Tammy, Author at John de Ruiter Gems

Being More Open within, to Really Meet Without

September 24, 2018March 1, 2014 by Tammy

Q: Hi, John. Ever since I was little, I never saw that, whatever my dad was doing, that he was wrong. I just loved him so much that, whatever he was doing, I was okay with that, and I didn’t take it personally. Then my little sister was born and I don’t know why but I took it personally. I can’t open my heart to her.

John: It isn’t really her that you are not opening your heart to. It is really a deeper level of you. There is more to you than what you have found and related to in your self. There is also you in what is represented outside of your self. For you to see what your little sister is, is for you to be seeing, from within, a little bit more of you. Relating from a little bit more of you. For you to love your little sister is for you to be landed in your heart and coming from a little bit more of you. It isn’t really her; it is really you.

Q: So it is personal then?

John: The more open you are, within, the more capacity you’ll have to really meet with something outside of your self; to know, to see, to meet and to love. For you to love her includes more of you, requires more of you, within, for you to love her. If you have difficulty in loving her, your difficulty is really in opening deeper within, and realizing more of you that does really relate to knowing her, seeing her, meeting her and loving her. In this way your relationship with her shows you something of your relationship with you. In that way, how you are with her is how you are with you.

Q: I can see that.

John: Then you see her, and in seeing her, you see you. There’s much more to you than what you are used to.

Q: I used to be always on my own and figuring things out by my self.

John: That’s what you’re used to. What you are used to doesn’t represent all of you. That doesn’t represent all of reality. There’s much more to you than what you have experienced. There is much more to you than what you can see. There is much more to you than what you relate to. When you release what confines you, you come into what encompasses you. It’s slightly similar and profoundly different.

Real Love

September 24, 2018February 28, 2014 by Tammy

Q: I do a lot, but it also feels good to do, or a lot of things I do I think I know to do them, but it’s a lot and I feel tired, so I don’t know really how to handle this well, to do the things I think I need to do without burning myself off. Maybe you can you tell me something about that.

John: If you’re doing what you think you need to do and you’re not managing, then you need to manage what you’re doing. You need to manage differently. That is your managing what you’re doing with your self. That’s somewhat of a superficial issue.

Q: I should look differently at the issue. I can still do all the things that I do, so there’s nothing wrong in doing the things…So I can learn that while doing all these things.

John: Mmm-Hmm

Q: Is also part of my superficial issue that I’m always running? Is that the ego thing?

John: What is your own deeper sense of it?

Q: When I relax, I don’t have my focus to things to do them right. Should I relax and let it go as it comes, even if it’s not right, or focus and attend to do it right?

John: Both.

Q: How do I make that balance?

John: What you’re doing and how you do it does really matter, and it doesn’t matter as much as what you’re coming from. Don’t use coming from something deeper within as a convenience to your self. Then your own sense of a deeper restedness will have you favouring less of a sense of responsibility on the surface of things. Coming from a deeper place within doesn’t alleviate you of your responsibility and carrying that responsibility doesn’t alleviate you of coming from what is deeper within.

Q: I also have a question about when felt something when I saw somebody. Could you tell me what it means?

John: What did you feel and what was it meaning to you?

Q: It felt very deep.

John: What was it in regards to? What are you speaking of? What are you talking about? Explain it more.

Q: This guy, when I saw him he reached something in me and it pulled me and it wasn’t physical attraction. I felt an opening. I think the first feeling was sincere but I made things up about it already.

John: When you feel something like that, it doesn’t mean that you’ve met someone that you’re to be in relationship with. It means what it means. You were deeply touched by something in connection with him. If he is in a moment of openness and there’s a sweet vulnerability in himself, you’ll easily experience what you were experiencing, but that doesn’t mean that it is how he lives. Given the right moment you can experience the deep in anyone.

There are many who will feel toward the deep within and there are fewer who will live for the deep within and even fewer who will be so and do so at any cost, at any personal cost. It matters what you are like, within, under pressure and what he is like, within, under pressure. That determines the relationship, not how you feel toward each other when there isn’t pressure.

Q: I always knew or had a feeling how it would be when you saw somebody who could be the one for you. And I recognized that feeling in it.

John: Don’t trust it. The less grounded experience you have with such feelings, the less you can trust the feelings. The less grounded experience you have in your self concerning such feeling, the less experienced you are with such feeling. Within such a feeling, for you to have good judgment you need to be discerning what the subtleties are within the feeling.

If you’re not discerning what is actually discernible, you won’t have the right judgment. You’ll be ill informed in your self in what you do with the feeling. Having strong feelings doesn’t mean that you have clear thinking and it doesn’t mean that you have good judgment. If you’re relying on the feeling, the feeling will pass. What will you then have?

Q: But I always felt that when it’s good the feeling won’t pass.

John: It will pass.

Q: Even if it’s good?

John: If the strong feeling is there because it really is a goodness and you move with that goodness, you’ll be riding a goodness wave, but the wave will pass and as the wave passes the newness passes away with it and you’ll be left in your patterns with him in his pattern. And there the real relationship begins.

Q: What do we need then? I thought we need real love with each other.

John: For you to have real love, you need to be able to move past your self. You can’t have real love if you’re not being bigger than what your self is. Feeling what seems like real love isn’t the same as having real love.

The patterning that you have with those who you are closest, your family, is the same patterning that you’ll have in a relationship once the newness is gone, once the profound feeling is gone.

