Q: I’m still familiarizing myself with your language. I’d like to clear up some of the terms. Do you make a distinction between being, self, and person, where being would be the true identity, the true self, while person and self would be illusion? I’m not sure I understand the difference between person and self.

John: Your person is a level of form that you use to communicate with others, so that includes your personality. Your self is your interior.

When you smile to someone, your intention and purpose in smiling has to do with your person. What’s taking place in your interior that is truly of a smile or not of a smile at all, that’s your self. Your self and your person are forms that are yours that are not yet like what you really are. They’re not a true fit. That doesn’t make them bad or false. It doesn’t make them forms of illusion.

The forms that you’re accustomed to in your experience, everything within your experience is your self, and your self is made of forms meant to change. They’re ready for transformation. Whatever you are being within those forms, those forms become. When you are being like your own being in the midst of your self, the forms of your self will be like you. But it takes time.

So, your self and your person is like a child and awareness, relaxed, is its parent. You’re able to raise your self. You’re able to teach and guide your self. An unruly child isn’t a bad child. It just needs some goodness parenting and some guidance. It just needs an example. Your self is like that and you’re able to be its example. Then, whatever you are being within your self, your self will follow.

Your self is innocent. It’s neither wrong, bad, nor false. If you’re not being what you really are in the midst of your self, your self will become the closed-ness or the hardness that you’re being in it, which makes your self worse. If your self becomes worse, it’s still innocent. Your self is like a servant to you. Your mind is like a servant to you. Whatever you are being in the midst of your mind, your mind is going to be the same way to you.

Your being is all different. Your own being also has form and it has levels of form, just like your own experience has levels of form: your person and personality, your self, and then your own heart. Your being is made of form and has levels, but the forms of your own being are not at all like the forms of your self. They’re of a completely different level. They’re not seen, and these forms are not like and don’t move like the forms of your self. The forms of your being are not moved by thought and feeling. They’re not moved by experience.

Q: When you refer to realization it seems you’re referring to a process of subtraction, so it’s not about adding; it’s more about removing. That would be removing in the space of the person or the self, or both of them?

John: Realization doesn’t have to do with learning and it doesn’t have to do with process. Realization isn’t the removal of something or the privation of something.

What you are is awareness, and you can be awareness in your self, in your person, identified with your self and your person, and somewhat lost in that. When awareness has a glimpse of its own being and of what it really is, then awareness opens and knows directly what it doesn’t know in its self, in its person, and in its life, so it knows directly and it sees into a level of reality that is not at all like its own experience.

The direct knowledge that awareness inadvertently connects with creates a revealing, within, of something of what it always quietly knew but didn’t see, didn’t feel, didn’t understand, and couldn’t seem to come to. That direct revelation, within, is realization. The realization doesn’t require any process of thought, and it isn’t informed by thought.

Q: When you speak of unveiling, so there’s a veil that is to be removed. There is a story of my self that I tell my self, that I’m identified with. Isn’t that the veil that is obstructing this direct realization?

John: Yes.

Q: Is there a difference between the story of me and the sum of self and person?

John: Yes.

Q: What is the difference?

John: The story isn’t innocent, whereas the self and the person is innocent. A story is created when awareness moves the structures of the self, when it creates an energy mix within the self, when it pushes and spins the self, using a mix of thought and emotion to create something that is more than what the self is.

Q: So where does this losing of innocence happen?

John: Within awareness, not within the forms where it looks like the loss of innocence or where it looks like something is being done. The loss of innocence is the point of separation. All that awareness has is what it knows, so there is awareness and the truth, within. When awareness is in response to what it knows and in response to the truth, awareness is one; one with what it knows, one with the truth, one with the movement of that which is its own being and its beingness. All of the real parts, when they are together, there’s oneness, but when awareness separates from what it knows the truth of by believing what it wishes to be true, there’s a point of separation from what it knows.

