Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I find it kind of hard to talk about
what John is talking about,
this looking at yourself.
It sounds really simple.
But my experience of it is so beyond words...
but I'm going to try.
I think, first of all, I've always known myself,
but without knowing it.
I don't know where I got lost along the way,
but at some point,
I just was pretty miserable,
and trying to get out of life,
and feeling like something was wrong with me.
So, I tried everything to fix the problem,
even though I didn't really know what the problem was.
And nothing that I tried worked.
I tried being the perfect student,
and that didn't really work.
And I tried being the perfect athlete, and that didn't work.
And I tried religion and I just wasů
I could never be good enough. And on, and on...
So, anyway, to make this story really short...
At one point, I heard about a talk John was giving, so I went.
And I didn't really know what he was talking about.
But there was something that he kept saying
that strangely I did understand, without understanding it.
He kept saying this word: you.
He would say things like,
'Well it's all just you.'
'It's really very simple.'
'You can't be anything except you.'
And even though I didn't understand that in my mind,
I had this very quiet but powerful experience
of knowing exactly what he was talking about.
like I took those words, and I really looked at myself.
So I looked, and I saw,
I am me.
And I'm not all this other stuff that I think I am.
I am just me.
And it was so ordinary,
and it really wasn't like anything new,
because I already knew myself.
It was actually very, very familiar,
and very peaceful and wonderful.
And it was like it just tasted really good,
and I wanted to live from that place.
And then, of course, I got in my car, and I drove away,
and my mind kicked in again, What just happened?
Did something happen? I don't think anything happened.
But I think something did happen. And just on and on...
But from that first glimpse,
which really wasn't the first glimpse,
but it was maybe the first conscious glimpse,
I could never suffer in the same way again.
So it really did change my life,
without changing it at all,
because I'm still myself,
and I still face the same problems,
and life is still hard sometimes, and life is really joyful sometimesů
But I have this resting place now,
from which I never have...
I'm gonna cryů It's soů
I'm so grateful.
I never have to leave this place.
Everything can happen around me
and I'm still me.
And I look forward to seeing myself in everything.