If you’re living being bigger within than what your self is, then you really don’t want to be in relationship with someone who isn’t the same. Finding a depth of goodness in someone else doesn’t mean that he is being bigger than what his self is. If you are and he isn’t, then eventually you will be a baby sitter. You’ll be investing your time in someone who doesn’t necessarily want to move past himself.

Be sure of what you’re living for, that what you’re living for is deeper than what your self is, and that you’re doing so even at a personal cost. That means that you’re clear. And if you’re going to be in relationship then do so only with someone who is the same.

If he seems like he is, that doesn’t mean that he is. You need to do all of your deepest homework on him and really find out and not be persuaded by how you’re feeling. You need to know, you need to find out. And if necessary, you need to dig into your self and into him before you decide to engage in a relationship, or you’ll be swept along by a wave and when the wave ends you’ll end the relationship. The wave will end. The very best wave will end and that’s when you really need to be with the right person. You need to discern that beforehand because when the wave ends you’re not going to change him.

Look for someone who has suffered and has learned and realized something beautiful in the midst of the suffering. If he hasn’t suffered he doesn’t likely really know himself. There isn’t virtue in suffering. The virtue is in being what is deeper within in the midst of the suffering. Not everyone who has suffered has really learned something or really realized the deeper truth of something.

The Tiny Little Soft Spots in Your Heart

September 24, 2018February 27, 2014 by Tammy

Q: I’m just beginning to realize how difficult and awful I behaved, but I remember you saying that with any self you can still live correctly. I see a possibility of living correctly; I’m not surrendering to that possibility. What can I do to follow what I know? What can I do better?

John: Identify delicacies of being, within.

Q: If I understand what you’re saying, they seem like little tiny bits of dust during the day. It’s not that I do something linear and connected and I want that linear connected thing.

John: That’s what you are to make happen, but start out identifying what you know are delicacies of being, within. Tiny little touches of knowledge that has beingness in it; special soft spots of heart. As soon as you identify them you need to believe them. When you’re believing them, that has you, as awareness, filling out into them. As you are believing them, you are manifesting into your heart your own deeper beingness. That is you as awareness manifesting your being.

Don’t use anything outside of that for you to identify your deeper beingness. Don’t use anything in your self. If you use something in your self you’ll be identifying lack, and your sense and feelings of shame in that has you solidifying that lack.

Q: Solidifying is like rooting.

John: Using comparison to identify something solid within, giving you a feeling of solidity in your self.

It grounds you, but that grounding is based on a lack in your self. You need to find your own grounding, not in your self, but in tiny delicacies of being, tiny little touches moved into your heart, tiny little soft spots in your heart.

Find your grounding in nurturing them. You nurture them by believing them, believing the truth of them, in having your rootedness in that in your heart. Take responsibility in your having a self not by focusing on its lack. Your focusing on the lack in your self is your patterned way in your self, making your self less, and having a feeling of solidness in that.

In your believing the delicacies of being within, the tiny touches of them in your heart, you need to then move that up into your self. You need to let them show. You need to let them show in your eyes and in your face while you’re with other people. You’ll find that to be very uncomfortable. Don’t give the discomfort anything. You need to be giving the delicacies of being to your eyes and to your face, and don’t let any discomfort in your self hinder you or stop you.

People will be commenting. Some of them will be commenting very sweetly and you’ll be feeling shy and embarrassed. You need to stay in it and not draw back. You need to hold the ground of being in your eyes and in your face. Suffer the discomfort, not letting the discomfort stop you. If the discomfort shows also in your eyes and in your face, don’t let that stop you.

You need to identify ground of being within, the tiny delicacies of being within, and you need to bring that ground up into your face and into your eyes, and you need to hold that ground at any personal cost. In doing this, your self will change. You’ll be achieving personality that you didn’t have before.

If you’re not bringing touches of being, real ground of being, into your face and into your eyes, you won’t be taking responsibility in having a self and you won’t be taking responsibility in having your personality. You’ll make your personality less and you’ll make your self less, and you’ll cover the delicacies of being, within. You need to not do that any more.

Q: Associating less or seeing less people so I won’t have a frame of reference. Is that a good idea to keep me from doing it?

John: No.

Q: Should I try to expand, see a little bit more people, to exercise in this?

John: Yes. You need to make the delicacies of being, within, your ground, and that ground needs to be within the interior of your face and you need to let it be seen. You need to not use your eyes and your face to cover it. Some will see you as being adorable in that. Some others may laugh at you. Some others may even use that to try to hurt you. You mustn’t let anything stop you. You need to let your own ground of being stay showing in your eyes and in your face, regardless of what others do with that.

Q: I have a tendency to be resentful to people from the inside, and sometime I look at them with hatred. I have the sense of looking at them with like an evilness.

John: That’s because you’re making them wrong for your not having your own ground of being showing in your eyes and in your face.

Q: Sometimes I have no control and I’d rather not see people’s…

John: If you’re starting out identifying delicacies of being within, you’ll be finding soft spots in your heart. Those tiny little soft spots in your heart are your ground. You need to live from that ground. You need to hold that ground. You need to bring that ground up into your eyes and into your face, regardless of what others do or don’t do with that. In this way you’ll be taking warm responsibility for your own being and for your own self that you have made to be full of lack.

