Q: I don’t think I know how to open when someone says something that hurts, or when everything feels shrunken and closed inside.
John: Really enjoy that all that you are feeling in such a moment represents just your self, and not at all what you really are.
Q: Intellectually, I know that I am not the body and the mind, but how do I close the gap between my understanding and that realization?
John: When your body and your mind are weary, as soon as you lie down and your head reaches the pillow, you begin opening. You’re not using concepts, thoughts and feeling to open. You are opening because you, awareness, are relaxing.
Q: Even when I lie down to go to sleep my mind is so restless. I usually listen to some soft music to quieten my mind, and then I go to sleep.
John: You use something external that you, openness, in form, relate to, so while you’re listening to soft music there’s a little bit of you that relates to the effect of that. You’re relating to the openness and the softness in the music and that’s because that openness and that softness relates directly to what you are really like. As soon as you realize what kind of beingness deeply touches you and reaches you such as a certain kind of music, or physical relief, or a look in someone’s eyes to you, whatever it is that deeply touches you and reaches right into you shows you, right there, how you open.
As you see these tiny little openings throughout the day, as you’re consciously in them, you realize that that openness facilitated through things outside of your self is your love. Once that begins to become clear to you, that kind of delicate opening that naturally occurs when someone’s kind to you, it shows you how to open when someone isn’t kind to you. The openness is the same; the circumstance is different.
Q: It sounds so simple, but all my understanding goes somewhere in the sky when someone’s not kind to me! I wonder how I can be centred and responsive rather than reactive.
John: Then begin with every little moment in your day where there’s a little touch of kindness to you: any little thing that takes place in your day that makes it really inviting for you to open, that with every little touch of that in your day you speedily open. You love opening. You love responding. If that’s what you’re consciously living within any little thing in your day that touches you, you’re being conscious of beingness that is real to you. As you move in that when it’s easy and available, you will next begin to be that because it is your love. You’ll next begin to be that when little things offend you or hurt you. Let that openness come into you when really little things offend you: the silliest little things. There, you realize what opening is like, when something just a little bit doesn’t feel good.
Q: I’d also like to ask you about kundalini. In the last seven years I’ve had openings of this and my body has become very sensitive to external energies. I can’t be in crowds or even do my work – I’m a doctor – and I’ve had to leave my job. I don’t know what to do. I don’t find joy in anything, and if I try to do anything my body starts hurting. How can I deal with this?
John: You have become very sensitized to what is not okay. You’re registering all of that in your body and relating to it, which is making you, in your life, dysfunctional.
When you are gentled and quieted within, realize the okayness that’s there. What you’re turning into is a warm okayness. That warm okayness is beingness of what you really are. And then, little bit by little bit, relate directly to that warm okayness in the midst of something that doesn’t feel okay. Little bit by little bit. And slowly you realize that not okay feelings don’t take you out of you, quietly within, being warmly okay.
When your body feels a little bit unwell, you are able to be warmly okay within in the midst of your body feeling like that. Love being like that more and more in really little things that don’t feel very okay. Begin with the little things, the really little things, and not with anything big. If you try to do it in something that’s big, you’ll prove to your self how difficult that is. When you be this warm okayness in the midst of tiny little things that don’t feel okay, you realize how delightfully easy this is.
Q: But how do I deal with a body that keeps hurting all day? The flow of energy can be so much and the body’s hurting and not able to cope.
John: That’s a big thing. Don’t try and work with the big things. Don’t try and help the big things. You be this warm okayness within in the midst of tiny little things that don’t feel okay. Be this in the really little things. Don’t go right to the big things. If you go to the big things, you will prove your patterns right.
The little things, the really little things, are not patterned yet to convince you of your pain. That’s all confined to the bigger things. The really little things are the tiny little doors in your life that are easy to open. Get to know those little doors by you being warmly okay within as you move through them. Leave all of the big doors alone.
Q: Thank you so much, John.
