Q: It’s been such a rich experience for me to be here with you, and I’m grateful. My question is about fear. A year ago I was treated for cancer and my heart was damaged by the radiation. No one can tell me if this will heal or how long it will take. I feel such fear and insecurity because of this. I hope you can help me.
John: You will be just fine after you die, and for sure you’re going to die. You have no real reason to be afraid of dying. You’re not afraid of leaving everything behind and entering what you cannot really comprehend; you do it each time you go to sleep. It’s a little bit like dying. Everything starts to fade out.
When you lie down to go to sleep, your day is the first to fade away. As your day passes away, your person passes away. Your self remains, and as you become quieted in your self, your self begins to pass away. How you relate to your self passes away, and you’re resting in your heart. There’s not much there anymore, but it’s really good. As you continue to relate more deeply, deeper than your own heart, you fall asleep.
What you are deeply familiar with, in this, is goodness. What comes after you being awake in your body is you falling asleep in your body. Goodness doesn’t diminish and what you really are doesn’t diminish. You come through it all in the next day and you start anew. That’s all very similar to what dying is like; what there is before and what there is after.
If your heart is damaged because of the radiation treatment, and if that damage is outside your control, is not able to be addressed, then whatever that damage is, it is. If that brings you closer to dying, then you’re closer to dying. You’re closer to the next goodness.
You don’t need to move into the next goodness with haste, and you don’t need to stay in the present goodness in a way of holding back from the next. You know that you love goodness. Love being in the goodness that you’re in, and when the next goodness comes, when that time comes where this present goodness is over, you are goodness, you love goodness, and you’ll move into the next goodness.
If you hold onto the present one, fearing what you’ll lose when you move into the next one, then you’re not really in this goodness. Be in all of this goodness that you can, beautifully relaxed in it, really moving in it, while at a moment’s notice you’re ready for the next goodness.
When you are deeply quieted and gentled in your heart, you are not afraid of dying. Let that settle the entire issue. Concerning the issue, rest in what you know.
Rest in what you know in your heart, and live. Live that way until it’s all done.
Q: When I hear what you say, it sounds as if my dying is close by in time, and I don’t feel that.
John: Sooner or later is close.
It doesn’t matter how long you live. What matters is that you really live, but from the deepest you know the truth of, until it’s all done.
For you to really live, let your death, whenever that is going to be, very sweetly occupy a little part of your heart. The light of that goodness will deeply inspire you in your living. You’ll not live as though everything is going to last, and you’ll relate to meaning in everything.
You’ll be that which doesn’t pass away in the midst of everything that you know is not going to last.
