Q1: For years I’ve been working with something you said: ”Believe with all of your heart what you know.” At first it didn’t make sense to me that one wouldn’t believe what one knew but the more I looked at it, I realized that I didn’t believe what I knew because the separation came in what I believed I knew. I was puzzled with that for a long time and then I could see clearly what was separating me. It was doubt; it was skepticism and a certain hesitation about committing to something.
John: Doubt and skepticism has really nothing to do with skepticism. Doubt and skepticism is a wrongness that’s developed that has nothing to do with doubt and skepticism.
Q1: You’re saying doubt and skepticism has nothing to do with doubt and skepticism?
John: People experience skepticism just for what it is and believe it for what it is and they’re seriously in it as though it has its own root. It doesn’t have its own root.
Q1: I think that’s what I was seeing in the seminar and also this hesitation that was linked into it. It was almost the procrastination of “well, I don’t have to commit right now, I can do this later,” And that was a great relief but lately I’ve been seeing the same process work on this revelation, a certain hesitation on seeing that. I’m not caught up in it but it’s discouraging. I’d like to put this all to rest and just be fully behind what I know. But I don’t know how long I’m going to have to fight this skirmish of erosion of what it is I know. It feels as if I have nothing solid to build on.
John: Doubt, hesitation, skepticism, what that has to do with is you’re wanting to build, not on what you know. You’re wanting to build on the safe terms of your own self. In that way your self matters more to you than knowing.
Q1: So what’s the way out of that, just honesty?
John: Skepticism and doubt is a misuse of power. You can always ground your self by breaking something. Anybody can break something. As soon as they break something, they’re grounded in themselves. Whereas for someone to go about not breaking anything, whatever they do, they’re only contributing or building something to do with goodness. That’s really extraordinary and it’s really difficult. It requires so much. It requires a lot of character.
If you’re going to be building something, you’ll be moving past your self. If you’re not given to building something and contributing to goodness, then you’ll ground your self and you’ll give your self meaning by having the power to take something down. So then you’ll bicker or complain or doubt or find fault, and then you always have your own ground and that always makes you higher than that which you’re speaking about. So you have your instant account of moving past your self, moving past someone else by just being higher than them and speaking down.
Q1: Feeling superior…
Q2: Is that a sophisticated way also of being safe? Not taking responsibility for what you know.
John: If you’re loyal to skepticism and doubt, you’re separate then from everything that you’re looking at, and within short order you are alone in the universe. People don’t view it that way because they don’t follow through the natural process that skepticism is. So it’s all worked out as actually having some kind of virtue.
Q1: Without carrying it through to its logical end.
John: People masquerade their skepticism with care. And they’ll even say “I’m concerned about this and that” and it’s not concern. It’s an escape from real knowledge and using concern to cover up the trail.
Q1: To pose as concerned.
John: And then use power and be comfortable in your self by even thinking that you’re doing something good.
Q2: If that’s a strong and heavy pattern, is there anything to be done actually with it? So that’s why in a way there’s not much value in actually dealing with the skepticism? It’s actually about coming from something deeper?
John: It’s about meeting someone instead of dealing with their skepticism. If you deal just with someone’s skepticism then you’ll be feeding into what they're feeding into. If you’re not able to meet with someone then you’re not able to help them with their skepticism, because the bottom line with skepticism is it doesn’t want help.
Q2: That’s clear. But then if that pattern is rare, then rather than dealing with the pattern, it’s only about what you said at the beginning: giving your heart only to what you know.
John: Giving your heart only to what you actually know the truth of.
