Q: My question is about mental tension created by my unconscious mind that I can’t reach, and it seems to have an effect on everything. My mind gets into everything even when I don’t know that it’s doing it, and it’s dramatically affected my nervous system and I’ve been unable to sleep at all for years. So I practise as much okayness as I can, but I haven’t been able to get to complete okayness with the amount of mental tension that I can’t reach.

John: When you are not doing what you are accustomed to being and doing in your mind, your mind will be at rest. Your mental state is determined by what you are in your body. What you are in your body slowly conditions your body and conditions your mind, how your mind functions. What you are in your body affects your own chemistry.

Mental tension has to do with your self and your person. Okayness has to do with your being. When you understand the usefulness of okayness in your self and in your person, that can have you mitigating the tension in your mind, but it also adds tension in your mind. It can remove some of the coarser tension, and that coarser tension is replaced with a more sophisticated tension. If the okayness isn’t fundamental, if the okayness isn’t true to the core, then your use of okayness will make you worse. When you use something of your own being as a benefit to your self, you’ll be using that understood beingness to cover something in your self that’s unfavourable to your experience – an overlay of okayness on top of not-okayness, creating a sophisticated mix.

Your okayness as a being isn’t informed at all by anything in your self, your person, or your life. It isn’t informed by your past. It isn’t connected to any of the conditioning in your self. It isn’t connected to how you have moved as awareness in your heart, in your self, or in your person. Okayness in your being is independent of anything that’s subsequent to that. It’s independent of everything that you’re accustomed to.
That okayness isn’t actually usable. You can take from it and apply it to your self in effort of making your self and your own experience more comfortable, but that doesn’t make you a part of your own being. What makes you a part of your own being, as awareness, is surrender, surrender to your own being, and that surrender cannot be of use to you in your self. As soon as it is, then the surrender is for your self, making it not what surrender is.

For the surrender to your own being by you, as awareness, to work, it needs to be authentic. The movement, your movement of surrender to your own being is your being true to your being; being true to your being instead of being true to your self or your person or even your heart. Your own being matters more than the levels that are subsequent to that. Your own being matters more than your heart and your self and your person. Your own being matters more than your whole life.

You, as awareness, surrendering to your own being is for you to be surrendering to most profound beingness, for you to be surrendering to how your being moves, how your being is. The authentic surrender is your authentic return to being what your own being is. Being okay as is isn’t for your self. It doesn’t come from your self. When you lay hold of okayness from your self, you’re not being something of your own being. You’re being your self and making your own being useful to your self. It isn’t something that’s bad. It is something that doesn’t work.

In your own being you have no issue with mental tension; you have no issue with any kind of discomfort. In your own being you have no issue with pain or suffering. In your own being there is no comprehension of reaction. In your own being you can feel what pain is and you have no relating to it. In your own being you’re not informed by anything that’s taking place in your self or in your person. Everything that’s taking place can be felt and it doesn’t inform you in what your being is.

Your being is informed by what precedes your own being. Your being is informed by direct knowledge: knowing that isn’t learned, knowing that is fundamental to you. When you are, as awareness, at one within, that means you are, as awareness, coming from what is first, within. You’re coming from what informs everything else. You’re coming from direct knowledge, within – un-held-together knowledge, un-held-together knowing. Of that you have your being.

Your own being is the movement of knowing. It’s the first substance of knowing. The substance of your own being is then what informs your self. Where that substance of your being is first known within your self is in your heart. Your own being touches your heart. When your heart is touched by something, seemingly from your self or from someone else, seemingly from something in your life, that touch isn’t really from what’s outside of your self and it’s also not from your self. It is occurring in your heart. It’s occurring in your heart because something is taking place that is just like what your own being is like, so there’s a response of your own being to something of beingness in your self or outside of your self. That response takes place in your heart and through your heart, providing you with an experience of something of your own being.

With each occurrence of that, you know within your heart that that touch of being in your heart fundamentally matters more than anything else. What you have fundamental knowledge of is that it is to that touch of being that you belong. When you make something matter in your experience, when you make something that’s occurring in your self matter more than any touch of being that you know in your heart, you are turning things upside down. You are making your experience in your self matter more than your own being. What you are, as awareness, creating and manifesting in that is distortion. You are making what is less real, more real and you are making what is more real, less real. Your own being matters more than your self. When you to take to heart what’s occurring in your self instead of taking to heart the touch of being that is present in your heart, you’re creating confusion. When you take your self to heart, you are believing that your self matters more than your own being. It doesn’t matter what you’re thinking. Your own thinking doesn’t inform you of what you’re believing in your heart. You can have the intellectual belief, the belief in your mind that your being matters more than your self. That doesn’t mean that you’re living that. That doesn’t mean that it’s real in your heart. In that way, as awareness, within your forms you’re able to hold one thing and at the same time be something different. You’re able to multitask. The multitasking is important. It’s your ability, but it needs to be taking place from what is first. It needs to be taking place from your innermost and not from your outermost.

