Q: I am a language teacher and I have groups and individual pupils, and lately I have received a lot of feedbacks from pupils that I am not patient enough. I feel that it’s true what they are saying and I get aggressive – and I don’t want to get aggressive, of course.

John: No. But you do. That is what makes you impatient. You would like to be aggressive without suffering the consequences of being aggressive.

Q: So the aggression is the real problem I have.

John: Needing to have what you believe you need. That makes you aggressive. As soon as you have a single belief within, that makes you aggressive and violent. Need can be very soft, very pliable, very giving … until it is crossed or until it doesn’t get what it wants. The problem isn’t at the surface; it is right at the very core.

Impatience is an indication that you are massively lost and in trouble, and anything that you do to fix it makes it worse. Allowing the seeing of impatience to not just create a crack in you, but to allow such seeing from the core to let that crack go right to the core. All that that can disturb is whatever it is that you are holding together at the very core.

You cannot fix anything or change anything where the manifestation is. The exterior is unfixable, it cannot be transformed. You can adjust through focus and discipline and holding. Through need you can adjust your exterior, but such an adjustment fails as soon as you relax. Whatever was being held together or changed was for nothing. Transformation or change can only truly take place from your very core. That transforms everything in its flow, right to the exterior, without effort. If there is impatience, that means that you are living for what you want, and that things are not completely going your way.

Q: I have no idea, no conception of what my way would be, not any more. I have been disillusioned often enough not to know anymore what that would be if things went my way.

John: Wishing for things to go your way, even though ultimately they never do, is having things your way. Very gently letting go of needing to have your life for your self; very gently letting go of owning your self; very gently letting go of holding the power, needing to have some advantage. Very gently letting go of your appetite for power means endless, effortless, nourishing, patience. The more appetite you have for power, the less patient you will be. Instead of being defeated because nothing ultimately ever works, enjoy being at rest within for rest’s sake, no longer for your own sake. That turns you into nourishing stillness. As soon as you rest within for your own sake, that is you on a path to be at rest within because you perceive that that will give you what you want, instead of being at rest within for rest’s sake; being restfulness instead of trying restfulness.

Q: I feel afraid of being at rest because I associate this with dying, and although I greatly desire this inward peace, I am also afraid at the same time of actually letting go the striving.

John: When the striving ends, you fear what you know. You know that the end of striving would be the absolute end of what you’re used to as being you. Everything that you have wanted in your life would have no meaning where there is peace.

Genuine letting go at the core, genuinely resting at the very core would irreversibly alter your whole frame of reference. Instead of two that can’t figure out how to be one, you would be one that cannot comprehend how to be two. You would lose everything that you have ever gained from being two. You would lose everything that you don’t need. All that would be lost is tension. Everything else stays the same.

Q: I would gain a lot if I lost tension.

John: You would gain nothing, and you would be so awesomely at home and okay with any kind of tension. Tension would no longer mean anything to you. You would be at home in it. Everywhere that there’s tension, you would make your nest. You would be attracted to tension only because of your love of being. You would no longer have preference of any kind of experience, painful or pleasurable. Preference at the core means that you’re split, that your enjoyment of being flourishes in absolutely anything that presently is, whether it is painful or pleasurable, making it no longer about pleasure and pain but the love of being.