Open Mic with John de Ruiter Poleg Beach, Israel – Saturday, April 30, 2016

Q1: Hi. Something happened to me in the last two or three days. This morning I felt empty. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I had in the two nights very strange dreams but this doesn’t matter now. I think it’s connected but I don’t want to tell and from yesterday I was left here in the evening, the energy was very heavy for me. I have a lot of pain here in the head and a little bit in the heart and from yesterday evening I started to cry without any reason and in the morning when I was being in the pinch? I felt a strange feeling that I never felt it and then I assume that a lot of thing destroyed inside me and now I feel empty and I’m on panic. It’s the judge in my head, says to me from the morning ten times “run away from here; go, go, go.” I’m not listening to him (laughter). No, because I know that he is in panic, something happened, something very deep happened to me and, okay, I don’t want to cry again, because it seems to me that this empty, what is this, what do I do on Monday if I’m empty? I’m panicked.

John: You’re not used to your self not being in your heart.

Q1: Yes, most of the time I’m not.

John: The empty is that you’re in your heart but your self isn’t in your heart. Your self doesn’t belong in your heart. You belong in your heart. Your being belongs in your heart. Your being-filled heart belongs in your self. Whatever it is you believe – whether what you believe is true or not true – whatever you believe is what you take to heart. You can take your self to heart; you can take what you think and feel to heart. When you do, you fill your heart with your self. The more that you fill your heart with your self, the more separate you are from your being.

Q1: So what to do?

John: Be in your heart, and there you have need of nothing.

Q1: It’s good? The nothing is good? Or it’s not good and not bad; it’s what it is.

John: It’s that you have, you don’t need anything when you’re quietly in your heart. You don’t need your life, your self, your thinking, your feeling, your emotions, your will, your past. What makes you at home in your heart is that you are quietly there, complete, and you don’t need anything in your self or from your self or from someone else for you in your heart to be complete. Nothing can complete you. If you look for something to complete you in your self or in your life, you separate from what you really are.

When you, awareness, relax, you naturally relax out of your person, out of your self, into your heart and there you are, you, complete. This you isn’t a who; there is no who. When you are in your self, then there is a who. When you’re in your heart and not taking your self to heart; not bringing your self with you into your heart, there is no who, so then you freely go from who you are to what you are by simply relaxing into your heart. It’s that easy for you to return to being what you really are. From the perspective of your self and your past, that seems as emptiness; it seems like nothing. And there you are in what seems empty and nothing, complete. You don’t need your self or your past. You don’t need anything to change. Nothing in your self needs to change: your circumstances don’t need to change and no one else needs to change for you to be complete.

Q1: It can stay like this forever? If I will do it, what you just said?

John: While you live, yes. After you’ve died, for sure.

Q1: Okay, it feels good now, yes.

John: That feeling doesn’t make you complete. The feeling is okay, and as okay as it is, it doesn’t make you complete. When you are quietly at home in your heart, not taking your self or your life or your past to heart, you are quietly in your heart empty of being someone and something – home. There is nothing there for you to do so that you can be.

Q1: I want to be home.

John: Better than that, you get to be home. If you want to be home, you can’t be home. If you want to be home, you can’t go home. If you try to go home, you can’t go home. If you get to be home and nothing helps you, you’re home.

Q1: Okay, it’s very tricky.

John: It’s not very tricky. It’s absolutely simple. You can be tricky.

Q1: My mind, not me. I’m not sure it’s full me, all of me.

John: Not your mind, you. You can use your thinking to be tricky. You can use your feeling, your emotions and your will to be tricky. You being in your heart isn’t tricky; it’s absolutely simple. As you, awareness, relax completely, you relax naturally away from your self, away from your past, away from your life, and there you are at rest in your heart. And then that’s what you be in your thinking, your feeling, your emotions, your will and your life. Simple.

Q1: From you it sounds simple, yes. My mind is, the wheels aren’t working, so I hope I will understand it.

John: With the emptiness, the wheels are not only not working, there are no wheels. The wheels of thinking have become powerful in your self because you’ve given those wheels that much power by believing what you think, just because the thought is there. Whatever appears in your thinking, you believed. That’s what empowered the wheels of your thinking. Then thinking isn’t beautiful any more.

