Q: I’d like you to help me look deeper at a pattern of mine. I keep falling in love with men who seemingly don’t want a committed relationship. I can see the reflection of my own lack of commitment and maybe even lack of loving, yet I do feel that the love is very genuine.
John: The love for …?
Q: The man, and the love for truth.
John: Leave out the first one! Let your whole life turn into the second one...
Q: My husband and I worked very hard last year and didn’t get promoted. What can we do to have our work recognized? We work very hard, do our duty, but there seems to be no justice.
John: Do what you’re already doing without needing to be promoted. That makes you more promotable than when you need to be promoted. Once you both have what you’re looking for, then what will you do?
Q: I’d continue in the work I’ve chosen, but I am looking for justice and recognition in our workplace...
Q: My question is about pleasure, pain and guilt. I’ve recently noticed that I’m experiencing a lot more pleasure running through my body but I seem to believe it’s sinful. I feel guilty and then create physical pain in my body. For example, making love can feel wonderful and fulfilling, but the next day I won’t be able to see properly or I’ll have physical pain. It’s the same if I enjoy dancing. I’d love more understanding around this.
John: For pleasure to become stable requires a stable opening of the heart...
Q: How can I be of help to the world?
John: By being in your heart, being in your heart unconditionally, without any focus of results. If you’re being in your heart to help this world, you’ll be distracted by your need to help, or your openness to help this world. You’ll be distracted from a depth of your heart that you haven’t awakened to yet.
Your reach outside of your self into this world is completely dependent on your reach within…
Q: I seem to have lost faith in a higher power and also a faith in myself. Can you help me with that?
John: Instead of looking for a bigger power, power in yourself or a higher power, begin with the power that has the greatest reach in you. It isn’t found in your strength. It isn’t found in your beliefs. It’s found in the midst of your weakness, and not just your weakness but most particularly your weakest weakness.
Within your weakest weakness there isn’t anything that holds you together; there is no relationship to power…
Q: How do I learn and live my life’s purpose?
John: By first so deeply not needing a life purpose. You’re burdened with wanting to have purpose; it blinds you of any authentic purpose. When you’re trying to have it, you can’t see it. When want and need looks for purpose, all it finds is want and need. It finds lack. First you need to come to complete rest in what has, in you, no lack whatsoever. So there isn’t even the thought or the feeling of a need for a purpose…