Q: I had a dream four weeks ago. The voice in the dream told me that I should manifest my divine. Can you say something about that?

John: For you to ascend, for you to manifest the divine, you must first descend. You cannot ascend any higher than you are very gently open to descending. You cannot ascend without being absorbed into the deep; not taking hold of the deep but most gently being absorbed into the deep while still being in this world. Kindness, making its home in the dark and in the deep. To arise as light you have to return to where the light came from. You cannot arise as light without being profoundly okay in the deepest darkness – very deep stillness that has no need of movement. That is the kind of stillness that is then free to move, without using such movement for itself.

For you to manifest the divine you have to first most gently dissolve the barrier between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. Within your subconscious mind is everything that you have ever hoped for, and within your subconscious mind is everything that you have ever feared. To dissolve the barrier within that you have used to protect yourself from your hopes and from your fears is for you to be completely still, gentled and quieted, while in the midst of any hope or any fear. You are used to either being hopeful or fearful instead of enjoying being simply still. To ascend, to move as light, would mean that you cannot be persuaded by hope, as much as you could also not be dissuaded by fear, being equally free of each so that it is the finest truth within that matters to you the most, and no longer what it is that affects you. No longer being experience-oriented but truth-oriented. Integrating what imprisons you – not moving past it, but love moving through it.

For you to manifest the divine is for you to, most gently, let every form of self-interest pass away, with your whole heart still remaining in this world; not dissolving self-interest by dissolving this world, but most gently letting all self-interest pass away while still completely being in this world, without this world passing away.

Q: What do you mean by “self-interest”?

John: Existing and doing things for your own sake; regarding the self as being worth everything when the self is only really worth something; being within yourself without making the experience of yourself your centre; dwelling within your self while having the finest truth, within, as your only centre. That doesn’t get rid of your self. That transforms the self into something that is as fine as what you are abiding in. It is not about the self passing away; it is about the neediness within the self, the attachment to the self, passing away. It isn’t something that you can get rid of. It is only something that you can very gently let go of.

As you are letting go of it, that is when you really discover the depth of its imprisonment. A very gentle descending into the deep … very gently being still in the dark. When such stillness moves without any self-orientation, the result is light. When stillness moves there is light. You cannot move as light without first becoming stillness: not in escaping this world, not in escaping your mind and your feelings, but becoming stillness in the midst of your mind, in the midst of your feelings, in the midst of everything in this world, as is. In being that, such movement is manifesting the divine.

You cannot manifest the divine until you first turn into profound okayness in losing your distortion of the divine. You have divinity. You are used to being tightness in it. You find your self needing, within, everything that you actually, really, already have. You cannot be what you already, actually, really have without first, most gently, really losing it – not that anything real would be gone. The neediness would be gone.

That leaves you being everything that you are looking for. Movement within that manifests the divine; you returning to where you came from while still being in this world and then returning, being that while still in this world, without making something of it in this world – without it having anything to do with personal success.
Being a truth-centred self in a very self-oriented world, a self that clearly reflects the divine instead of a self that clearly reflects its own purposes. The human consciousness very gently responding to merging with the other side, without hope or fear, then being the other side, within the human consciousness, without hope or fear: you turning into the divine, within your humanness, without your own self being at the centre of it. Letting the whole of your self transform into the tiniest little bit of goodness within. That gives the tiniest little bit of goodness, within, all of the form that you are accustomed to taking. You turning into your own innermost so that your own innermost can have all of the form that you are accustomed to having. That enables form and formlessness to be one, instead of you keeping the two mostly separate.

It is like you letting holiness, within, completely have everything that you have ever fought for; letting the split in your own heart between hope and fear completely return home, where there is only divine goodness … both still and moving.