Q: I haven’t found anyone yet who can see me, or at least that’s the way I feel it. There’s a belief that I’m crazy. When I see me, I don’t know what me is but I see myself picking up an idea, and when I do that this what I picked up becomes reality. I can feel it as if I have a body, as if I would sit on this chair and walk on this Earth, but really there is neither a body nor a chair nor any Earth. There’s just something which is me and an idea that I picked up, and when I pick up another idea some other reality would appear to be real for me; it has become a certain reality for me. I don’t know how to explain it any better. Can you relate to that in any way?

John: The you that is there when it is still, the you that is there is the tenderness. That still tenderness within is the you. The me over there in you, the me is a further realization that takes place from the you. I’m not speaking of the me here; I’m speaking of within you. When the tenderness that is there is still, that is you.

When that tenderness looks within, it is happy with what it knows. That happy is the ‘me.’ The ‘you’ is the still tenderness; the ‘me’ is the still happiness.

Q: But in my heart aren’t they just one?

John: They are one. When the still tenderness looks within, it knows that it is happy.

Q: It is happy. Isn’t knowing another separation? When I’m in that state there’s no reflection.

John: It is you first being the still tenderness, realizing that, then letting the still tenderness realize its own happiness. It isn’t happy for a reason; it just simply is happy. Then as this ‘you,’ this tender happy awareness, as this tender happy awareness moves through the self it begins to experience things other than tenderness and happiness, but it is still connected with what it knows. When it begins to believe those things that are other than what it already knows, then it begins to lose the connection and it begins to turn into the self. It begins to believe that it is the self.

Q: The self begins to believe that it is disconnected. The real me always knows, doesn’t it?

John: You are to be within the self and to move through the self without you identifying with the self. Identify only with what you know; the primary connection that you have, the tenderness and the happiness, being that within the self.

As it becomes more complex when you are in your self and that is in this life, then there is much more that will affect the self. Others will affect your self and that will affect you, but such effect does not change what you know. If you believe the effect then the effect of others on your self and the effect of your self on you just serves as a distraction from what you know.

Abide in what you know. Remain being what you know while you are having many experiences that are contrary to what you know. As you are remaining in the tenderness and the happiness within while having many different kinds of experiences – some comfortable and some uncomfortable – when you are being what you know in the midst of any experience, that is how you as awareness are integrating that experience. When you are identifying with the experience, identifying with the thoughts and the feelings, then the experience integrates you. You turn into the experience. The experience is not to integrate you by taking you in. You, the tenderness and the happiness within, you are to integrate the experience, not the other way around.

When you are integrating experiences by being what you know you are in the midst of an experience, then you through experiences are wholesomely expanding. When the experiences are integrating you because you are identifying with them, then your awareness is expanding, but you are not wholesomely expanding. You are expanding outwards while being disconnected from where you came from, while being disconnected from what you really are.

When experiences are integrating you because you are identifying with them, such expansion serves only the separation within. Such expansion serves your misunderstanding of what really is. You cannot stop expansion of awareness, you can let it take place only wholesomely, only in a way that is truly good. That is by remaining in what you actually know within while the expansion takes place, remaining connected within to what you know is one.

The experience of all of this is very difficult. What comes with this is much hardship. You cannot avoid the hardship. What is not difficult is for you to be honest, within, with what you know while you are having any experience. Such knowing in the midst of any experience, when you are being honest, profoundly honest, such knowing gentles you, quietens you and makes you still, where everything within is known to actually be okay, and that is there in the midst of any difficulty and any hardship. Just don’t abandon what you know in order to address the difficulty and the hardship. You can address the difficulty of your experience and the hardship within your experience, but addressing that only from what you know, never abandoning what you know so that you can address the difficulty.

Q: I know it’s silly but I need to ask anyway. Did I fail because I forgot who I really was?

John: It is different than forgetting; it is more like it became convenient for you to not want to remember.

Q: Yes, it was too painful.

John: Live to remember without escaping from the difficulty and the hardship of your experiences. Live to remember what you know while you are in your experiences. That will not make it necessarily easier to be in your experiences. It will make being in your experiences wholesome, but still difficult. The wholesomeness is the goodness.

Remaining connected to what you know in the midst of your experiences will change your pain from being unwholesome to being wholesome pain. It will not take your pain away. Live to remember what you know without ever needing to escape an experience. You don’t need to separate from an experience in order for you to know what you know. Your experiences are not there to tell you who you are. Your experiences are there to tell you what you are experiencing. Let your self have experiences without you turning into them.

Love distinguishing between you and your experiences, instead of you serving the experience of your self, instead of you serving your self. Live to serve what you truly know within in the midst of your self.