Q: My daily experience ranges from the most extreme, intense happiness and then it can go to the other direction but always inside of me there’s something that stays. And I’m not sure if I understand if this swing from both sides is normal.

John: The swing is there because you’re being what you feel, so when your feelings change you’re different. That makes you as unstable as your feelings. The stability within doesn’t come from what you’re presently feeling. It comes from what you presently know, and when you’re being what you know instead of being what you feel, that makes you utterly stable. If you’re swinging from one way of feeling to another, it’s because your feelings are what you stand on. That’s your base, instead of your base being what little bit you honestly, presently know.

There’s always a reason for you to be hard within but there’s never truly an excuse. When you’re completely honest within there’s this subtle knowing that it is always true for you within to be open and soft, regardless of what is presently influencing you or affecting you, regardless of what you’re thinking, regardless of what you’re feeling. For you to be real within, always, is for you within to simply be open and soft. That is something that you know. You knew that before you’ve learned anything. You knew that in the womb. You knew that as a child. No one had to tell you. You didn’t learn that; you knew that, and that is still what you know. It is you being that instead of you being your feelings.

When you’re being that openness and that softness, regardless of what you’re presently feeling, that gives you even more space to feel. That gives you more space in your mind. When you’re being openness and softness, that releases the clutter in your mind. Then you have more clarity. Then you’re able to clearly think instead of thoughts ruling you. When you’re being your feelings instead of you being what you know, then thoughts master you. Your experience then is that thoughts are bigger than you. Then you no longer have self-control. Then you’re controlled by your present experience.

When you’re being controlled by what you know, then thoughts and feelings and others no longer control you. You cannot escape being controlled. You can only choose what controls you: whether it’s truth or your experience. If it’s truth that masters you, then you’re being real. When it’s your experience that masters you, your thoughts and your feelings master you, it is because what it is that you know is real is not mastering you. When core honesty within masters you, then you will be only what you know. That makes you unendingly stable and unendingly flexible. When you’re subject to your feelings, then you’re being inflexible. When you’re subject to your feelings that makes you rigid.

Q: How do I favour truth?

John: By being uncompromisingly honest within. That allows all of your eyes within to open. That lets every eye within see what it didn’t want to see, and when all of your eyes within are open, then for you at the same time to be completely at rest, not needing to do anything with what you see. Then what moves is love. Then you’ll be gentle with what you see. You’ll be gentle with what you see in others. You’ll be gentle with this world.

Everything that you’re hard on, when you’re hard on others, you’re provoking others to harden. When you’re hard on your self you’re provoking your self to harden. When you’re hard on this world then you’re making this world more like you. When you’re gentle with this world then what comes out of you, from your innermost, is an energy that very subtly gentles this world. When you try and change something, within your self or within others that you don’t like, you always make it worse. Anything that you’re gentle with, within or without, heals it because it gives it space.

Q: So being gentle without can heal it too?

John: As long as you’re not being gentle with something for a purpose. As soon as you add reason or a purpose, then you’re on a mission. As soon as you’re on a mission and you have a purpose, then you’ll act being gentle but you’re really being hard on everything. As soon as you add a purpose to being gentle, then what you’re being is momentum instead of being at rest. If you’re being gentle with your self without a reason, then there’s no agenda to your gentleness, which means then that the gentleness is real.

If you’re being gentle with your self or with others for a purpose then what you’re being is an agenda, an agenda that acts and pretends to be gentle because that gentleness is just a means to an end. That’s like hardness putting on a soft mask. It’s that softness that is your first love. It’s softness that you came out of. It’s softness that you are. You can be other than that. You can be hard and tight and closed within but then you’re not being your real self.

Tenderness is your real self; everything else is an act, acting a certain way to get something. When you act a certain way to get something then it doesn’t matter how much you get, how much you acquire, how much you learn, how well you can act, it is profoundly unsatisfying because it’s not you. It is only when you’re being tenderness that you love your self, because it is only tenderness that you truly love. When you’re being something other than tenderness, then you’ll try to love your self and that only makes you sick of your self.

When you’re not being tender within then you secretly despise your self. You secretly don’t approve of your self. You can only truly and genuinely like your self and love your self when you are being your first love. When you’re tired of your self, when you’re tired of others, it is only because you are not being real, because when you’re being real you never tire of that, because it’s always new. It’s always fresh. It’s always like nectar. It always nourishes your self and others.