Awakening Together Satsang with John Mark Stroud (Second Interview)

[Music] we are awakening we are awakening hey John Mark it's good to see you you're up John Marcus muted you wanna unmute John there he is hey stranger longer hair it looks great thank you sang to you buddy yeah it's really nice to see you it's been quite some time it hasn't been a while yeah it's good to see you too my friend yes and you know the last time I don't know if it's the last time we saw you but you were you were here with us in La Veta as we began contemplating and in fact it may have been your suggestion that we purchase a retreat house in La Veta Colorado and you came here with with me and Regina and we are sitting in our tree house in La Veta Colorado what I'd like to do to to start is you had an awakening experience I understand several years ago and I thought it might be helpful to to our listeners if you would describe well whatever you want to around that awakening experience I will simply say this I had an experience of my own nature and reality that was so far out of the context of everything I had ever experienced that I knew something greater to be realer than anything I had ever known it's awful easy having had one of those kind of direct experiences you can call it a grace of truth of self whatever you want to call it and think that you're done it was really nothing more than a big swift kick in the ass for me to get on about the work of coming to a Buy that state of consciousness so it wasn't a free pass I'd like to have thought it was I wish it were that easy but it did provide the necessary context for me to have utter discernment within my own being between kind of eternal truth and temporal transient reality as we experienced it and having that level of knowing beyond ideas or concepts but a direct inner knowing of that is really important or it was for me to certainly help me continue the journey of releasing the things that I needed to release that I was attached to so that I could come ever closer to that self that Regina was talking about when I got on so I don't really want to go to a lot of details about it because oftentimes it was perfect for me but it's really easy for us to contrast our experience and get somebody else's and find ourselves lacking or why did this schmuck have that experience it sounds so much easier blah blah blah I'd rather come to where we are right here right now honoring all of us in our unique journeys where we are and see where we can go together well and I appreciate that John Mark part of the reason that I asked that is because I wanted to talk about that as your awakening experience as the beginning because it seems to me I know and I confess that I am I'm cheating a little bit because I read your recent article in Miracles magazine oh wow well there you go well yeah and it seems like there's been a transition for you even since I saw you you know a couple years ago and we had an opportunity to sit down and chat so so for me it's significant that there was what seemed to be an awakening experience and that there was a journey from there and ever opening journey and I just thought maybe wanted talk about that journey sure the beauty of our eternal nature is that it is simultaneously unchanging and eternally unfolding which is just the sexiest thing in all of creation really because there's not a finish line there but we can finish with what we're finished with we can release and let go of what we no longer need or what no longer serves us but it's not that we arrive at a state of stagnation or an end you know many of you and your own journeys I'm sure you've had those moments of I'm frigging exhausted at this and I need I want to be done with this I want to be finished with this I want to just wake up and arrive we can of course have some of those types of experiences but eventually what we discover is that we arrive into more and more of self capital s self unfolding in as in through us wherever we are and that is ceaselessly new this was kind of the Christ was pointing to this when he said behold I make all things new he never said behold I'm finished and thank God I'm done but we can finish with aspects of our journey there are times when we move beyond watching thought and that kind of mind training that we start in in A Course in Miracles and we move more deeply once we realize the utter valued lessness of thought no matter how glorious the thought needs to be no matter how perfectly we can think just what we would label as true or spiritual thoughts they're still utterly useless that they're valueless in that all they are are symbols they're not the self itself they're not the truth they're concepts or ideas or an ongoing commentary about it but if you've really devoted some energy to mind training and you've made that transition to be able to manifest that level of quote thinking it feels really good compared to what it was but the shoe will drop and you'll go well what now and then we move beyond thought and mind watching into the subtler aspects of being the subtle energies the movement of existence itself that gives rise to thought that gives rise to all manifestation or that populates the dream that each of us uniquely have an experience so it's very rewarding and nice to be finished with portions of our journey for instance if you're going from here to Europe and you had to go from where you guys are in Colorado all across the United States you'd be finished with with wheeled vehicles when you got to the coast and then you would take a different kind of journey and the different kind of journey across the ocean will require a totally different set of skills than what you might have mastered to get you to the shore and while this can seem oh my god when will this awakening ever end it begins to get much more exciting because you are in that eternal moment of unfoldment because you're no longer trying to fix or correct or make right something that you've perceived is wrong because those things have been healed in your body and you're becoming an ever-greater vessel through which the self can express and that's that's kind of new and exciting so stages of our journey certainly end and it would be really nice if it was this just real nice gentle bell curve but as you guys know it's it's up and down and can be all over the place and you have two weeks of clarity and then you go home for Christmas and the wheels fall off the blest bus and you know you're back to read to look at some territory that you thought you were finished with and that's just the universe is incredibly benevolent and showing us aspects of ourselves where we're still where we're still holding on to perception and clinging to that rather than the knowing and