Q: I’ve had a few little glimpses of awakening in my life, and have an incredible fear that if I go there, I’m not coming back. Is that true?

John: When you awaken, the self doesn’t disappear. What doesn’t come back is what the self was. 

Q: Does everyone have the chance to awaken in this lifetime? Does some huge event have to happen or can you just flow into it? For the last couple of years I’ve been waiting for some kind of cosmic thing to happen...

Q: I’ve had some insights and experiences in the past but I forget. Then there is in daily life this identification again with emotions, thoughts. Maybe you can say something about this.

John: Your difficulty is quite understandable. If you had no forms, if you didn’t have a body and a self, you wouldn’t have the constant reflection back to you. You would be unstructured awareness. All of your forms enable you to experience what you are in form, but if that form draws you into its structures it necessarily draws you into an experience...