Q: I’d like to ask about laying hold. I’ve been exploring laying hold, using the resonance within me that’s responding, and using that to move within me. I think I’ve been shy before now to move toward you in that way, but it seems like it could be a really good thing to do. Does there need to be some sense of comprehension to what I’m laying hold of, or can I just move with that?
John: There doesn’t need to be a mental comprehension, but one in which, deep within, you’re comprehending what you know you’re responding to and you’re laying hold of it. You’re comprehending it with your body and not your mind.
Q: The thing I’d like to understand a little better is that there’s laying hold within my own internal space, and then there’s a sense of reaching to you and laying hold on you. I was noticing there’s almost a parallel notion of trying to claim your attention.
John: It can be underneath. For example, I can be sitting at a café table and I’ll experience someone laying hold of me on a deeper level. I feel it go out of me to that person so then I look over and they have just shifted and are relating and connecting in a completely different way.
Q: It seems to me that there’s more value in simply laying hold than trying to engage with questions that have my interest or asking things I just want to know more about.
John: Asking out of interest has very limited value.
Q: Would you say laying hold is of greatest value?
John: Yes, but it’s also delicate because you can’t have personal investment in laying hold. If there’s personal investment then you have an agenda, and that can block the way of the deeper level movement.
Q: So, when you say it’s delicate, it’s a delicate balance of holding it lightly?
John: If it’s held lightly then it won’t be laying hold. If you’re actually laying hold, you may not be speaking very lightly. The questioner you’re referring to was not speaking lightly.
Q: He was really grappling.
John: Imagine two people talking about food: a person who has been fasting for two weeks and someone who has just had a Christmas dinner. They are not going to be coming from the same place. The second is not able to come from the place that the first naturally comes from.
Q2: Is that what’s happening when people are in the chair and you say that they must have more, they must have it all?
John: That’s when someone’s moving on a deeper level. When someone’s connecting to me on a deeper level their self is not a part of it. Because the connection is real and direct on a deeper level, the more they move on that deeper level the more they’ll naturally need to lay hold.
