Q: We’re having a baby. I really feel the baby is going to be our greatest teacher.
John: Having a baby will strengthen whatever orientation you presently have.
Q: Will it? It won’t be the opposite?
John: If you are giving heed to the specialness of what’s there, and you’re taking that specialness to a deeper level than just having a wonderful experience in your self, then you can shift your orientation.
Q: In a not so good way you mean?
John: Shifting your orientation in a really good way.
Q: Yeah, being responsible for what we say and how we act, even now when the baby is in the womb. The baby is picking up everything.
John: The greatest thing that matters in parenting is your relationship, because that is what is feeding the child. So if there are little bickerings and negativities, that’s what you’re feeding your child.
Q: I can relate to what you’re saying, knowing what the baby is and how I can move inside the baby, and my job is to surrender to the baby. That’s how I can relate to what you’re saying.
John: That’s true, but more important than that is what you are in relationship. How much do you function as a person instead of functioning as a deeper self? It can become an abstract, non-costly thing to surrender to the beingness of the baby and be carried by that, but nothing else changes in your life.
Your relationship doesn’t change, so that means that when the warm feeling starts to pass away and the baby starts to grow up and have its own power, you won’t be in what you were surrendering to because that surrender didn’t apply to everything. It’s easy to surrender to an easy experience that has no cost.
Q: How do I do it in that way that you’re describing?
John: In your relationship, have not a speck of negativity, including in the privacy of your own heart, because if it is there it is definitely going to come out. As soon as it germinates, it’s going to come out, even when you try to keep it in.
It doesn’t matter how right you are about anything. The moment you have a spark of negative emotion about that in the privacy of your own heart, you’re wrong.
Q: So that means if you take a stand in anything at all, even a kernel is too much?
John: A kernel? A speck is already a whole thing ready to go.
Q: You can’t take a stand in anything that’s not soft. You can’t have any edge at all.
John: If you take a stand, it’s because you’re clear about something, and your beingness in it is as clear as your thinking. That’s also a really different kind of self; that’s not usual. So any time when you have a thought toward each other and it comes out as, “why did you…?” or the slightest little shake of your head, that’s already way too far.
The rolling of your eyes, a slight turning of your head, a slight breathing in, mean that emotionally you’re wound up and in your heart what you’re saying is “you’re so stupid!” or “come on!” That’s beneath the slightest tense breath. You can’t have any of those things.
Q: So the only thing to do is just turn into each other?
John: Dearness.
Q: Wow! Big order!
John: What else are you together for?
Q: So we’ve used those occasions where we get annoyed to step out of dearness. It’s almost an excuse to step out of it.
John: You cannot have a real relationship and hang on to negative emotion. There may be regions or moments of your relationship that have measures of realness in them, but you don’t have a real relationship.
The baby needs for the two of you to have only a real relationship. That’s the first real building block of parenting. If you take on spiritual mentalities but don’t have that dearness between you, you delude yourself and confuse your child.
Q: That’s sobering.
John: Your ability to hold negativity is also your ability not to hold negativity. The only thing that makes it really difficult is when you have a payoff in being negative.
Q: It does make the self stronger, for sure.
John: And it’s satisfying; it’s negatively satisfying, and if that payoff continues to mean something to you, you’re not going to stop. You might lessen it a bit but when it does come out, you give it a little extra juice. You have to pay your self off because you’ve been without it for a while.
Q: It’s another addiction. Is that what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain body – because it needs feeding? We've made it in such a way that it needs feeding.
John: It’s your orientation as awareness. The pain body doesn’t make you express the negativity; your present orientation guarantees you continuing in it. Even if your pain body were completely healed and wiped clean, a negative orientation is going to bring your pain body right back to where it was before it was healed.
The moment a speck of negativity shows up in your heart, the fire alarm needs to go off. There’s a fire where a fire doesn’t belong, so it doesn’t matter how right you are within the building. It doesn’t matter what issues are being carried; everyone leaves the building. When the fire is out, everybody can go back into the building.
If you continue in the sense of rightness, you delude your self. You’ll use that negativity to fuel your clarity. That means that even humour, with a slight undertone of tightness, can’t have any of it. You will nurture negativity as part of your humour. Your child is going to learn from every nuance of how you are in your heart. It’s all training and the child wants to be just like you.
Q: It just makes me want to cry because it’s such a game changer. There’s no wiggle room at all.
John: Absolutely. You can’t even have your own private space where you recede into your self and the other person’s not welcome, or a little corner in your self where you have your own thoughts and feelings. Those are all like weed seeds – a whole barrel in the corner.
You can’t go at it in part. You need to address the whole thing, so the only way it actually works is to have none of it. If you don’t do it now, you’ll know how wrong you were when you’re dead, and you can’t make it right anymore.
Q: I just hope this baby will bring out the deeper in me.
John: People do not change their orientation for family. Orientation is thicker than blood. Having a baby can have you considering that you need to change your orientation but it’s not the baby that will have you changing it. It’s you being honest with what you’re realizing, and then going all the way through with that and doing it.
Q: So is there something that would help us remember?
John: In your relationship, dearness matters more than being right.
Q: So, as we turn into each other more and more, is that getting closer to what you’re talking about?
John: Beware of closer. Closer can never end. There’s closer and closer and closer and then there’s just shifting your orientation because you know it is true for you. If you’re going to do it with a process, do it within a few days because it doesn’t take more than a few days. It takes a little bit of time to do inventory on what you’re actually all about and how you’ve been fooling your self.
Q: So you think three days?
John: A few days, then you pull it all together, shift your orientation, and you apply that in your self. Cost is not a factor.
Then you’re an honest parent and your child will learn to be like you.