You will suffer a lot of discomfort in this and much difficulty in this. It isn’t going to be easy. It is going to be real for you and you’re able to be and do all of it. All of the lack in your self doesn’t stop you. You need to stop using your self to experience all that lack. You need to stop living those patterns by taking responsibility for them and not using them any more.

You have identified with all of the lack in your self and you have patterned your self by that. Those patterns have become strong and they have become your behavior. Those patterns are in all of your body. Those patterns are in all of your face; they’re in your eyes. You have embodied them. You need to take responsibility for that and not use them any more.

You need to identify the delicacies of being, within, the tiny soft spots in your heart. You need to bring them up into your face and into your eyes and let them show. And that needs to be your only ground, regardless of your personal discomfort in that, regardless of what others do with that. Your life cannot be the same any more. You’re able to go through all of the discomfort and all of the personal difficulty in holding this ground of being in your eyes and in your face, and living that while you’re with other people.

Q: I understand bringing the touches of being to my eyes and to my face. When I compare myself to others to identify or to have sense of who I am, that’s not the way to do it any more.

John: For you to have this ground of being in your eyes and in your face, your experience of that while you’re with others is that you’re going to be way, way out there, beautifully exposed.

Q: Is that like when I’m with other people and I feel depressed? People are happy but I feel sad and I let myself feel sad. Is that something of what you’re trying to tell me?

John: Of what not to use any more. You don’t need to do that any more. You mustn’t do that any more. You’re able to not do that any more.

Q: I don’t know what else to do.

John: Not that. Do the delicacies of being in your eyes and your face, and it doesn’t matter what people’s reactions are to that. It doesn’t matter what you see in their face because of what they’re seeing in yours. You cannot use others any more, or your self, as your standard of being in your eyes and in your face.

Q: Is it enough just to know what I should use and not to think about what you meant by using my self? Just use what I am to use?

John: Yes. When you were very little, you were full of delicacies of being, in your eyes and in your face. It was what you were and you were very sensitive, and you didn’t know what to do with that sensitivity, so you developed a self to cover it. You shut down the delicacies of being. You need to take the covering off. You need to return to where you left off. You need to develop in your self with the covering off.

Q: I believe that would be painful and uncomfortable. Is it right to choose a life that will support that, so I can be as much as that?

John: Yes. You really need to do this. You must do this despite the pain of it. You’re able to be the nurture of your own being in this.

Q: It touched me when you said you really need to do this. It seems like a very simple exercise, but I understand the consequences will be very difficult for me.

John: You need to be the juiciness of your own being, all the way into your face and in to your eyes, without apology, without the need of explanation. You’ll be making up for years of lost time.

Q: When I do feel this evilness inside towards others and then I feel a sense of pain towards my self, is it okay to express like a soft pain that I have inside of me, this attitude?

John: The moment that it’s there, wash your hands of it and have nothing to do with it. Don’t follow your patterned way.

Q: I’m shocked at my self, for what goes on towards another, inside of me.

John: Wash your hands of it. Have nothing to do with it. Don’t use it any more. Don’t relate to it any more. Identify the delicacies of being, and in your heart, hug them. They are your new ground, and that ground belongs in your eyes and in your face.

Q: I feel like it’s a new journey and I’m really afraid, but I also feel a lot of love and gratitude towards you and I’ll try to do my best.

John: Don’t try. Everything good in you is completely dependent on your really doing this. There is no cost, no pain, no discomfort that can stop you.

Q: Thank you for emphasizing this, because I can remember that. This really can help me. Thank you for your words.

John: If your doing this kills you, die with the juiciness of your own being in your eyes and in your face. To you, it’s me because it really is you.

On Personal Boundaries and Meeting with Others

June 11, 2021February 26, 2014 by Tammy

Q: Can you tell me something about boundaries? Boundaries of my body, my energy? Yesterday you were giving the metaphor of learning how to swim and you said to learn how to swim you have to get in the water and then you have to enjoy being in the water. Somehow I experience – and continuing the metaphor – when I’m in the water, I become afraid. So then I get out of the water and I again want to be in the water. So how to break through this?

John: For you to really be, within, you cannot take your way of relating with you; you cannot take your patterning with you. If you take your patterning with you, then you are being dependent on your own patterning for you to be able to go within. Then in going within, you are in your patterning.

Q: How do I leave my patterning?

John: By not relating to it. You don’t need your patterning for you to go within. Your patterning didn’t come from within. Your patterning developed outside of what you really are, within. For you to be what you really are, within, you don’t need your patterning. You only need your patterning for you to be the projection of your self outwards. You don’t need your patterning for you to meet with someone. You need your ‘within’ for you to meet with someone. Your patterning isn’t really needed, within or without.

You use your patterning to cope and when you use your patterning to cope you’re not really coping. You don’t really need to cope when you’re with others. What you do need is to meet when you’re with others. You need to meet with others, despite the condition of your self or your person. If you’re not meeting with others then you’re not coming from within while you’re with others.

If you’re needing to cope while you’re with others, then you’ll be using and relating to your boundaries in a personal way. You’ll be protecting the personal out of a sense of lack instead of coming from within and meeting without, meeting with others and having boundaries for your person because your person is in your care, not because you’re dependent on your person to be what you really are within.

Q: I don’t get it completely. When I’m coming from within, from the heart, then there’s nothing to protect and I don’t need boundaries?

John: You still need boundaries because you do need to take care of what is in your care. Your person is in your care. You need to protect your person; you need to have boundaries around your person, but not for the well-being of your heart. The well-being of your heart comes from your knowing of what you really are within. Your sense of well-being doesn’t come from your person; it comes from within.