I call that capital game note capital K knowing or gnosis that we would be informed by the self so thank God we're we can finish with things and thank god there's an eternal unfolding going on does it thank God yes yes John mark there's there's no question that our our paths are highly individualized as Jesus says in the course but I think that that might have been his most understated word and I would I would go so far as to say uh Turley gloriously unique yeah yeah and despite the fact that we tend to rest in some level of self judgment early in our journeys that they all contribute a an incredible uniqueness and diversity to the tapestry of creation they're all contributed to this incredible expression of the self through the dream of separation so no none of our journeys are worse or greater than another but they're all equally utterly contributed beautiful yeah yeah and when you come to that and you you can really own your own journey without any judgment as it was without needing to correct it in your mind and put a nice big spiritual ribbon label over it you know you can see your warts you can see the guilt you can see all of that stuff and can hold it in the south you begin to appreciate incredibly joyfully effortlessly your brothers and sisters journey because you know them to be just as unique just as creative and equally relevant to the self equally relevant to the elfin exploration of knowing thyself so speak beautiful thank you I appreciate it that and that's part of the journey off and forget it's like hey get out of the way I got awakened here you know but what I what I wanted to ask you is despite the fact or along with the fact that it's highly individualized I wanted to ask you if you felt like that there were waypoints hallmarks I can't them with the right word won't come to mind that there that there are portals that we all have to pass through there are certain stages on the on the journey that we all have to pass through III would say yes and a really general kind of sense and the thing is you won't ever see them until you're through them you won't have the capacity within consciousness itself to truly see and know until you've passed through it it's kind of the forest for the trees type thing um and and if I could offer one benefit it would be stop trying to measure your progress because to do so is to create a mental image in your own mind or take other people's experiences create your perceptions of what they are and me or anybody else no matter what anyone tells you about their experience you don't actually know that it's true even if they tell you you don't know that they're actually telling you the truth and it's not that they may be intending to lie but memory is an incredibly inaccurate fickle and totally useless thing so don't bother trying to measure your journey be present with your experience because that's that's your present moment threshold that's your present moment portal if you will it is that you know the longer I've taken my journey the more I'm able to recognize where others who are sent to me seem to be in their journeys and also those who seem to be maybe a few steps appear to be a few steps ahead and just let your journey be yours if we would each walk our own pathway with as much authenticity within as possible things would go much much quicker I think you know Jesus and his attempt to help speed things up provided these modern-day pathways I think they're double-edged swords because they can provide acceleration but they also create this perception that it's it's a box and this was the way or that is the way and we expect our experience to be like other people's so I think there's a real calculated decision on his part you know do we give this because any teaching can become equally a trap as it can become liberating you know when we when we become students of something we can very easily get stuck in it trying to master it in our mind rather than coming to know it within our own being our own spirit so walk your own path with the joy that you have and leave everybody else to themselves I mean it can be really helpful to work in community but it can also fuel an incredible amount of competition almost I mean I'm saying spiritual competition out the wazoo I mean on both sides the equation whether we're one upping someone with our spiritual experiences or we're one upping them or one downing them with the degree of our perceived suffering so it's really important to walk your journey because that's the only one that will bring you to where you want to be it is the only one so use the pathways the teachings as I use I say they're like toilet paper they're very handy to have when you need them what's your use once you've used them and you no longer need them you don't frame them and put them on a bookshelf and go wow look at what I've done yeah take that in and of course you spoke to that in your in your article in in the miracles magazine you you two things come to mind you talked about living in the not knowingness and and really living in the experience and throwing the teachings out and just experiencing that would you like to address one of those two issues well they're they're certainly directly related most of our journeys if we're really really honest with ourselves we'll come to realize that all my studying and all my effort in and all my striving underneath it all it's this idea that if I do enough of this I'll find a way to be safe you know enough I'll know how to act how to not act how to respond how to not respond how to talk to somebody so that they'll be loving to me instead of project whatever and in that process we lose sight of the real truth which is this moment has everything contained within it if I can be present to this moment rather than using all this archive of teachings to try and help to tell me how to be oriented to the moment the self that Regina was referring to is not only oriented to the moment it is the moment and it's everything that is expressing in the moment um and I liken it almost like a river when you pick up that thread that subtle flow that is you know you could call it the the mind of God moving into manifestation of the breath of God you want nothing more than to be on the leading edge of that which is always here and now and the only way we can truly do that is to meet the moment unknown because if we take all this stuff that we've learned to try and keep us safe and we drag it into the moment to help us orient we're actually not anywhere near now we're not anywhere near present you know what yeshua calls the holy in that is is when we're here free of our past and free of a need for any outcome that's when we can true and the only way you can be there is to be in the unknown