Q: What I wanted to bring up is the threshold into the unknown, where the ‘I’ is dissolving. It appears to me that the black is the unknown territory to discover and the light is the result of it. But I never felt drawn to light – not at all.
John, what is the difference between you and a plant medicine? Because I know the very pitch dark black, which frightens me as well, from a plant medicine called iboga. I wanted to know if it’s drawing me, bringing me to the same place or space as you are bringing people? And if yes, then why can a plant do this?
John: It isn’t that a plant can do that. A plant can, biologically, chemically dissolve your artificial self, laying you bare.
Q: It seems like with you, or even when I’m alone and I explore these regions, it seems like something is in the way.
John: Your values. Values that you didn’t come into a body with. So they’re adopted.
Q: But when a plant is here, she pulls me through it, and with you or by myself, of course I come into some depth. Do you have the power to pull me through whether I want or not?
John: No. Consciousness is so gentle, a plant is not. A plant doesn’t work with you, it just does to your body what it does. You’re not involved.
A plant will just biologically unmask you. Consciousness will not.
Q: So it’s another door.
John: It isn’t a real door because it doesn’t move with you. It just mercilessly strips you of your self.
Q: Does it lead to another place, the plant and you?
John: A plant leaves you with what you’ve known before, but that’s just a result. It’s not taking you into what you’ve known before.
It leaves you in what you’ve known before. It strips you of your self and there you are, knowing what you have known before. It’s not consciously moving the results. It’s not working with you, it’s not moving with you. It’s just acting on your body.
Q: And where is me in that process?
John: Spit out of your self. When consciousness moves it, love breathes you right into the real. It doesn’t breathe you out of your self; it breathes you into the real.
Q: But I can only go as deep as I already know, so where’s the difference?
John: Then you are going only as deeply within as what you know. You also know the presence of the more, the presence of the unknown.
It’s like when you look into the midnight sky, looking into the stars. As soon as you’re quieted within, you’re not so much an observer. You’re just directly affected. You know the unknown; it’s without content, without information, without your self, without your life, but you respond to it.
Q: Seems like here’s the threshold. So do you need my permission then?
John: I can’t bring you into unknown love without you, love. It’s essentially your permission.
Q: It appears to me that I have to stop something in me to be that.
John: If you stop something, you’re engaging your self. You engage the stop.
Q: So the black is primarily the draw or the call, coming out of the black.
John: By connecting to the same in you, which has you inadvertently exiting your self.
Q: It seems like feelings are the same as thoughts. They’re just old, recycled.
John: I am: addressing you. It’s a language, direct to what you really are, to you, that your self doesn’t know.
Q: So self can be here. It doesn’t matter?
John: And with you, it’s like subtle yet direct, heavenly pillow-talk.
Q: Heavenly what?
John: Pillow-talk. Love talk.
Q: Is this black I know, is it real?
John: Is it of nurturing depth and quality?
Q: Not to my self.
John: That’s beside the point.
Q: Your face is moving. It’s like I look into a tunnel. You are the garbage man.
John: No, the gardener. Without being stripped of your self, I include your self and your garbage, right where I find the gold that’s in it.
Q: You are the bright, white gardener light.
John: Bye for now.