When it comes from within, then the boundaries that you have as a person or because you’re taking care of your person, won’t be taken personally. When something crosses a boundary, you won’t stop meeting. The meeting continues while you are taking care of your person.

Your personal boundaries are then just simply taken care of. You won’t be using your personal boundaries to take care of what you are within. When you have it in the correct order then you have both. You have your ‘within’ that you’re coming from and you have your personal boundaries that you are just simply taking care of.

When you have the two in the incorrect order, you have neither. Your boundaries will not provide for you and you’ll not have your ‘within’ so then you’ll be lost, within and without. You’ll not be coping and you’ll not really be functional.

When your person is in your care and the boundaries of your person are in your care, because of where you’re coming from, within, then the other person that you’re with will also naturally be in your care. If you’re relating to your personal boundaries for you to have a sense of well-being within, then your person is no longer really in your care. Your boundaries are not in your care, and the person you’re with is also no longer in your care. Nothing is really being taken care of and you’re disconnected from your own interior. The more deeply you’re coming from your own interior, the more that everything is in your care.

If someone crosses your boundaries, from within you need to keep meeting. While you are still meeting, really seeing the other, you have boundaries, personal boundaries that continue to be in your care. Take care of them while you’re meeting with the other. As soon as you abandon meeting with the other, even if the other is crossing your personal boundaries, you become lost. You don’t need to become lost just because your personal boundaries are crossed.

Q: Is it best to always keep meeting another… whatever happens?

John: Yes. Keep meeting despite whatever happens, and whatever happens is in your care.

Q: Maybe I can’t distinguish what is me and what are my patterns.

John: When you are being what you really are, there is always nurture in your heart despite what you’re thinking or feeling, despite what you’re experiencing in your self or in your person, despite any difficulty. You don’t need your patterning for you to be in that nurture. The nurture has nothing to do with any of the patterning. For you to give or extend that nurture you also don’t need your patterning. For you to meet with someone you don’t need your patterning.

Q: What comes up is that if I’m meeting someone, everything goes so quickly and I feel lost.

John: If everything goes so quickly, if everything is moving in a fast pace, you don’t need to keep up. As soon as you have a need within to keep up, you’ll be trying to keep up instead of meeting. You’re able to meet while you’re not keeping up. You’ll appear a little bit dysfunctional, and you’ll have what matters most and you’ll be giving what matters most. You’ll be vulnerable in not keeping up and you’ll be heartfully adorable in not keeping up. Keeping up needs to be always wonderfully secondary to meeting.

When you’re not needing from within to keep up, the pressure will be off of the surface and your actual ability will be present. Within that, you’ll experience a little bit more ability in being able to keep up. Your most free capacity for development is in your development being secondary. Your development cannot be primary. Being at rest within and meeting with others is primary. Your capacity to meet with others isn’t dependent on your performance and it isn’t dependent on the performance of the other.

If the other is not being true to their interior, then while you are with the other you might be suffering by their performance, by what the other does to you. That doesn’t prevent your meeting. You can be taking care of your own boundaries in addressing things on the surface, but not because of an inner need. Your interior is already taken care of by you.

Q: Thank you.

Profound Sincerity Doesn’t Miss

September 24, 2018February 25, 2014 by Tammy

Q: My awareness has been balancing on a thread. In the beginning, I was very occupied with not falling from the thread and balancing. Now I don’t really know where I am anymore. I was wondering if you could say something about that.

John: Seemingly being in the dark and not being able to see doesn’t mean that you’re not being true to knowledge. You can’t use your experience to tell you what is true concerning that which precedes the level of experience.

For that, what you have is what you are: awareness and knowing. Experiencing imbalance doesn’t necessarily mean that what you are, most deeply, is out of balance, but trying to compensate for your experiencing can put you as awareness out of balance.

Being true to knowledge may have you pointedly experiencing imbalance in your self. A part of balance in awareness is not needing the weight of experience to be a part of what balances you. Sincerity can feel dishonest while knowing that it is honest.

Profound sincerity, in all of its vulnerability, in its relationship to knowledge, does find its way. Within that vulnerable sincerity, don’t lose heart. In all of the little things give your heart to what you know the truth of within. It doesn’t matter how little that can seem to be. All that matters is that what you do really know the truth of, within, has your heart, despite all of the difficulty that that may put your self in.

You will be awakening to many cutting edges as awareness within your self. Each cutting edge is a fine, fine line that you’re able to walk and discern, in just simply being what you know the truth of within. You will always be awakening to more cutting edges within. As you walk what you know the truth of in that, eventually your whole self will be made of cutting edges.

Q: How do I discern between a cutting edge and doing, like separating from knowledge?

John: Profound sincerity doesn’t miss, even when it misses. Even when it leads to mistakes on the surface, sincerity never misses. Even if it’s going the wrong way on the surface, sincerity is good and right. Its way within is to knowledge. You don’t need to have the full spectrum of knowledge for you to be true to the knowledge that you do have.

Q: Is it because I try to judge my knowledge and sincerity by the surface result?

John: You can’t go by that. You can use form for what follows. But not for what precedes. You can only use what precedes to be that which precedes. Looking back, judging actions by their consequences, works in helping your self. It works in your learning as a self. The experience of that makes it understandable for you to look back behind you in an effort to help you be what you first are. It just doesn’t work.