because you're giving up all of your perceptions you're giving up all of that and we can't actually come to truly let all that go until we realize our eternal nature deeply enough that we don't we we finally realize my eternal nature is where I'm safe I don't need to hold all this stuff in mind I don't need to hold all this stuff to try and be safe because my very nature is light or awareness or consciousness or whatever you want to call it is already utterly radically safe utterly radically free and utterly radically capable of meeting the moment wide-ass open and experiencing whatever is going to be whatever is coming you know well especially that's that trust that you're talking about there is what's required in order to to let go of all our own self protective mechanisms right yeah well let me just do a survey here who here has worked on trying to trust more trust that's done I mean it really really does I think this is one of the traps we get in in our mind convinced us I don't trust enough so I'm gonna trust more right how do you do that I mean for God's sakes what am I gonna do just start saying words like oh I trust more I try trust is really an utterly natural thing that grows and evolves through direct experience you know if you need to come to trust that your light is always on you've got to look with it and add it long enough to realize it never diminishes so Trust isn't an action that we do it's them realize manifestation of how we're using our consciousness and if that comes naturally and effortlessly through as Regina said turning back towards the self its natural its self luminous it's not through effort or striving that we come to greater trust so I don't tell you all because if you're doing that you gotta be really honest with yourself well I'm trusting doubt really I mean that's the true thing I'm dressed about I'm trusting these words in my mind I'm trusting my past is telling me what my future will be I mean just be really honest well what the hell am I really trusting I mean you can look at it that way and actually release some stuff rather than you know get on your hand surreal in your mind or whatever and start trying to trust more because trust will come very naturally very effortlessly when it's authentic and it'll come through your own direct experience I mean we all trust that the sun's gonna come up tomorrow nobody lays in bed thinking oh my god I gotta trust that the sun's out tomorrow oh I really got to work on this because if I don't trust and it might not happen I mean what would then happen you know so it comes really naturally like that when we get away from our mental concepts about it and we turn within using that light towards the source of that light itself you will you'll just know and the longer you look within not in a suspicious way to find all the screwed-up beliefs that you have but looking in an utterly wonder field innocent way what is this light if I look use this light and I look upon it with that light whether you want to call this being aware of awareness or being conscious of consciousness or you know whatever it you it will come naturally you will know it's always on no matter how many times I look away and get distracted by what's outside when I turn within it's there and that trust will come as a very natural natural outcome of that and that's when it's authentic because it's not contrived it's not efforting you're not try and to talk to all your friends about how much you trust because if you say it out loud and you claim it in that way then it will be much more organic and natural process well let's let's talk about that for a minute this awareness watching awareness or our self inquiry or meditation you could you tell us a little bit about your experience with that or what what what is helpful in terms of be still and no I teach the way I was kind of taught by my own inner guidance this what I call spacious presence because oftentimes it's been my experience within my own experience and talking with others that awareness watching awareness becomes this primarily mental thing and it feels like we're really doing it with our thinking minds it's something we're doing and if you actually feel you'll feel most of the the awareness your your light tends to be focused around your head I was I started there because that's I was in my head just like everybody else but I was quickly moved to a greater feeling communion with the spaciousness that is all of existence you could call it mind if you want you know you're really into the course lingo but I was taught to rest in it as a feeling communion not just the point of awareness looking at awareness because as I said that can distract us into a mental thing about it but if I wanted to embody it I needed to know it and here's a simple example you all have this simple capacity to know which is beyond thinking so if you need to go to the bathroom but I'm talking about number two here you know you know a feeling will come and without any thought you know oh I can drive 20 more miles or I have to clench and I hope 20 steps will get me there in time right there is a direct immediate gnosis that informs us and we we know it through feeling and the feeling communicates more your mind may immediately go oh my god I got to get there really quick but the feeling will tell you everything that you need to know so what I was taught was how to come into a feeling using the full measure of my being and the body being the anchor you know it's really easy if we're Course in Miracles students primarily you know I'm not a body I'm free I'm created as I was meant to be or whatever so we want to push the body out of the way like it's wrong or bad how many of you have tried to be present with your minds meaning be right here right now everybody's tried that have you ever been perfectly successful with it no oh wow well how's it been perfectly successful with it I'm gonna give you my Cal and you can teach me we may have moments where we're perfectly good at it but has it ever occurred to you your body is utterly perfectly without any effort absolutely present none of us have lost our body last week none of you know Jacqueline's got it you know whatever if she's still judging she's got work to do so her body's not run ahead into next week the body is this absolutely incredibly it's a master of presence not a thought based presence but an actual presence base presence yeah I was taught how to use my body as an anchor to the eternal present and through the anchor of my body being a feeling communion with capital s self and letting that still small voice of self inform me not in words not in spiritual dissertations but in the very subtle things that beat the heart of this body that do all the