Q: I have a question about a phrase you used in Vancouver a couple of times and you talked a little bit about it but I wondered if you could talk more about it? It was a phrase called “liquid intimacy.”

John: Before consciousness has its context in surface bodies and consciousness is completely awake, it’s not awake to itself; it’s awake as flow and the way that it flows, the way that it moves is by way of intimacy or by way of love. And it’s liquid in the sense that there is nothing that it’s not connected with, as in a liquid everything touches everything. The slightest movement in one part is registered in every part. It can interact with anything in the universe. It’s not limited or affected at all by space or time. It’s pure love in motion and it doesn’t stop moving. It exists in a state of total expansiveness. It has no comprehension of boundary or limitation. It interacts with everything by way of being itself, being intimate. All there is that it’s not intimate with is itself: it doesn’t know itself.

When consciousness comes into a body it comes into a context of form. Then through its own body its movement as this liquid love or this liquid intimacy, its own movement is registered in its own body. So then it immediately experiences a reflection of itself. The moment that happens this expansion consciousness of moving liquid intimacy, all of that expansiveness immediately comes to one point. What initiates that is like a living contraction, everything coming to one point because it’s realizing something that’s utterly new. So everything that it is as consciousness comes into the realization of one point and that’s its realizing that it is.

Q: Is that the purpose of being in the body?

John: Now consciousness as this liquid intimacy, it continues to exist but in a state of smallness or it’s like a healthy contraction and once contracted it cannot un-contract and go back to what it was. What maintains the contraction is that it now knows something that it never knew before. It’s awakened to this realization that it is something and that it never had before because it didn’t know itself, it was just being itself and there are no boundaries, no limitations, so it is everywhere, it goes everywhere.

As soon as it knows itself then all of that awareness comes to just that point, self- awareness. Even though it cannot presently go back to what it was, there will now be a pull because there is a resonance that still remains of what it used to be, how it used to move, how it used to flow. A resonance that there is no limitation, there is no restriction, a knowing that that is real but not having any understanding. That pull remains until consciousness returns.

When it returns it will no longer be a vast liquid intimacy of consciousness that doesn’t know itself. By the time it returns it will be what it originally was, but now with full integrated self-awareness. The integration of that is to take place in the context of a body. Because of the contraction,that healthy contraction of self awareness, it uses that as a pattern to comprehend what it’s inside of. So a pull will exist within the mental body, the emotional body, the intuitive, the volitional to do the same: to contract in order to know. When that contraction in the surface body, consciousness contracting inside of a surface body, contracting that body in order to know itself, then all it will know is that body and not itself.

The more it contracts inside of the mind or the emotions or the will or the intuition in order to know itself, because this pull exists: it knows something but it doesn’t know what that is, it’s drawn to it and it doesn’t know where it is going. It didn’t have understanding before, so when all of consciousness came to one point it doesn’t have a trail to go back. There is just a pull that exists to be what it used to be.

When consciousness copies that contraction within a surface body then the intimacy that it is, is put down and replaced by something that is non-intimate. It’s replaced by a wanting. It’s replaced by a needy energy. when it’s being that initial contraction of self-awareness, then the intimacy that it was and still is, now what it’s being intimate with is itself. Inside of these surface bodies, everything that touches one of these bodies will affect the living held-together true liquid intimacy knowing itself. Something touches the mind, something touches the body or the emotions and that immediately goes all the way into consciousness and touches what it is. And at first, consciousness, it can’t comprehend what is happening but it either reacts or it responds. When it responds, the intimacy that it is, the movement of that intimacy continues only now it continues in a way that is new. When it reacts then it contracts in a way that is not true. The intimacy is pushed down and what replaces it is that wanting, holding, protective, getting, doing energy. It’s the tiniest bit of healthful contracted liquid intimacy that is now aware of itself and knowing itself.

As it continues to be what it is, regardless of what is experienced and reflected of itself in what it is through the surface bodies, then it begins to realize what it is as this intimacy in context of the mind. There is that movement of intimacy, which is an opening up, a softening. Then it begins to realize what it is that’s not just self awareness that is there but it’s self awareness expanding, and it’s expanding through the surface bodies. As it continues, it begins to know itself and it begins to know how to be in increasingly new contexts, inside of different thoughts, different feelings, various pressures.

Its way back to its original state is to be what it is, unconditionally, to be that liquid intimacy but to be it in context of these bodies. These bodies introduce pain and pleasure, and for it to be what it is inside of these bodies it won’t chase the pleasure and it will also not resist the pain, that everything is let in as is. For it to be itself and not be what the thought is and the feeling is, then it’s expanding knowing itself, realizing itself. It’s slowly returning to where it was, but this time with an expanded consciousness of self-awareness. It has, then, the capacity to navigate. It’s able to be itself while thinking, while feeling, while experiencing. The pull to be the thought or the feeling or the experience will be equal to the pull to be something that it knows, something far beyond what it’s presently aware of, of this self-aware liquid intimacy. The one it can’t comprehend but it knows. The other it can comprehend through thoughts and feelings and experience. It can comprehend it, but it doesn’t know it. So then there is no intimacy in what it’s comprehending unless it’s being itself in the midst of experiencing comprehending something through thought, even though the thought itself has no meaning. The opportunity equals the trap.

When you experience the trap, you’re unaware of the opportunity. Not being aware of the opportunity doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. The opportunity is realized when, as consciousness, while you’re inside of these bodies, being pulled and affected that you’ll be something that you know, that you’ll be what you are, that you’ll be that intimacy, that you’ll be intimate. When you’re being that instead of the thought or the feeling then that intimacy itself wakes up in a new way while there is thought or feeling. So then the opportunity is realized. Something is comprehended. It’s the knowing of newness happening. It’s still intimacy being itself but in a way that is utterly new.

Q: Right in the middle of limitation, right in the middle of the mess. Wow.

John: It’s the only place it can happen. Then it will be torn between identifying with the thoughts and the feelings, the experience, or identifying with something that it knows.

Q: Temptation!

John: And it can’t be both. The one is true and the other is untrue and it’s something that it knows but it has the capacity to do what it wants.