Sincerity will really be all right even when it gets something wrong, whereas a lack of sincerity will not be alright even if it gets something right.

Q: What can I do when cutting edges occur?

John: Remain true, to the tiniest little bit within that you know is true. Continue in that even in what might seem to be the dark.

Q: Without being able to give it any form?

John: If it means that, yes. Being what you most deeply know the truth of within, at cost to your self, is the orientation of truth within your self, enabling the forming of a new self, in the midst of your self, even if you can’t see it.

Happy Without A Reason Because You’re Home

September 24, 2018February 24, 2014 by Tammy

Q: Hello, John. I have a question. Is there such a thing as a personal soul or is it just one soul?

John: How do you mean?

Q: There is a personal ego on this earth and so a lot of religions said that you go to heaven or to hell, and that’s quite personal. So, I’m Martin here on Earth. Am I still Martin after death?

John: Concerning heaven and hell and everything that you’ve been told and everything that you’ve heard, concerning everything that you’ve let into your mind and that you’ve let into your heart, believe none of it, and then believe whatever it is that you actually know the truth of in the privacy of your own heart.

Any conditioning in your mind and in your heart is an act of control on your self. You need to not have it. For you to not have it, you cannot get rid of it on its own. It needs to be consciously displaced by what you actually know the truth of. You don’t need to know much. It doesn’t matter how little you actually know the truth of something.

It doesn’t matter what understanding you have of that or what lack of understanding there may seem to be. You need to know what it is that you actually do know aside from all conditioning, and then you need to believe what you know. That needs to be your only real ground.

When that is your only real ground, then as awareness you’ll be able to move clearly within as knowing, and you’ll no longer be moving within based on something you’ve learned or that you’ve acquired.

In moving as awareness knowing within, you’ll be able to realize the more that you know: knowledge within that is only accessible if, as awareness, you are being knowing. Then everything that you encounter as awareness within, knowing the truth of it, you’ll continue in full belief of whatever it is within that you’re knowing. You will be coming into your own full interior, a full interior that your pre-conditioning cannot enter.

Your pre-conditioning will keep you, in your self, in what you have already taken to heart and believed, even if you haven’t known the truth of it. It will keep you in a spin, wanting to know more while not being able to stop spinning. For you to come into real Knowledge within, the pre-conditioned spinning needs to stop.

It doesn’t stop unless you are first in your heart contented and quieted, satisfied with the tiniest little bit within that you do know the truth of. If what you do, really do, know the truth of isn’t having your whole heart, the spinning cannot stop. The spinning will continue as long as you continue to need something from what you have already believed.

The spinning happens by you. Your conditioning doesn’t make you spin. Your finding a semblance of satisfaction in your conditioning makes you spin. When it no longer matters to you how small your ground is, how little ground you have within, when all that matters to you is…that it’s real, and the real, however small, is enough, the spin is gone. You’re left knowing perhaps very little, perhaps almost nothing.

If what seems almost nothing means everything to you because it’s actual and it’s real, you’ve found your way. It will not stop opening, and it will continue if your whole heart continues to absorb all of it. You have no real alternative to this. If you continue boxing with your conditioning, it will continue to become stronger.

In your effort to win, you will lose. If you follow through in this, your ego, without any effort, without any effort of yours, will turn to vapor. It will lose all of its density. It will lose all of its power. The illusion that you lived in will pass away. You’ll have your heart back again and you’ll have the heart of a lovely, lovely, happy little boy.

You’ll have grounded glee in your heart. You’ll be thinking differently. You’ll be thinking because you know, instead of thinking out of habit and momentum, thinking because you’re wanting something or needing something. You’ll be thinking because of liking being the tiniest little bit within that you do know the truth of.

You cannot cheat this or cut corners. It requires profound honesty in your heart and profound honesty in the use of your intellect, and your whole heart given to what you do know the truth of. You will be happy without a reason because you’re home.

Opening and Softening in Relationship – Part 2 of 2

September 24, 2018February 24, 2014 by Tammy

Q: I’ve often found in our relationship that the real behavior coming from my self is coming from the avoidance of the intensity of the fire of the relationship.

John: That fire will only burn what’s perishable. Stay in it and at all costs to your self, open and soften your heart. See her afresh, in the midst of the calloused familiarity.

Q: Sometimes the feelings and thoughts and emotions seem to be so convincing that it feels like doing that is not honest. It’s like faking something. I give myself reasoning and points of view to just stand up and leave the situation and really avoid the fullness of my own feeling, the fullness of the fire.

John: You’ll be faking it only if you believe in your self.

Q: To bring greater intimacy into the relationship and a greater sense of vulnerability, is that purely a way of being? Or is it necessary to talk about how I’m feeling in vulnerable things and actually communicating that way?

John: Have a bigger heart than the self you have. Opening and softening within makes your heart bigger. Opening and softening within in the midst of the fire makes your heart bigger than your self. The fire will only help you in this. Live to open and soften at every opportunity. It doesn’t matter at all how often you fall down. It matters only that openness and softness gets back up. For this you have her.

Q: Is it possible to have openness as awareness but not so much softness of heart?

John: Yes. It immediately changes your heart. And you can have an openness and a softness of heart and have a hard self. The openness and softness of heart is more powerful than your self. Sustain the openness and softness of heart despite whatever kind of self you have, despite whatever kind of self she has. The openness and softness of heart definitely changes the blood in your self.

