Q: What is enlightenment?
John: Consciousness opened into a greater spectrum of reality than what can be perceived and known from within one’s self, enabling the self and the experience of the self to have a context that doesn’t come from that self, giving enough perspective within that self for the self to more easily rest because of the so much more that carries it.
Being enlightened doesn’t mean that one is home. It means that there is knowing and seeing as awareness that is far beyond what’s common in this world; a knowing and a seeing that balances all other seeing.
Coming into enlightenment greatly changes your experience of reality, and that doesn’t mean that you are then, as awareness, in full response to all you know. It doesn’t mean that you are one with all you know. It doesn’t mean that you’re home, that you are at rest in your heart in what you know.
Your evolution as awareness isn’t dependent on enlightenment; it is dependent on you being all-weather home. You will evolve as awareness much more in being in complete response to the little bit that you do know in your heart in the midst of every kind of internal weather system, than to be enlightened and in large response to what you know, but not complete.
Full response to the little you know evolves you more than great response to the much of enlightenment. If great isn’t full, you fool your self.
Being enlightened does not mean that there is no ego, no spiritual ego, lurking in its shadow. When you are home in your heart, home in what you know, there is no ego in all of the shadows. Should the light come on in any dark corner, there is response to what is known and no shrinking away, no wishing for the protection of a shadow.
Being enlightened means that the light within is significantly brighter than what’s common. You’re better off being completely at home in the cold and in the dark than to be almost completely home within all the bright light.
You’ll also evolve more as awareness to be at home within endarkenment than to be at home within enlightenment, unless, of course, you are home in enlightenment and in a life of extraordinary difficulty.
If you become enlightened, at the end of your life you’ll not bow to your enlightenment. You will softly bow because of the knowledge of how beautifully indebted you are to all of the difficulties in your life.
522 – Awakening to the Vastness of You
“Look for more and you find less. Look for less and you’ll find more.” A classic teaching that unwraps this paradox, revealing how it’s through being less and less that we awaken to the vastness of what we really are.
521 – The Beingness of Deeper Knowledge
There’s a difference between the wish for information and understanding, and being receptive to living knowledge. Using an example from their conversation, John explains that difference.
519 – Your Awakening Gives to Existence
Could simply trusting in existence be the key to happiness and peace? Using an analogy from nature, John explains how easy it is draw a false conclusion about the source of awakening and realization.
518 – The Intelligence of Love
“Love, and you’ll know its intelligence.” A journey into the multilevelled body of love that lies beyond our comfort zone. John explains the role of the energy centres in allowing this love to have presence in the self.
517 – What is the Source of the Light, Within?
“Nothing that appears to be comes from what appears to be.” This conversation travels deep into the unseen, revealing the shifts required to know the source of the light, within.
516 – Meeting in Meaning
A dialogue that begins with a question about the format of John’s meetings evolves into a detailed teaching about the true nature of meaning and why searching for it won’t ultimately work.
“My sole purpose is to be, in life, what we are after we’ve died. Through openness and softness of heart and core-splitting honesty at any personal cost, I live as that while actualizing the same in others I meet. I am available as a resource for anyone who recognizes and values this way of being.”
– John de Ruiter
