Maybe I’m that.” We want so desperately to know who we are.

Our experiences with suffering- that thing we are trying to get away from and avoid at all costs- I invite you to see how closely that is tied to identity in such a way that the mind can say, “I’m suffering because of this and this and this and this” but what’s it really about? “I don’t know who I am. I lost who I am.”

Do you see this movement in the mind that tries to tell stories of why you’re suffering? However, the mind doesn’t really want to be honest about it. It’s kind of like you could be stressed out or frustrated or angry then, the mind tells a story about why, but when you get down to it, what’s the real issue? “I’m scared,” “I’m afraid.” Then, I tell a story about that fear.

I just invite you to recognize the mind’s capacity to distance itself from the real issue in such a way that the mind in its incredible craftiness doesn’t want you to see the real issue. So, we’re invited to be still and incredibly vigilant, not so quick to believe what the mind is saying.

We can hear the mind’s commentary, we can hear what it’s saying, but also maybe from our heart ask, “What’s really going on though?” What you will find is that throughout your human experience, you keep running into the same issue over and over and over again, almost as if life keeps saying, “Look at this … look at this … look at this.” The mind comes up with infinite ways to not look at it.

The only real dilemma that you have in this human experience, what you keep running into is a truth that says, “I can’t find myself.” Just notice that all the disappointments that you’ve experienced in your life, what you might be trying to hold onto or capture, “I can’t find myself,” and that’s true.

Throughout all spiritual pointing, regardless of which tradition it comes from, in some way or another, all of the traditions have said all is one. You’ve heard this before? Oneness? What that saying is, that everything is the same thing, that there’s only one, ONLY ONE.

Do you see how if everything is one then there can’t be you? It can’t be there’s one and then, yo