Q: It can quite often bring a whole lot of pain.

John: It doesn’t matter how much it pain there is. It isn’t going to hurt you. When you seem to be unable to stand it in the fire, see her from your knees.

Q: Sometimes I use in some way the clarity of thought to stop me from doing that.

John: That’s not clarity of thought. Clarity of thought reaches her.

Q: Always?

John: It doesn’t stop reaching her.

Q: Sometimes I use what I perceive as kindness to reach her and it seems to fire up the situation, so perhaps it’s not coming from the right place.

John: Don’t let kindness be an effort. If it’s an effort it will be convenient to a part of you for her to react, proving you right. Kindness doesn’t relate to being right. It relates to the reaching. Love fully learning all of these things, not in your next relationship. This relationship is your relationship. See her, see her afresh, and where there is even a subtlety of that, right there, be all in.

Opening and Softening in Relationship – Part 1 of 2

June 11, 2021February 22, 2014 by Tammy

Q: I’m sitting in the chair today with my partner, and I can see so many things that I do that are protecting my heart when it comes to loving him. I would really love to know how to love a man and be so open and vulnerable. I feel like I protect my self a lot. I don’t know if it’s that I don’t have a self that is free to love. I feel like my heart is almost closed.

John: Give up every orientation to being either right or wrong. Dearness in a relationship doesn’t relate to being right or wrong. If you don’t develop your self from within the knowledge you have, your heart and your self will harden. A hard self orientates to being either being right or wrong.

Q: I’ve noticed that hardness in me lately. It feels like a great protective mechanism, but it doesn’t allow for love and dearness.

John: If you’re not developing your self from within knowledge and your heart, all of your feeling will go to your self to the exclusion of your partner. You will relate to being right or wrong. Either way it will be against him. You’ll be projecting outwards what’s occurring in your self. Developing your self from within knowing and your heart costs your self in your experience.

To develop your self, you will have to be clarity, dealing with a self that is like an unruly child. Developing your self won’t be in favor of how you feel in your self. In your experience, you will be going against your self. If you’re not dealing with that then you’ll be going against your partner. You’ll be making him pay for what’s yours.

Q: I can’t say that I haven’t wanted to do that because I’m sure I’ve done it. It wouldn’t be honest. It’s often so extremely painful.

John: That’s unavoidable. When you don’t let pain heal your self, it will make your self worse. If you don’t let pain heal your self, you’ll be putting it onto your partner

Q: I really don’t want to do that.

John: Deep within, you don’t want to do that.

Q: Isn’t that what counts?

John: Everything counts.

Q: So that if deep within, I don’t want to do that, then somewhere I do. Is it enough to see that?

John: And let that, you in that, be in your self. You won’t be your self. You’ll be better than what your self is, and in your self that won’t feel good. The pain that comes into your self will, by you, end in your heart where you will feel it most. The openness and the softness that allows for that will be opening empathy in you, enabling you to see him differently.

Q: It’s quite difficult to speak about this because it’s so easy to hide, in a way, for things to appear different from what they actually are inside.

John: There is no hiding. Everything shows. That’s not a failure. It’s an invitation.

Despite the condition of the relationship, you’re able to see him. In seeing him, you have found you. The seeing doesn’t come from your self. Seeing him doesn’t come from your self. It comes from you opening. And no matter how it affects your self, give every opening to him. Turn every opening into action. If you’re not giving your heart to him despite the condition of your self, you’re dying.

For you to live, you need to give; you need to give your heart. It needs to show, even if your self doesn’t match. Your self will come around after the pain and the vulnerability of that is warmly no issue with you. Your whole body is your heart. Awaken every subtlety of it to him.

Q: Is that by giving my heart to him?

John: Reach him despite your self and his, despite the patterning of the relationship. Reach him and be ointment to him.

Q: That’s very beautiful.

John: Yes, but going past your self won’t feel pleasant.You owe the innermost of everything for you to be this and do this. You’ll be your own innermost outwards. It will be quite a purification. It’s all good, even if it doesn’t feel good. You will be dealing with everything in your self. It works.

Your Being Is Your Life

September 24, 2018February 21, 2014 by Tammy

Q: You told me I must bring up touches of being to my eyes and to my face and I have experienced much pain and shock and memories of behavior towards others that’s really hard for me to carry. I started to bring up the memories in order to feel and get that face back, as a sort of technique. Is that a good way to get my true face back up?

John: It helps. But when you were really little, you didn’t have these memories to draw from. You had an innocence of heart, and because of the openness and the softness and the clearness of your heart, your own door, the door of your heart to your being was as open as your heart was, so there was easily a direct flow from your being, bringing up touches of being and delicacies of being into your heart. And you did let the expression of that come up into your face and come up into your eyes. It wasn’t something that needed to be explained to you. It was a natural flow of beingness from within your heart and it showed in your face. It was clear in your eyes.

You can access some of these memories. It helps you identify something that you knew when you were little and that you know now, but you don’t really need the memories. You are able as awareness to let your heart open and soften. It is the most fundamental truth that you know in your heart. It is what you always knew. You may not have had words for it but, when you were really little, you very easily lived it.

You easily lived it because you were very sensitive, sensitive and delicate. You didn’t have the strength of self and you were not strong in your person. That was a weakness of yours, without that in any way at all being a bad thing, but it did make it easy for others who felt stronger in themselves to project their weakness onto you and hurt you. Within your openness and softness of heart and your own tender beingness showing your face and in your eyes, you were confused when others would hurt you. It didn’t make sense to you and you didn’t know what to do with it.

