Q: I have a burning question about a relationship with a man I’ve been with for some time. I dread being with him, basically. I shut down, and I don’t know if that signifies an ending. When I’m away from him I have space and feel light again. I don’t know if to stay or go, or whether this is some kind of mirror for me.
John: In your self you’re finished with him, and that’s a limiting kind of self. It reveals that you’re in relationship on the terms of your self.
Q: That’s good to hear. I was thinking that leaving is a bit hasty – a cop-out. I’m not even really clear about my purpose in being with men. I told him I’m here for love otherwise I’m going, and he thought that was a bit drastic.
John: Then you’re here for love and your kind of self is going. It will be through relationship that you’ll be moving past your self, not using the experience in your self as a gauge for what is right for you. What is actually right for you isn’t going to be appealing to your self.
Q: I know I need to stay with what’s deeper than my self. This is what happens in my relationship with men: I go into my head and start thinking instead of staying with what’s more like my being.
John: In relating to your self, with how your self is patterned, you won’t be inclined to give your whole heart to another. It is that that will separate you from what a profound relationship is.
Q: I feel confusion and a barrier inside me, particularly in my chest, as you speak.
John: It’s the confinement of being in something for your self instead of being in something for what you know the truth of. In that, your self will change. Your self will change because you, as awareness, are evolving.
Q: I feel the expansion and I can also feel the self. That confinement is like a rat scratching in a cage.
John: Give that confinement neither voice nor movement. As soon as you give it something, you strengthen its patterning. You’re having a deeper seeing than you have in your self and, in your self, you’re not prepared to let go of your relationship with your self for that deeper seeing: you have a deeper seeing and you’re taken with your self.
As awareness, like not learning the hard way. In all things, favour delicate knowing within. Learning the easy way will be costing your self. It will keep costing your relationship with your self.
The deeper knowledge that you have, within, isn’t like what your self is like.