This man has taken steps beyond his addictions and difficulties but fears ultimately succumbing to their power: it’s all just too painful. John encourages him in the one way that really works – to become gentled in his heart and to live his daily life in the realization of the nurture he will find there.
The Questioner feels guilty and trapped in her inability to deal with the pain of others. She knows that separating from them or confronting them doesn’t help. John shows her how a simple return to openness and softness of heart allows the cycle of their pain and hers to end… in her.
In this gentle, profound dialogue, a woman who was sexually abused by her father asks how she can be with the ongoing sense of uncleanness she feels in her body. John reveals to her deeper levels unaffected by the trauma, opening the possibility of true healing and a return to a heart-to-heart connection with her father.
Deeply loving someone and being in love… you start a relationship and then you wonder why, after familiarity has set in, the in-loveness is gone and there’s difficulty and pain. If you start from wanting and needing a relationship, you’re already relating in a way that isn’t like your being. So how to have a meaningful, pain-free relationship? Listen to this talk to find out!
There are so many things we can complain about. But what if we didn’t? What if we only expressed what we like? What would that do to our life? Listen to this talk to find out.
“Purity of heart is all in, and it doesn’t slow down because of a failure. Purity of heart is incapable of being discouraged. It’s incapable of being disappointed. Purity of heart without any use of strength is unstoppable.”
“I dread going to work: Should I leave my job?” This questioner is wondering how to deal with a difficult boss. John shows how, when there isn’t a tightening within, an unpleasant experience can actually open deeper love, making it possible to flourish even in difficulty.
How does one deal with the emotional trauma of sexual abuse? What is the value of our past and its memories? In this deep and intricate dialogue, John shows us how opening in the present can heal the past, reconfiguring our body and our self.
What to do when wonderful awakening experiences fade away, and resistance, fear and suffering return to our experience? John reminds us that we know something much deeper within, which is different than our self. Suffering is in the self, it comes from what is familiar. There is no suffering in knowing, in being in what knowing is in our heart; and there is no suffering in the purity of liking. Liking knowing the deep within removes the suffering. It’s easy, natural, direct and immediate.
The questioner describes having been awakened to a deep energy of pure love within, and yet suffering still continues. John explains that the suffering is in the self, while the love is not. The love is your home. Your self suffers because it is not complete. You are complete. You don’t need to suffer. That puts your self in your care. Then, every difficulty that you have in your self will have you coming more deeply from the love that you’ve awakened to, within.
“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