Eventually you began to protect your self by closing your heart and hardening your heart. When you did so, you would feel less pain, but you were also shutting down your heart, which stops the flow of beingness that comes through your heart into your self. That has you developing a tighter self and more reactive self.

When you begin as awareness to open your heart again and to let your heart soften, that will be reacquainting you with early memories of being hurt by others and not knowing what to do with it. It would be bringing up all of the pain that you tried to stop. Everything that you’ve been avoiding in your self, that you’ve closed your heart toward, will all be slowly coming back up again. It is going to hurt. The pain you experience, as you are present in openness of heart, isn’t going to damage you. It isn’t going to damage your self. On the other hand, closing your heart and hardening your heart to keep your self from feeling the pain – that does damage your self.

For you to be returning as awareness to being open and soft again despite the pain and the hurt, the flow of being, the delicacies of being, the touches of being that begin to come up again into your heart, will move into your self, enabling you in your self, from within such delicacies, to feel again. With that comes much feeling of vulnerability, but that vulnerability isn’t going to damage you.

These touches of being that are free to move through your heart into your self, up into your face and into your eyes, provide healing. The healing isn’t separate from the pain, the healing comes through the pain. The pain is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. The delicacies of being that come up through your heart, that move into your self, and fill your face and your eyes with tender and delicate awareness, make you whole.

Dwell within the okayness, the profound okayness that touches your heart when your heart opens and softens. Be at rest in that profound okayness in the midst of the pain, the memories, the hurt, and you’ll be realizing that within your most delicate weaknesses, there is a lovely, lovely tender living of your heart.

Q: I have experienced new things in my life, but I suppose I’m not doing enough because when I raise up memories of things that I have done, I sometimes feel the pain is suffocating. Is this the experience I should have ongoing? Some sort of that experience?

John: The joy or the suffocation? It doesn’t matter. The suffocation is because of a conditioning in your self. The experience of that suffocation isn’t something for you to give your heart to. When you’re experiencing that suffocation in your self and you take that experience to heart, you’re giving your heart to the experience of suffocation.

While you’re experiencing such suffocation, notice the tiniest, tiniest subtlety of being that is there in your heart. The littler that it is, the better. The littler it is, the more exquisite it is.
When you notice in the midst of the suffocation the tiniest touch of being in your heart that is almost indiscernible, take that touch to heart. Believe that touch. Let your heart respond to that touch. Your experience of the suffocation is incidental to the tiny touch of being that is there at the same time in your heart.

If your attention goes to the suffocation, your heart will go to the same and you will close your heart to protect your heart from what’s occurring in your self. You don’t need to. Your heart heals when it is open and soft in the midst of a negative experience in your self. When you sustain being that delicacy in the midst of the suffocation in your self, your self heals. It takes time, but your self does heal.

These touches of being, these most subtle touches of being that you know the truth of in your heart – give them your heart and your time despite what you’re experiencing in your self. You need to let these touches show in your face and in your eyes. When your heart is opening and softening, these touches naturally come up into your face and into your eyes. Love not resisting or stopping that.

Q: Am I right wanting to bear everything and not have any sort of relief?

John: It isn’t a right or a wrong. It’s okay. There are many different ways that you can move your self. What matters the most within the many ways in your self is the way in your heart, in your heart opening and softening instead of closing and hardening.

Where there is an openness and a softness of heart, when you have a strong thought in your mind, a strength of perception about what’s happening to your self or person, the tendency is for you to believe what you’re thinking. In that regard, you need to believe only what you actually know the truth of.

Strength of thought and perception isn’t equated with the truth within. To think and feel strongly doesn’t mean that you know the truth of it, nor does a mild feeling with little strength of thought mean that you’re not knowing the truth of something. You need to discern what you’re actually knowing the truth of, within any feeling and any kind of thinking, within any perception. That puts knowing, your knowing as awareness, in control of where your belief moves.

Your belief as awareness is your power. Where the belief of your heart goes, your power goes. When you give your power through your belief to a strong perception, one that seems clearly thought-through and strongly felt, if you’re not knowing the truth of that feeling, that thinking and that perception, then don’t give it your power; don’t give it your belief. But when you do know something, even if it is within a subtlety, a feeling, or a subtlety of thought, if you’re discerning real knowledge within the feeling, within the thought, believe what you know you’re knowing, without needing the thinking or the feeling to have the discernment.

What will occur is that you will slowly begin to move in your awareness as knowing. Real knowledge within that you have in your heart will mean more to you than your feeling and your thinking. As that becomes clear to you, you will be able to identify and discern more easily and more strongly what it is that you’re actually knowing within your thoughts and feelings. You will be able as knowing to make your way through your perceptions. As awareness, you will have your ground in real knowledge, instead of having your ground in what you’re experiencing in your self.

The experiences in your self will always be like the weather; there isn’t real ground in it. The real ground of any experience is what you’re actually knowing the truth of within that experience. It’s your own knowledge, your inner knowledge, the knowing in your heart, that gives you depth of stability within your self, within what you’re experiencing in your self. The tendency is to believe what you’re experiencing, giving your experiences your power, which makes you unstable. Your real stability within is within the much deeper stillness.

The stillness isn’t an experience; the stillness is the knowledge within. When you know something in your heart, it just simply is. It isn’t going to be helping you or providing something for you. It’s just simply what you are knowing.

