Q: The structures that I built in my self over the years were based on some belief in powerlessness; some putting my belief in believing that things external to me somehow had power over me.

John: What most people are based on is a false relationship to power, making most people, in some way, victims and perpetrators. It’s rare for someone to be the most basic level of meaning, within, and for their whole life to be based on that. That puts that one into a fundamental, real relationship with power.

Q: How would you describe a real relationship to power?

John: A gentled and quieted heart not at all dependent on one’s self, life or others.

Q: If that’s the foundation, then it wouldn’t really be possible to build something that has a story about you being more powerful than me, or you being this or you being that, or…

John: That’s right. As soon as you have a story, you’re not being real.

Q: And somewhere we all know that.

John: Yes.

Q: Is it more powerful to just be, to just know it?

John: To be the most basic level of realness in the midst of whatever self and life you have. On that level, it’s real to you in the details of your life that you don’t have power over anyone. When that’s real to you, you won’t use what you perceive as power in your self over anyone, and you also won’t relate to being overpowered by anyone, regardless of your experience. You’ll be incapable of being hard-done-by. If you’re wrongfully imprisoned, on a real level within, you are not hard-done-by. You’re not a victim.

Q: When we first split we enter into being a victim?

John: And a perpetrator. Back and forth, in little details, all day long; an illusory life.

Q: And somewhere we all know we’re doing that.

John: Except at that tipping point, where we lay our bodies down to rest and we fall asleep. There, we all, on a fundamental level, relax, and we’re being what we really are, story-free. Few will ever exist in life from within such a basic level and build on that level, even though there isn’t anything in all of existence that matters more.

Q: You’re talking about a place where we can just completely rest. We’re grounded on what we know on that basic level and we don’t need to build a story. Then we can actually, really, rest.

John: Yes.

Q: Because it’s so rare to live from that, I wonder what it was in you that was so clear that you saw that?

John: It wasn’t that I was so clear. All it was, is that I did simply give my power to what I knew, and where I gave it, I let it stay there. I didn’t treat it like a bank deposit.

Q: And that’s how you see us … completely at choice to do that?

John: It is, first, all I see.

Q: Using that metaphor, if we put our money in and then we take it out again, and then we put some back, and then we withdraw a bit and then put some back …

John: Is a fool’s life. The beginning of wisdom is that you give to what you know without taking it back. If you live that way, you’re wise. If you don’t, then it doesn’t matter what you think. You are a fool.

Q: What would that look like?

John: Putting money in the bank when you feel good and taking it out when you don’t feel good. As soon as you separate, then very quickly you’ll live with an almost empty bank account, and you’ll live your life borrowing. What you borrow from your self, you live indebted to your self, using the power in your self to compensate for not being what you really are, using power in your self to, in some way, be a victim, be hard-done-by, or in some way to exercise power over someone, even if the power exercised is just quietly in your heart, such as the tiniest judgment.

Q: So if all of that’s going on in me, in my self, that means I haven’t fully invested in what I know.

John: Yes, and while you haven’t, nothing stops you.

Q: But could I really go from one day to the next and have no judgment?

John: Yes. But that will end completely your relationship with your self as you’ve known it; your relationship with what you thought was a reality, as you’ve known it.

On a fundamental level, power as you’ve known power in your self, is no longer of use to you. You use that power to take care of everything on the level of your self without using any of that power to take care of you. That power, its use, has nothing to do with you. It’s only the power of what is deeper within than your self that has anything real and to do with you.

Q: I just wonder when you see all that movement in my self or another self, or the way that we use power, and what you first see is that we have the power to be in what we know, how that is for you in terms of the seeing?

John: What it means on a practical, in-life level, is that I love you in a way that has nothing to do with your self, and that it remains that way in life, whether you love me or do things to hurt me.

Q: It’s actually very painful having stories about people.

John: That’s good.

Q: Yeah. Do you have any stories?

John: I’ve started to tell a few, but that’s a different level of story. In that way I have very many really sweet stories.

Q: I see how my stories are interwoven into my nervous system. If I’m really in what I know and it then gets really uncomfortable in my self, is that because I’m still giving something to my self?

John: No. But if you leave your heart to give care to that discomfort, you leave what is fundamentally real for something that matters less.

Q: So is even the thought of how I might alleviate some of the discomfort “leaving”?

John: If you remain in your heart and you do, at the same time, something to relieve discomfort in your self, you’re taking care of your self, but from a place, within, that’s real.

If you would be imprisoned in the most strange way, where your captors give you food but only if you’ll be at least just a little bit upset, and if you’re not at least a little bit upset, you’ll be given no food at all, how long do you think you’d live? I know that I’ll live about forty days unless, of course, I would figure something out that’s outside of physical law.

Q: That’s so lovely and also it was quite Biblical, the thought of you dying. The words “eternal life” came.

John: The kind of life that will never end, does.

Q: Is that because it’s a release from duality?

John: No. But close. It’s because of being what you really are in life in a way that you are building on that and not anything else. What you really are continues through life and after your life, unconditionally. It has nothing to do with what you’re being, but what you build in life, in a way that remains and suffers no loss in death, is highly conditional. It comes only by you being what you really are, within all of the circumstances of life, and in the midst of all of the conditioning of your self. That kind of life is your only real reason for being in a body, and you can separate from that for any reason that you like.

What you really are will not make you one until after you’ve died, unless you are being what you really are as you live, at any personal cost. No amount of awakening, however powerful, gives you the slightest advantage, and no kind of past or DNA inheritance gives you the slightest disadvantage.

Q: And in that we’re all equal.

John: Yes. But few will be equal, and that’s the only part that really counts.

Q: It just feels like you’re showing me in more detail that first block, the first building block.

John: And how they are doorways into the beyond.

Q: As the perception changes there’s so much more space to move in.

John: Real space and life that doesn’t need to end. That level of life, as it touches into you, timelessly, again and again, stays only if you build on it in your life. It’s an opportunity beyond comprehension until after you’ve died. The opportunity ends when you die, and it’s only at that point that you’ll really comprehend what that opportunity was.

Q: When you see what you really are, and that you weren’t being it.

John: As soon as you are relieved of all of your DNA, you will perfectly see.