What awareness knows as beingness is openness and softness. When awareness closes, the heart closes. When awareness closes or hardens, it separates from its own authentic beingness. There is the loss of innocence. That loss of innocence and that separation manifest in the self and in the person. The manifestation isn’t the focus, but it shows what’s occurring in awareness. It shows in your form even though your form isn’t you.

You can relax your person and, within your own interior, you can relax your self. That doesn’t mean that you as awareness are relaxing, and you as awareness are able to relax without needing to relax your person, your self, or your body. For you to be what you really are, what is required is for awareness, if it is separate from what it knows, if it’s not being what it knows, to absolutely relax without using form for it to relax.

Q: If I understand you correctly, at the core of separation would always be the mistaken idea of something being ‘not me’.

John: Needing is not you. Want and need is an energy that is not like you. When awareness is relaxed, it is incapable of relating to want and need. Want and need is a distorted beingness. When awareness is being distorted, awareness moves into want and need. The want and need is a manifestation of its own distortion.

When awareness relaxes, that distortion unwinds and relaxes, and awareness naturally returns to its true beingness which is an openness and a softness.

Q: Through exteriorizing what I consider real, in my imagination I’m creating that separation?

John: The use of imagination doesn’t separate you from what you really are; letting the use of imagination inform you of what you really are creates separation. The self, the mind, the imagination, intuition, the will, emotion, and feeling…when you’re in them, they don’t separate you from what you really are. Your use of them can separate you from what you really are.

If your use of them is closed and hard, your use separates you. If your use is that of openness and softness, your use doesn’t separate you. It’s right at the point of what awareness is being where there is either oneness or separation.

Q: I sometimes get confused where to draw the line between real and imaginary. Maybe you can speak about that line, if it even exists?

John: When you put your hand on a tree, there’s a directness of physical reality between what is yours as physical and the physicality of the tree. That’s real on a surface level and it’s not imaginary. When you put your hand on a tree and you imagine the essence of tree filling your body, there’s going to be a mixture of what takes place.

Anything that you actually resonate with of a truth of that, if you have a resonance of what you’re imagining, there’s going to be a little bit of truth that occurs. The other that occurs is a use of mind and feeling that the imagination stimulates, so you’re able to create through thought and feeling a simulation of what you’re imagining, and any resonance of the truth that is actually present is also going to be in the mix. The fine line, then, within the use of imagination is what resonance you know the truth of within what you’re imagining; the difference between that and your use of thought and feeling in imagination to create something.

When you separate out the resonance and you don’t move with imagination, you just, as awareness, be within the resonance of what you know, you activate that resonance and the resonance increases. When you give energy to the resonance of the truth in you, you’re feeding that. You move its increase. If it’s not mixed with anything of thought or feeling or will, the resonance of the truth grows in you, but that resonance is completely unseen to how you relate with thought and feeling, so when you do have the resonance of the truth of something, for you to move that, your immediate tendency is to use form, to give form to that resonance.

Whatever you use to bring up that resonance is what you feed. For example, when you use your personality to be in your heart, you won’t be in your heart; you’ll be increasing your personality. You can’t use your person for you to be in your self, and you can’t use your self for you to be in your heart.

There is what is real on each level. When you’re in your person and in your personality, when something isn’t going the way that you like, you can work your personality harder. The extra that you’re adding to your personality, that part’s not real. When you are relaxed as a person and moving in your person, there’s something real there. There is a realness. Whatever level you’re moving in, if there’s a measure of relaxation on that level, there’s going to be a realness on that level.

There’s a greater depth of realness when you’re in your self than when you’re in your person, and there’s an even greater depth of realness when you’re in your heart than when you are in your self.

Q: When you say you are in your person, you are in your self, you are in your heart, who’s the ‘you’ in that?

John: Awareness. With each level of yours, levels in your self and also levels in your being, for you to be in a particular level requires the same level of awareness. That’s how awareness is in one level or in another level. When the level of awareness shifts, that determines the level of form that you’ll move in.