You need to believe what you know. When you’re believing what you know, your own heart is not just connected to what you’re knowing the truth of in your heart, but your heart opens. You become connected in a living way to the touches in your being, to the delicacies of being. The knowledge follows through from within your own heart, through your own being, into what you first are: living knowledge. The knowing of the truth is what you are. As awareness, you’re able to be the knowing of the truth.

You can’t choose your truth. Either you honestly know the truth of something or you don’t, but what you do honestly and quietly know within, in the midst of a feeling or a thinking or a perception, you need to believe. It’s what gives you your rootedness while feeling and while thinking, instead of having your rootedness being the feeling and the thinking.

When you give your belief to knowledge, when you are believing knowing however little that knowing seems to be, when you live believing knowing, your self becomes the same. Your self becomes as your heart is. If your heart is rooted and grounded in knowledge, the knowledge of the truth, however little that is, your self slowly becomes experienced in that. As your self becomes experienced in that, you begin to gain stability as a person. You will slowly gain stability in your relationship with your environment and with others. It needs to begin in your heart.

As your sweet relationship with knowing comes up into your face and into your eyes, meaning that it is free to move in your self, your person will then slowly become the same. You won’t be modifying your behavior. Your behavior will slowly transform because of what is occurring in your heart and what you’re letting occur in your self.

The first that you will be liking and loving in this are the tiny touches of being within that you know the truth of. In identifying with that as awareness, you know what you belong to, despite the condition of your self, your person, and your life. In belonging to what seems so tiny within, belonging to that in your heart, you do know your way.

When you are rooted and grounded in what you know the truth of within, as tiny as those touches are, your self will slowly also become rooted and grounded in the same. Your self by that transforms. It develops and it grows. You won’t be rooted and grounded in what you’re experiencing in your self any more, but in the midst of everything that you’re experiencing you’ll be rooted and grounded in what you’re knowing within. That enables you as awareness to give tender guidance to your self. You will know what you’re doing. In your heart you will be clear. You don’t need to be able to understand all of it, but as you’re living this, you will slowly in your self understand more and more what it is that you know you’re being.

Your first liking and loving will be the love of the truth within, the love of what you’re knowing of the tiniest touches of being. As that begins to have your self, you will slowly begin to like your self and you will slowly begin to love your self, not because you’re needing to or trying to, but you will see the touches of being growing in your self. As the development of your own being takes place in your self, that’s what you will be liking and loving in your self. As your self slowly develops that way and there is slowly a oneness, little bits of oneness of your self with your being, you will like and you will love your self.

As you continue in that, there will be tiny little bits of touches of being that have solid form in your person and in your living. As that occurs, you will begin to like your person. You’ will begin to love your person, to like and to profoundly love your living and your life, not because you’re holding to anything at all in your life, but because you’re having your being in your person and in your living. It’s your own presence of being that, in your self and person, will accomplish your love of life. It won’t be the love of life as life is perceived on the surface. It’ll be the love of life because your own being fills it. Then when you seem to lose something in your life, there will be no depletion of being , no lessening of your love of life. The love of life flourishes as much in what you gain in life as in what you lose.

Your being is your life. From within the tiny touches of being in your heart, you are able to move and live as this, despite what kind of self you have, despite the history and conditioning of your self. You’re able to be this and to move as this within such a self, within the person that you are and have become so far, within this life that has been yours.

Love being rooted and grounded in the tiniest little bit within that you know the truth of in your heart. You must live by this tiny little bit in your heart, and as a result, slowly your self and your person and your life will flourish, without that needing to be a result. This isn’t result oriented. This is tiniest little bit within oriented, your whole heart planted in that. The results will come even though you know within that you don’t even really need them.

The experience of pain and hurt doesn’t hinder this at all. Pain and hurt are an occasion within which to have your heart in the tiny little bit, to come from that, even in the midst of pain and hurt. When you’re in the pain and the hurt, believe the tiny little touch of being that may be almost indiscernible, that you know the truth of. Believe your knowledge within that touch of being and you will have your being in the midst of pain and hurt. Having your own being is a tiny little bit at a time. If the tiniest little bit of your own being is enough for you, then you can have your being in the midst of anything that you’re experiencing in your self.

As you encounter your own perceptions in your living, each time you have an experience of something, positive or negative, evaluate that perception to see what it is that you actually know the truth of in that perception. You begin to discover that you’ve been living by your perceptions instead of living by something that you really know the truth of. If that knowledge is in a perception, you will believe that knowledge. Don’t believe the perception on its own.

You begin to realize that you’ve been living as a self that is made up of an entire structure of perceptions. Some of them you know the truth of and that they’re worth believing, but in most of them, you will realize that you’ve given your belief to something that you didn’t actually know the truth of. When you encounter such perceptions, you need to let them go. You need to release them from within your heart. You will begin to live by real knowledge, your own real knowledge.

Q: A false perception, when I discover it, I see it and it can come again with the feeling that it’s true, and I have to do it over and over again?

John: Yes. The reality presented by that perception has become a part of the fabric of your self. It has become structured into every little part of your self. It doesn’t matter how often it comes up. All that really matters in the experience of that is what your heart is rooted and grounded in.

Even if you fall a hundred times in your self , be the tiny little bit that you know the truth of that gets back up a hundred times. It doesn’t matter what it is that falls. It really does matter what it is, in you, that gets back up.