Covid 19 Updates: Interactive Live Streams are accessed through John de Ruiter TV. They are held via Zoom as a webinar and require a computer, smartphone, or tablet that is compatible with the use of the Zoom app. Once you have joined the livestream you are able to raise your hand digitally, signifying that you would like the opportunity to speak with John, or participate by simply viewing John’s interactions with others.
Both meetings and events follow a simple format. Seats are arranged facing the stage on which John sits easily visible. Anybody who would like the opportunity to speak with John can sign up at the back of the hall. Those selected are seated in a reserved chair and speak with a microphone so that everyone is able to hear. One or two large screens (depending on the size of the venue), allow the audience to see John and the person in conversation with him clearly, even from the back row. Meetings are between two and three hours long, during which time anyone can come and go as they please.
Covid 19 Updates: Interactive Livestreams are $10 CA, per person viewing. 7 – 14 day, Online Intensives are also $10 CA, per person viewing, for each stream, with the option to pay in full or part through pre registration. Visit John de Ruiter TV for more information.
Proceeds from these streams goes towards the expenses incurred to facilitate them. The team that produces the streams and recordings manages hundreds of meeting files and online cafe talks with John, making them available as podcasts, transcripts, YouTube videos, VODs on John de Ruiter TV and streaming 24/7 on JdR Radio. Generous volunteers help greatly, but there are costs to supporting John’s work. This fee helps to cover these costs and to support media and events that are offered free of charge.
Although John is responsive to the entire room, he primarily works by connecting with the person in the reserved, “dialogue chair”. He relates to the needs and sincerity of that person. The individual connection comes first because John isn’t a theorist; his teachings come from the relevance of the direct connection and not from predetermined themes or lectures. However, these interactions address principles that many find relatable
Yes. Meetings and events are audio and video recorded so that people can access a wide selection of podcast episodes, downloadable audio files, and video on demand. Go to John de Ruiter TV or John’s YouTube Channel to view a selection of our offerings.
From the very beginning, John has been clear that his purpose did not include the forming of an intentional community.
“I’m not here teaching, creating a following and a community. I'm here to move and manifest what I come from. No more.” -John de Ruiter
However, over the years an unintentional community has naturally formed as it might with any group of individuals with a shared interest. Edmonton is the geographical hub but the sense of community spans the globe, especially now with the increased online connection.
As John’s way doesn’t include dogma or rules to be followed, it is open to the interpretation of the individual. As integral as it is for each to come to their own deeper knowledge, this inevitably leads to a broad spectrum of opinions, perspectives and behaviours. In the vibrant, multi-faceted community that has sprung up around John, there are those that can sometimes misrepresent him, offering innocent, but ultimately, misguided interpretations of what he is and what he brings.
There is no doubt that an expressed interest in John will grant a warm and heartfelt welcome into the community to any and all. Enjoy, while also taking the time to discern your own deeper knowledge, not dependent on the perspectives of others.
As John de Ruiter has based his meetings in a high-end venue and charged for money for them, writers and critics suggest that he is motivated mainly by financial profit.
John has stated, “Money is not needed for any evolution of awareness or any opening of the heart, except where it’s needed to sustain living in a body. Money is also not in conflict with the evolution of awareness: it is a resource that allows us to grow and do more with the awareness we have. With all the finances available to us as an organization, we are reinvesting in our time together as a community. Our building was constructed by donation and volunteers and that means that what we have is for all of our benefit. The results go back into the foundation. I love that we can be in a place that is uplifting and matches what occurs in meetings.” (See ‘What is the price of events with John?’ included in this FAQ)
Meetings and seminars are open to the public, with no initiations, vows, or special garb required to attend. There are no restrictions put on participation other than commonly understood codes for politeness and the following of practical guidelines that facilitate these events. John sets no control on people’s actions or beliefs intentionally. He does everything he can to balance the perceived power differential of “student and teacher.” He reflects questioning back into each person’s own evaluation, invites various interpretations and encourages everybody to educate and develop themselves in all aspects of life. For these reasons, John de Ruiter’s events do not constitute a cult.
John de Ruiter made public the fact of his consensual sexual relations with women beyond the traditional scope of marriage. John states that despite the impact this has on the community around him and his own life, he acts only according to a profound inner clarity. These are John’s words:
“At its core, sexuality is designed for the realization of the being. Attraction and aversion is the first place we go in our relationship with sexuality, and the primary distraction. The subtleties are then lost. The awareness we gain in meetings opens us to the meaning of sexuality, on levels that exist before attraction and aversion even registers. The true relationship with sexuality is about what is deeper than attraction and aversion, deeper than ourselves.
I have moved in being with women other than my wife. This means being together physically and sexually. It is independent of desire, and oriented to realization of what is deeper. Sexuality is so profoundly core to awakening, but in ways not known to convention. It isn’t easy to understand on the surface and it isn’t about the surface. Still, the way it impacts all of us is significant.
However this may look on the surface, I know that it comes to me through my response to what I most deeply know on a metaphysical level. I invite anybody in proximity to me to draw from the equivalent clarity within them. In addressing the woman to whom I have given the invitation, I asked nothing but that each finds a response that is deeply rested and true to their own clarity.
All we have is what we know, and that reaches from the details of surface life to the very deepest. That’s what this is about, the finest point of what we most deeply know and the levels of meaning and being which exist beyond that point. Knowing is a point of no question, no further choices, just the love inherent to awareness at rest.
I do not navigate fundamentally by the effect on others or myself. I follow the thread of pure knowing, and with my conscious self, take utmost care of the effect on others. As trite as it may sound, all I had is what I knew, from within what is deeper than myself, and strange as it sounds, what is deeper than my being. And it was and is clearer than my entire existence. It’s clearer and more real to me than physical reality.
I do not know how to make that real to someone else. I can only say it as it is. Many have, and many have not, known a profound resonance with what I am bringing. I communicate this as directly as I can, and other than that, I can only continue to do and be what I know.”
As erroneous and untruthful statements have been alleged, it is important to clarify that:
You can send further inquiries to media@johnderuiter.com
“My sole purpose is to be, in life, what we are after we’ve died. Through openness and softness of heart and core-splitting honesty at any personal cost, I live as that while actualizing the same in others I meet. I am available as a resource for anyone who recognizes and values this way of being.”
– John de Ruiter
