Q: Last night you were speaking about newborn babies, which I found very inspiring. I’ve looked into the eyes of a newborn and recognize that I have that state. The start of life for a newborn is very important, so what is best? Is it only to give them love and care, or is there a way to help them integrate their beingness in activity?
John: To really answer what’s there in being with a newborn baby – which is different from receiving what’s there – is for you to be deeply taken by what you see way out at night in the stars, beyond your self, way beyond your life, where you are there directly knowing something that you cannot in your self comprehend.
From there, hold the baby remaining in what moved you so deeply within of the stars and, from what is open and present in you, let the baby see where it’s going. Let that between the two of you fill its activity. That’s like saying to the baby as it grows: “It’s so clear to the two of us that we don’t really know what we’re doing here, but this that flows between the two of us, which is so far beyond anything we understand, is why we are here.”
As you hold a baby in such direct knowledge, the baby knows in you why it’s here. If the baby starts to lose that a little bit, in itself it begins to become a little shy of people because it’s losing what to look into. But if it remains in this seeing, in everyone the baby meets it keeps seeing way, way in there. Babies are not shy of seeing; they only become shy of themselves.
As you connect and see way in because you are being known way, way in there, you lose being self-conscious. The more you are known, the more deeply drawn you are to know more. That’s your being coming up into your self as it is being known, which introduces your self to this knowledge within.
First you are known, then you are known in your self, and then your self is also known. There is nothing like being known. The movement of being known is that you love.
When you are known, you love.