Q: Hi. Welcome to New York. I’m wondering, what’s the best way to stay grounded?

John: By deeply not needing to. Any real grounding comes from deeper within than what we relate to as our selves. It comes from deeper within than any kind of thinking or feeling. The access to it is through openness and softness of heart. If we’re looking for any kind of grounding, we’re misunderstanding what we really are.

All that there is that is really worth being grounded in, and therefore coming from, is what we know the truth of in our hearts, aside from anything that we experience in our selves, aside from our past, aside from any kind of conditioning. When we are most deeply quieted within, we realize that tiny little bit that we do know the truth of. That tiny little bit may not even be something that we understand, but we do directly know it. It’s what enables us to rest, within. So a real grounding is when we are relaxed, as awareness, simply being one with what we actually know the truth of. Believing what we actually know the truth of is deeper than any belief. When we have beliefs we’re fundamentally ungrounded.

You do come into a most profound groundedness – one with what you know the truth of – and you do completely turn into that every time you go to sleep. When you lie down to go to sleep you first relax as a person, so you come into a deeper level of your person. As you come into a deeper level of your person, your person begins to pass away. With that, your day also begins to pass away and you come into your self, a deeper groundedness, as you relax as awareness. You naturally rest within your own interior.

As you continue to relax, as awareness, your self also passes away and you are soon coming into an even deeper groundedness where it is enough for you to reside in your heart. As you continue to relax, as awareness, your heart also passes away. You enter your being and you are being what you really are. You come into that, as awareness, the moment that you fall asleep. At that very moment you are grounded in the deepest of what you really are.

When you realize how much home that is every time you fall asleep, and you realize the fundamental value of that, that’s deeper than your life, your person, your self and even your own heart, you have right there direct knowledge of what to be in your self, in your person and in all of your life. And then you are profoundly grounded.

It isn’t mysterious; it’s natural and immediate, and requires no process. You can’t work for it, you can’t earn it; you can only respond to it.