Q1: I feel in the spiritual way very stupid, because all the time, they send me signs in my dreams and everywhere and I couldn’t understand it. It’s like the mind is not helping me. You know, they put me signs in my dreams, signs with words on it, and I wake up in the morning and I do not understand what they want from me. It’s like this power mind is not helping me.

John: And what did the sign say?

Q1: Ah. After I talked with you two days ago when you told me not to be seriously, the sign was, they showed me a lot of games, the sign was “life is a game” and then it was a sign “love and compassion” and then it was a sign, not a sign then, they showed me that people are from plastolene and you can put them all together and then separate it, like a game. I do not understand the plastolene. Or maybe something is stuck there and I couldn’t, I can not realize it maybe or…

John: That’s your knowing using your mind to tell you the truth. That’s not a normal use of mind, and it doesn’t come easily to you when you’re awake.

Q1: Yes, this mind was my strength until one year, or something like that. It was the best in all my body. This is what I thought. Now I don’t think any more like that because I want to do things with my heart. This is my way; I know it. I just have to learn how to do it.

John: Then instead of your strength, being your strength because that’s how you experience it – you experience thinking, feeling, emotions and your will as your powers – but they are not your real strengths. Your real strength has nothing to do with that. If you want to know your real strength, you need to be quieted within your weakness, what you perceive as being weakness. As you open and soften in the midst of your weakness you begin, a little bit, to come into your power. Your greatest power is in your weakest weakness. Your weakest weakness is knowing. Your weakest weakness is the truth you know. On its own, it has no power; there is nothing weaker. If you don’t give it power, it has no power. You give what you know the truth of power, not by knowing the truth but by believing what you know.

Q1: Knowing my heart?

John: Yes.

Q1: Okay.

John: You can know the truth in your heart but that doesn’t mean that you’ll go there. The truth in you doesn’t become empowered without you joining it, going there and disappearing into it, becoming one with it. Then it has all of your power. Then your weakest weakness is all-powerful.

When you believe what you think and what you feel to tell you the truth, you disempower the truth in you and then you’re blind. Your thinking and your feeling becomes your seeing even though through your thinking and your feeling, you won’t see the truth; you’ll see only what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling, but you’ll regard that as being the truth. That’s what makes you blind.

Q1: Okay. It still sounds complicated for me. I feel like in my first grade now. I do not know.

John: What’s not complicated is that the more you unconditionally relax, the more you are at home. That’s what you see in a baby’s eyes. That’s what you easily see in a small child. You don’t understand what you see. You love what you see. You love what you see because what you see relates directly to you; it tells you the truth; it reaches you. Your thinking and feeling doesn’t reach you. Look into a baby’s eyes and you’re easily reached. Use your thinking in an effort to comprehend what reaches you and it won’t help you.

Q1: Thank you.

Q2: A couple of things. In the formal meeting, you talked about this rhythm of impression or knowing and expression manifesting. And I find this really difficult because there is nothing more satisfying than knowing, whatever level, and what I experience is that this satisfaction, I mean even though the knowing is realized outside of the thinking mind or the self, but the satisfaction of knowing, I find that, for me, I get excited in my self by that satisfaction.

John: Knowing doesn’t satisfy. When you feel what you know, that satisfies your self. When you experience what you know, in your self, that is satisfying, but knowing doesn’t satisfy. You satisfy what you know by believing what you know.

Q2: Okay so already when there is this sense of satisfaction at the tail of knowing, I’m already agitated in my self or I’m already identified, I’m already moved from just being awareness which enabled knowing in the first place. Being one with awareness enabling this knowing in the first place, and I’m already in my self, moving in my self as my self. So that helps me understand a little bit because there was this next thing, because as soon as there is this realization or this sense of knowing, this satisfaction of knowing, then there is also the impulse to share. And you said, actually that is, this is what is confusing me I think, this is where I’m getting lost, because you also said, which makes a lot of sense, that feeling, emotions, thinking and will is to, actually there to be, to share what is…

John: To express …

Q2: Yes, to express…

John: But not for you in your self to express what you are experiencing but for you in your being, as a being, to express. In having a self, you are able as a being, here in a body, to express. You can hijack the powers of expression and keep them to your self, for your self. Then you become self-satisfied and empty. And empty in the sense that you quietly know that you’re separate from what really matters. And the more you do through the use of your self to fill that, the more separate you are.

