Q: Hello John. I first encountered you a few months ago when I heard a tape of yours on the subject of cancer. At the time I was very struck by the beauty and truth of your responses. Cancer wasn’t an issue for me then, but it is now. I feel a sense of unreality about it because sometimes I feel very well and optimistic about the outcome on a physical level, but recently there have been times when the pain has been excruciating and I no longer feel optimistic.
John: Then you’ve taken cancer personally. That disables you from being able to see through it. Then what you wish to see comes back at you as a disappointment in the form of cancer. Cancer is a disappointment only in view of what you wish to see. Then, what you wish to see is the very thing that disables you from being able to see your way through cancer, regardless of its physical outcome.
Q: So it sounds to me that it’s about being with what is. Is being with what is and being as fully present as possible what might deepen my practice, spiritually?
John: You are in this life to be spirit in form, not to be enticed by form looking for spirit. Cancer is a form that spirit is at home in. As soon as you wish that it wasn’t there, then that is the form that has caught you.
Q: I think the most difficulty I find is when it gets very painful. It’s hardest then.
John: It’s hardest when you are more interested in your self than in your first love.
Cancer is to be a beloved teacher, not an interference. Be most kind to such a teacher that seems most nasty. It is such kindness that unlocks the living gold that is being given to you. This isn’t about survival. It is about giving love permission to develop at a depth that it hasn’t developed before.
Everything that you are most deeply asking for may easily come in the form that you would least like. When you’re deeply asking for something within that has not yet been completed in you, that makes it very easy to not recognize the messenger when it comes.
You are in this life to be tutored by love. You’re not in this life to have what you want. When you are not letting love tutor you, then misery will.
Q: Thank you.
