The questioner had an experience where the structure of himself dissolved and everything was love. But when the experience dissipated, old structures returned. John explains that the experience is a beloved messenger. Instead of wanting the messenger to return, we can abide in the message it brings. When the knowing in the experience is enough, we become the same as the message.
What to do when wonderful awakening experiences fade away, and resistance, fear and suffering return to our experience? John reminds us that we know something much deeper within, which is different than our self. Suffering is in the self, it comes from what is familiar. There is no suffering in knowing, in being in what knowing is in our heart; and there is no suffering in the purity of liking. Liking knowing the deep within removes the suffering. It’s easy, natural, direct and immediate.
What is love? How do we find it? Do we really need it? In this dialogue the questioner asks John to explain his statement “love is not an experience, love is what you are.” In response, John expands on the different kinds of love and how to go beyond the surface and discover a deep and subtle, unconditioned love not based on experience or need.
“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