Q2: What you’re speaking of is making sense in my self or making meaning by moving as a self and…

John: You can create meaning in your self by simply going to the store and buying something or going into the refrigerator and eating something. There is so much available for you to have meaning on the terms of your self, and all of it will make you more separate.

Q2: And to relate, you talked about genetics and any kind of developmental history, bio or cultural, this what is forming our accidental, preferred or habitual ways of satisfying our selves in our selves. So this is what you’re talking about when you talk about addictions, right? So this seems to be a crucial point between knowing or realizing and how we move from that particular point, whether, I understand that the moment I already have this sense of satisfaction I’m already moving as my self. The self has kind of hijacked what was known and is using it for itself. So this point, when something is realized, how I understand it is, what you referred to yesterday in the informal gathering, as all these points throughout the day, I imagine that is an example, where all throughout, all these points throughout the day where we are home or at this point where there is no identification and as such awareness is available for realizing or for knowing and from that small point, this is where we get lost, or where I get lost. So if this is right, I would love for you to pick that a bit more apart because I get really identified with that and there is nothing that can agitate me or make me angry if what I see as some truth of any kind and I want to share it, especially with my partner, for instance, and if it isn’t received, I just you know, go through the roof so to speak.

John: If she doesn’t cooperate or if she doesn’t cooperate with what you want and what you need.

Q2: Yes, but this is, because that is what I want and what I need most, what I seem to be wanting and needing most is to be that what I perceive to be true or truth or realizations or knowings is not, I mean it needs to be received, it needs to be, I mean if I am not met in that, I just lose my bearings. So it’s such a crucial thing for me to really stop this movement from simply knowing to be satisfied by it or needing to share it or needing it to be met when shared.

John: When you’re free in the sharing, the sharing is unconditioned. That it is unconditioned means that you are being what you really are within the sharing. In being that, you have need of nothing. You have no need to share and you have no need to be answered – for the sharing to be answered. It can be answered, which enables you to then experience as a being what it’s like, in form, to be answered; what it’s like, in form, to share. But first, you don’t need any of it. That’s the basis of your being. As a being you are already complete. There isn’t anything that can diminish that or corrupt that and there isn’t anything that can add to that, and that’s what you’re being in your use of thought and feeling, emotion and will. So you’re in these forms that don’t tell you the truth. You’re free in these forms, freely moving in these forms, and by virtue of your beingness, what you are as a being through the movement of these forms enables you to build what you are as a being on the level of your self. You’re able to make what you are as a being visible. You’re able to experience your being by giving it form. You don’t need any of it and you’re free, as a being, to have all of it.

Q2: Thank you.

Q3: Yesterday morning I asked you if you could take me to a place. I apparently didn’t make it so I want to ask, I think about it and so many of us are asking this, not only you but some other teachers for a lot of time now. Thousands of people and I think most of them don’t do it but still there are some who can. So what is the difference between the people who do it and the people who most, and what bother me that most people don’t do it. So, but everybody is saying it’s so simple. So, ten years ago, I got the book “I am that” by Nisargadatta Maharaj and since then whenever I have the will I try to think that he’s saying just be. So, and I wanted to ask how do you relate to this. Of course I know the answer already. So can you help me?

John: Enjoy being in your body and in your self, without that having to result in something. That’s what you easily see within the innocence of a small child.

Q3: But I already have been a child and now I’m just going to the other way. (laughter) A little bit funny.

John: You go back to where you left off before you left your innocence. Return to your innocence within while you’re in this body and in your developed self, and you let that innocence move in the same way that it did when you were really little. What that is, is you in your heart and your heart up into your eyes and your face. From there you’re able to see everything that matters and what matters is so different when it’s your heart that is up into your face than when it’s your self that is up into your face. When your self is up into the interior of your face, you perceive reality from the perspective of your self. When your heart, because you’re in your heart, when your heart is up into your face, you perceive reality from the perspective of what you know the truth of in your heart. When your heart is up into your face, what is real to you is really different from when your self is up into your face.

Q3: I just want to make it clear because it’s kind of important to me. So now in my, I know the answer but I want to make it clear, so that in my daily life when the will is going up, when I have the will, so I just go back to the innocence of a child and my self and this will, any will actually…

John: Then, the strength of your will opens, softens and sweetly turns into willingness.

