Q: I come from fear. I’m back in old patterns. I keep doing the same things and now I’m again in fear. On the one side I’m afraid of blocking myself from development, and on other side I’m more afraid to be completely helpless against these old patterns and, therefore, to fall back into drinking, which would be absolutely unacceptable.
John: Warmly receive help, and along the way, anything that you realize in your heart, live at the expense of anything else. You’ll be going against the stream of your self. There’s no other way. If you go with any stream of your self, you’ll make things worse. Warmly receive help in moving against the stream of your self, and everything that you realize in your heart while you move against the stream of your self, hold to that with all you have and live it.
Q: My self tells me it’s too painful for me.
John: Nothing is too painful for you.
Q: Today somebody spoke about turning away from it at a very early stage of childhood. I know that I did, because something was too terrible or other people told me that this terrible thing was it.
John: Concerning deeper reality, concerning what is deeply real, don’t believe what others say unless what they’re saying is what you know the truth of in your heart.
There’s only one way for you. There is no other way for you, and that is the way that you realize in your heart. That way isn’t going to be like your self. It isn’t even similar to your self. So when you begin to go the way, in your life, that you realize in your heart, you’ll be going against the stream of your self. As difficult as that is, that’s real. It’s goodness.
As you go the way that you realize in your heart, that puts you into the stream of realization. Moving in realization is what heals you. Your self needs healing but you don’t need that healing yet. You need realization more, and you need to move in that realization. You need that more than you need healing in your self. This aligns you. This aligns you to your heart and to what you know in your heart. Nothing matters more than that. Difficulties don’t matter as much.
The way to deal with your difficulties is not by those ways that you find in your self. Use the ways that you realize in your heart for you to deal with your difficulties. If you don’t know how to deal with something, go directly to your heart. Be gentled and quieted in your heart and listen to what you realize. When you realize, love what you’re realizing, and say “yes” to what you’re realizing by moving in it, by being that realization in your life.
The greater the difficulty that you’re in, the more deeply you’ll be drawing from your own heart. Your direct relationship to meaning isn’t in your self. It’s in your heart.
Q: I can’t relate to “what you directly know.”
John: What you directly know is the nurture. You don’t need words. You get to know qualities. It’s in your heart that you realize nurtureful qualities.
Q: And that’s all?
John: Yes.
Q: Then I can’t integrate it into my everyday life.
John: You hold dearly to those nurtureful qualities that you realize in your heart in the midst of your daily life, and anything that’s taking place in your life doesn’t matter as much as these qualities that you’ve realized.
Q: I would be a kind of switching because I can’t do both at the same time. I try to do things gentler than I used to, but, after the moment I notice “you’re completely gone! Where’s your heart?”
John: As soon as you realize that you’re gone, you know. As soon as you know that you’re gone, return. Nothing matters more. There isn’t first something to deal with. There is first your return. There isn’t a process in your return.
When you realize that you’re gone and you seem so lost and caught up, you can have a little practice – a little something to do. As soon as you realize that you’re gone, for just a moment, stop, put your head to your chest and say: “Oh…like … oohhh.” Then wait a moment – it’ll only be a moment – and then say: “Mmmm.”
Q: It will confuse my pupils in class every day. They can’t be more confused!
John: Just let them deal with it and, if one of them asks, then say what you’re doing.
When you teach, they don’t really see. When you do this as soon as you realize that you’re gone, a little part of them will see … not that you’re gone. A little part of them will really see something that matters that is really different.
Q: They see when I return.
John: If they can see their teacher do that, then they really have something.
Q: Thank you. My self is quiet … friendly quiet.
597 – The Person, the Self and the Being: Identifying the Many Levels of You (Part 1)
Person, self, being … what’s the difference and what is real? Using different analogies, John explains how our different levels connect and shares the code to being what we really are.
596 – Beyond Sadness and Pain: Happy Without a Reason
John reveals the source of the deep well of sadness and pain this person carries, and shares how she can reconnect with her original happiness.
595 – When a Crumb of Truth in Your Heart is Your Home
John responds to a spiritual dilemma: a desperate longing for realization, coupled with the fear of nothingness that seems to come with it.
594 – Fully Present in Your Body, Fully Present in Your Heart
Closing down to the experience of vulnerability can mean dissociating from the body. John shares a simple way to become more present however uncomfortable we feel.
593 – Honest to the Way of Your Heart
An exploration of how honesty and an open, soft heart are connected, taking us ever deeper into the unseen roots we could remain in forever.
591 – The Truth About Compassion
When is compassion self-centred, when is it real, and how can we tell? An exploration of what it means to be truly compassionate.
“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