When you’re holding okayness, that is not the same as being okayness. As awareness, you can fool your self, but you can’t fool your own being. Your self is corruptible. Your own being isn’t corruptible. As soon as you use okayness for a result, when you use it to achieve an experience in your self then you are not being like what your own being is. As soon as you’re using that beingness, you are being what separation is, instead of being like what your being is. Using beingness makes you, as awareness, within your self different from your own being. That creates tension in your self. The source of your tension is your beingness in your self, and that beingness doesn’t come from your own being. It’s a distorted beingness. That doesn’t make you bad. It makes what you are being incorrect. It makes what you are being in your self not workable. It doesn’t actually work because it isn’t the same beingness as your own being. It isn’t even the same beingness that touches your own heart.

For you, as awareness, to surrender to your own being, it cannot be because of something taking place in your self. It cannot be because of any kind of discomfort. It cannot be anything of a need of having beingness in your self. It can’t be because of the need of oneness. It can’t be because of the need of nurture and healing. Your surrender as awareness to your own being can only be because it’s true.

It’s true for you to belong to your own being and it isn’t true for you to belong to your self. When you add something to that, then you’ll make real what isn’t real, creating tension in your self. The tension is a manifestation of what isn’t working. You’re receiving real feedback. In this way, what’s occurring in your self is a mirror. It shows you what you are being in your self.

Your own being is nurture to your self, but only if you’re coming from it. If you are being what your own being is, then you as your own being are nurture to your self, healing your self. The healing is a result, but it’s not a result that’s sought after. It isn’t a result that you had an agenda in. With such result there is no agenda. It’s purely a result. It’s purely secondary.

You have taken your self to heart. When you take your self to heart, that means that, as awareness, contrary to any intellectual belief that you have, you belong to your self. What is in your heart you are belonging to. Your self doesn’t belong in your heart. Your being belongs in your heart. Your heart belongs in your self. It is then your heart that moves your self, just as it is your own being that moves your heart. When your self moves your heart, your self by you, because of you, fills your heart. In that way, in your heart, you use your self to displace your own being. That creates tension in your heart because what you’re doing and being in your heart isn’t true, isn’t true to your own being. It’s true only to your self, and your self isn’t what’s true. If you trust your self, if you trust what you think and what you feel to tell you what is true, then the conditioning that is in your self will be further conditioning your self.

Being free of your self means that your self is no longer in your heart, and that what fills your heart is that which precedes your self and precedes your own heart. What fills your heart is something of your own being. What you take to heart is something of your own being. What your heart belongs to is your own being. That means that you, as awareness, within your heart are not believing your self; you are believing your own being. What you are believing as awareness in your heart is what fills your heart. Belief, fundamental belief, determines what has your heart, what fills your heart. Your intellectual belief isn’t what fills your heart. Believing that you belong to oneness or believing that you are oneness doesn’t make you, in your self, oneness. Taking what oneness is to heart makes you what oneness is in your heart. What you are believing in your heart is what you are relating to in your heart.

The way that you function as awareness is by relating. As awareness, you don’t first function as thinking. As awareness, you first function as relating. You first function as belief, core belief. As awareness, what you actually relate to when there is no holding at all in what you are as awareness, what you actually relate to is knowing. What you know when there is no holding is the truth, within, unlearned, unacquired. It is pre-form.

Everything of yours, all of your forms, need to be subject to what precedes your forms. Your forms actually belong to what precedes your forms. The deepest, within, needs to be what governs everything of yours, and it needs to take place through you, as awareness. That means that awareness is one with knowing, and the movement of that is your own beingness. The manifestation of that further into form is your heart, what fills it, what moves it, and your self. That is you from your own innermost having authentic effect in your body.

For you as awareness to be surrendered to okayness means that you will be okay, as is. You will be okay in the midst of mental tension; that the mental tension has nothing to do with your okayness. Then okayness, authentic okayness, informs mental tension and your mind becomes as your own being is: without tension.

You take to heart not being able to sleep, creating more tension as you don’t sleep, instead of taking to heart the okayness of your own being in the midst of not being able to sleep. That means that okayness has your heart instead of not being able to sleep having your heart. What is occurring in your self doesn’t belong in your heart. Everything that is in your own being belongs in your heart. That kind of heart belongs in your self.