When you’re in your self and you try to be in your heart, the level of awareness hasn’t shifted, so the level of awareness that you’re in of your self is what you’ll be increasing when you try to be in your heart. Whereas, when awareness simply shifts to the level that it knows is of the heart, then awareness is, in that instant, in the heart instead of in the self.

There isn’t a process for awareness to shift from the person to the self or from the self to the heart, or from the heart to the being. That movement from level to level requires a shift of awareness. When you use one of your forms to assist in that shift, you will be the level of awareness that pertains to the form that you’re using.

When you’re being awareness, not dependent on the use of your forms, you’re able to fundamentally shift by moving as what you know. When awareness and knowing come together, there’s a shift in awareness. There isn’t a use of form that’s required to bring awareness and knowing together. For you, awareness, to be pure awareness is for you to not use anything that is yours for you to be you.

You can see such a shift all the way out into form, solidly in the person, in the example of a small child in a temper tantrum, in a fury and in a rage. And that child, in an instant, the rage is gone, the fury is gone, the temper tantrum is gone, the emotions are gone, and the child in that same moment is happy, soft, open, clear and at peace. When you see something like that it’s a wonder of wonders. When you see it you know that there was no process.

For an adult to make that kind of shift, it involves an entire process, a process of relaxing and letting go, and moving through the emotion. An adult goes through a change of form. It changes and alters its form to get to a deeper level of form, and then has to continue changing that form to get to a deeper level of form until all is quieted.

When you see a child do all of this in an instant, it didn’t engage its forms. What it did was it shifted as awareness without the use of anything. It realized what it knew, and in that same instant it turned into what it knew. Because nothing was mixed in with that, the forms changed in that same instant. The child didn’t do something that was magical. What it did was to code. It had the code perfectly.

For there to be a profound shift, that profound shift needs to be to code, and anything that’s introduced that isn’t part of the code of that particular shift, the shift won’t occur. A code is like a combination on a combination lock. You can have all of the numbers correct except one and the lock won’t open. If you have the right intention, that’s not part of the code. If you try really hard and concentrate, that’s not part of the code. You either have numbers right or you don’t.

Q: How come the child has access to the code, the adult doesn’t?

John: Because the adult is attached to what it’s being when it’s upset. When an adult realizes that its upsetness isn’t real or true, it will save face by introducing a process to accomplish the shift so that it doesn’t look so bad. When an adult is really upset and drops the upsetness in a moment and smiles, it completely exposes what it was in. The adult doesn’t want to lose face, so it will keep some of the upsetness while it begins to drop the upsetness. It maintains some of the mix to not look stupid.

Q: So is it just a matter of fluidity?

John: It’s a matter of profound honesty and total response.

When, in a practical situation, you know that you need to run full out and at present you’re standing still, when you are all-in what you know, you will just explode into a full-out run. There isn’t a process. There’s a burst of energy and you’re moving. Everything that you are is in the running.

If you have an ego and a part of your ego is how you walk, if there’s a particular kind of slowness in how you walk, a particular movement of your own posture and you’re invested with your ego in that kind of movement, and then you know to all of a sudden run, and if those around you you’ve used your ego to establish what your posturing looks like and this particular kind of slowness of movement looks like, then while people are watching, you can’t break out into a full run. You’ll introduce your slowness. Through the use of ego, you’ll include the patterns of how you walk and you’ll involve that in how you process into a run, so that breaking out into a run is consistent with how you move your own slowness. It’s just all foolishness. And then, when you break out into a run, you’re not in full response to running. You’re moving into a run. The other part of you is you’re keeping your slowness. The other part is you’re concerned what you’ll look like because you’ll break your pattern of how you move if you go into a full-out run.

You’ll be holding your various investments, maintaining those investments, while you move those investments slowly into running. So there isn’t a full response when you know to run; your own investments won’t let you. If you drop your investments in the same instance that you know to run, there’s not a problem. A child is able to do that.