Q3: I’m asking about what I should do when the will is going up. I should release? I don’t pay attention to the will? I just go into the innocence of the child?

John: You return to your heart and you let your heart come up into your face. It will make your self feel vulnerable.

Q3: What do you mean, I return to my heart? I love my girlfriend but this doesn’t make me any better in this case. So when you tell me to return to my heart, I don’t think it’s of any use for me. And this is the first time in my life I can ask someone about this so I really appreciate if you can give me some useful advice, maybe for the rest of my life.

John: Regardless of anything that you’re experiencing, whether it’s a negative or a positive experience, either way, you be quietly gentled here, and you’re in your heart. That movement you don’t use to protect what’s positive or to remove what’s negative. You’re in that movement of being gentled here because that’s what’s true for you regardless of anything you’re experiencing. There you are a little bit of your being in the midst of whatever it is that you’re experiencing.

Q3: A little bit of my being? This is it?

John: Say again?

Q3: This is it? To be frankly, to be honest, I don’t feel this will do the work because I think I need advice how not to fall. How can I remember this?

John: Here. You have it and you’re in it in so many moments of your day. Just begin to notice in your day every little moment where you do something and there is an experience in your body that is something like “mmmm.” You have it when you go under a hot shower, when you sit in a tub, when you’re hungry and you eat something, when you’re thirsty and you drink something, when you’re a little bit wearied and you sit or when you lie down, when you step outside and the sun first comes on your body. You have these moments all throughout the day; you take them all for granted. All of those moments are pointing to what you really are. They are experiences of what you really are in your body and in your self. If you’re overlooking them, you’ll be looking for meaning where a depth of meaning isn’t. When you see it where it is, then you realize that you’re able to be that gentled “mmmm” without anything happening, without food, without sleep, without sitting, without the sun. All it is, is you being in your heart. The quieter the “mmmm” is, the more powerful it is.

Q3: The more quieter, it’s more powerful?

John: Yes.

Q3: Like nothing you’ve ever seen.

John: The most powerful is when it is so quiet that you can’t experience it, you can’t feel it. You just quietly know it and knowing it, for you, is enough.

Q3: What do you mean, that I know it is enough?

John: You know it. You know this and you don’t need to feel it anymore. You don’t need to experience it. So then the worst things can befall you in your life and as it does, without anything happening, you know this and it’s undisturbed by the worst things that can happen to your self and to your body. That’s you being what you really are in the midst of anything. Then you are free. You know the truth and you’re being it. Then there’s oneness, oneness in pain instead of you being your self in pain.

Q3: So everybody will be in pain.

John: Or whatever experience is there. That despite anything you’re experiencing, you’re home. And securing an experience or getting rid of an experience doesn’t help you stay home and it doesn’t bring you home. What you’re most quietly being within is what is home.

Q4: I came here very spontaneously, I’m also a channeler, I believe we have a date here? I don’t know what exactly there is something to tell me. I’m going through a very strong stage to connect to the truth in my life and I would like to hear whatever you have to say to me.

John: Love listening within in a way that doesn’t require thinking or feeling, in a way that doesn’t require the use of anything that you use in your life. When you’re listening within without using thought or feeling, without using anything that you can identify in your self, what you come into is the knowledge of the truth. You end up knowing in your heart and as little as that is, when you’re in it, you know it’s everything.

Q4: Is there something that I can do to make it easier or better, my listening to my heart?

John: What you can do that works is sweetly nothing.

Q4: I have a little problem with patience and I understand that when I want to be in the nothing, something always goes there and takes me away from the nothing. Is there some exercise or something that you can tell me how to improve the silent and the nothing and to stay with it without all of the noise?

John: What you give your power to is what you’ll be. If you give your power to your thinking because the wheels of thinking are turning, you’ll be your thinking regardless of what you really are. When you give your power, your belief, to the tiniest little bit that you know in your heart in the midst of any kind of noise, you’re empowering what you know and the movement of that is love. When you empower what you know in your heart, you’re coming from your being. The movement of your being – any movement of your being – is love. When you, awareness, relax without the use of anything to be able to relax, you love.

Q4: Thank you.