Q: Good morning, John. I have a question about what you call the being or beingness. You say this deconstruction of the self is not possible by means of the self but only from a deeper level, and I’m not sure what you mean with being and if there is a connection to that or if I overlook it all the time.
John: Openness and softness of heart is real connection with your own being. The place of connection or separation in relationship to your own being is your heart. When you do as awareness stand against what you’re knowing within, you’ll be closing and hardening your heart and separating from your own being. Your own response to knowledge within also shows within your heart; immediately there’s opening and softening. Your heart displays for you your relationship with knowledge, whether you’re responding to knowledge or moving away from it. As you separate from knowledge and your heart closes and hardens, you are closing the door to your own being. It is not at all an absolute separation, but there is separation into form. You can see it in your own heart.
When there is openness and softness of heart, the door of your heart is not just open to knowing and knowledge, it opens right into your own being, enabling a movement of delicacies of being to enter your heart, and touch your heart, like touches of kindness within, a flow of love in your heart. As you remain in openness and softness of heart, it isn’t just the delicacies of being that begin to move into your heart and into expression in your self, but also streams of being, enabling you to learn as awareness in your self how to move in a way that doesn’t come from your self, a movement in your self that comes from these streams of being moving through your heart and into expression in your self, through your person, and to others. The delicacies, the streams of of meaning, are what provide a depth of meeting.
When your orientation as awareness becomes grounded in openness and softness of heart, you’re no longer dependent on your self in order to be. Your supply within no longer comes from your self; it no longer has connection to want and need. This is being rooted and grounded in openness and softness of heart despite whatever you are experiencing in your self, despite whatever is occurring in your self, despite whatever someone else is doing to you, despite your circumstances. Your connection, your life-feed within, is no longer your self. It is openness and softness of heart, delicate beingness. In this being your ground as awareness, the holding comes off of your self. You’re able to see your self for what it is. There is no intrinsic need within to cover for your self, to keep your self together. You’re able to then be without any reference to your self, fundamentally freeing you of what your self is, enabling you to be present in your self, not because of your relationship to your self, but because of the openness and softness of heart and your coming from delicacies of being and streams of being.