Q: Investments and identification…is that the same?

John: They’re different. You can make an investment and not be completely identified in it, but a shift of identification is occurring when you make an investment. Identification with that investment occurs when you completely sell out as awareness to that investment. When you’re lost in the investment, you’re identified with it.

When you first make an investment, you know what you’re doing and you’re going against what you know. As you continue with that investment, you’ll rationalize, you’ll use thought and feeling to come up with good reasons as to why you’re making this investment, and you’ll make the investment right even though it’s against what you know. When you begin to rationalize and justify, that’s where you are wanting to fool your self. You want to believe what you’re doing despite knowing that it’s not real.

When you exercise the need to believe it because you want it to be real, you will make it real; you’ll make it real to your self. You’ll fool your self and you’ll lie to your self. When you do, you’re caught in it. When you seal the identification, your regular use of thought and feeling moves as that identification. When you lie to your self, it works. When you need it to work, it will really work. You’re the genius in it.

Your self isn’t at fault. The thinking isn’t at fault. The feeling isn’t at fault. You are. You are, by separating from what you know and then using your forms to cover it all up.

Q: Separating from what knowledge?

John: To make it concrete in this life, if you’re on your way to an extremely important, to you, interview and you cannot be late and you’re right down to the very last minute, and on your way you see a small child fall down really hard and you don’t see a parent around, or you see an elderly person falling down terribly and there’s no one around to help, right there you know that if you help you won’t make your interview.

What you quietly know, within, is what you actually have no choice in. At that point, it isn’t about what you wish to be true. There is, at that point, the fact of the matter: someone in desperate need, you’re there, if you help, the interview is gone, and the situation to your knowledge demands your help. There’s only one real thing to do based on what you know. You say goodbye to the interview and you help the person.

If you don’t do that, you’ll make powerful rationalizations and you’ll turn something in your self off so that you don’t have to completely register what you’re walking away from. You’ll look away, with the use of your eyes you’ll look away from that older person who’s badly hurt. You’ll engage thought and feeling that has to do with your interview and why it is so important, and you’ll shut a part of your self down. That enables you to keep going without hesitation, and what you have engaged right there is a greater separation from what you really are.

It all works practically. This is occurring all day long. You can see it most easily in an extreme example. Let the example slowly become smaller and smaller and smaller, until it is so tiny that it doesn’t even involve the use of form. All there is, is just awareness and what awareness knows without a surrounding circumstance, and the principle remains the same.

Q: So, is the separation always a result of the egotistical choice as opposed to the altruistic choice?

John: The altruism is a principle. Aside from any altruism, there is in you, within the person, in the circumstance, what you know. You can move with what you know or you can move what you know aside, because what you know within that circumstance is in your way. Altruism is a principle of movement. Altruism doesn’t make you one with what you know.

Q: Would it be the rational choice as opposed to the intuitive choice?

John: It’s neither. Knowing is clearer and quicker than thought or feeling or intuition. Whatever your orientation as awareness is, your mind will support, your feelings will support, your intuition will support. That orientation of awareness, for that to change, requires a shift of awareness; it doesn’t require a change of form. Thinking differently won’t shift your awareness. Thinking and feeling differently won’t shift your awareness.

Q: How to discern the difference between what you call knowing and intuition?

John: Intuition is a form in your self. Like all of the forms in your self, they exist for your orientation, whether your orientation is real to what you know or not.

When you function with an ego, your intuition serves that ego. You will intuit with fine antennae further than what you can think and feel, so you’ll be able to have precognition of anything that threatens your ego. That use of intuition won’t shift until your orientation as awareness shifts away from your ego. In that moment, your intuition serves a different orientation.

It’s like having a blindly loyal servant. That servant lives and dies for you whether you’re a good person or a bad person.

End of Part 1; continued in Part 2 Podcast 598