things that that need to be done and I know it because I feel it not because I have a belief about it right your beliefs my god what a friggin burden these things are I mean when you truly come into this level of communion you begin to drop beliefs like crazy because there's so much effort and they only serve to get in the way and limit how this failing communion this knowing can move you there's a there's a stage where it's really important to learn that I can replace the belief I'm a piece of with I'm a child of God well done but that's just a stage we move past that where we don't even need a belief anymore and that's when true peace comes to the mind not because it's got to rigidly hold new spiritual beliefs with even more tenacity and more willpower than the crazy insane ones you might have had before but because the mine lets go and becomes this spacious spaciousness that joins this I don't call it the quantum field you call it mind itself whatever that we would label as this infinite field of potential which is Christ mind or consciousness or whatever you want to call it yeah so John market from a practical perspective I think I think I understand what you're talking about being in being here now being in this experience being in communion with the body as a portal but let me make sure that that that we're speaking the same language I have been practicing recently with really just going okay what is what is the most real thing I can say about what my experience is right now and it may be I may be experiencing what I would label anxiety but it's like a fluttering in the chest okay I can feel that can I open to that flutter enos you know it may be it's cold in the room or it's loud in here or but it's just really for me it's really just recognizing what the experience is and rather than trying to shut it out say that I shouldn't be doing doing that or whatever just open to that and when I say open to that what's been helpful for me is to breathing through my heart which is a weird phrase but it it seems to work for me as opposed to trying to shut down keep apart keep away it's just it's more a movement in the in the opposite direction does any of that make sense to you it does and let's celebrate that that's what works for you that's the important thing I mean it's like you know if that's that would work for you don't wear somebody else's shoes we're the ones that fit for you because they're there's no universal practice or modality that's going to work for everyone if we would finally free ourselves to take the path of least resistance the your own spirits going to reveal to you what is perfect for you now this you've got to build that trust by receiving the intuition acting upon it having your experience and then moving on and and not get addicted to that as a practice well officially practice is you're supposed to let go of I mean we're going to get to the point where you know we're just like existence or creation moving with that flow but there's Declan mentioned a couple of things you said earlier how you would speak about or share what your present experience is and you ain't you mentioned this kind of fluttering in the heart and it was labeled anxiety well I could tell you I have fluttering in my heart and it ain't nothing but the point is how we label our experience will actually shape the experience right and when we can get past the need to label the experience and just learn to experience our experience say without the minds labeled without the need to tell somebody else because what you're experiencing is for you you don't necessarily need to tell anybody else so they got their own to be experiencing but experiencing your own experience in its fullness without the labels with a with an incredibly curious and wonderful mind not this shouldn't be happening but this is what's happening yes can I be fully am I willing to be fully present with this and maybe that flutter is actually your heart chakra getting lit up but your egoic mind has been trained to shut it down because it's done we've always he goes to suppress the spiritual impulse to suppress the miracle impulse to to push away so it might be that that's actually a heart opening that's trying to happen but the habituated past and this is why he says don't bring your past with you right this moment it may be about you know it's it's calling for something that's looking to express in some way but if we do how we've done assuming anything that I like to share this sometimes don't assume the unfamiliar is bad but we did and don't assume the familiar is correct or normal you know many times people say well they just don't feel right I don't feel normal I don't feel like myself the doorways those are great opportunities to be in a new relationship to what you're feeling and let that feeling let that come forth in what I call gnosis reveal to you beyond the mind because if any of you been on the spiritual journey you have to admit my mind is poised like a stinking cougar ready to jump on any experience that is not what I have already determined a spiritual yeah ever considered the burden that you dragged into the moment with that what if I let that go and learned as light as consciousness that awareness I'm safe and I got into a very different relationship with my present moment experience rather than looking for wrong about it I wonder if I might discover I'm totally safe to experience any and everything right rather than trying to fix and prescribe something that should be different because the true freedom the true liberation is not I only have kumbaya experiences it's this radically free ability to experience all things in utter freedom and that's when that's when life blooms and takes on an incredible incredible richness and when you stop pushing against the experiences you don't want to have and stop grasping for the ones you want to do your very relationship to experience into existence begins to change and it's really a glorious thing not because they're all good but because they're all life right yeah amen to that see some folks have said some things on chat let's see if we have some questions here let me address pal first okay I've had a beautiful comment here surrender to what is who all's heard this this is one of the most distorted misunderstood teachings in all of spirituality and how I'm not assuming yours is wrong but I'm gonna I'm going to talk about it a bit most of us perceive surrendering to what is is the the things that come and go the temporary the whether how I'm feeling what someone else is doing politic you name it but all of those things that we would label is what is are what Yeshua would call illusions they're things that have beginnings and ends the true surrender to what is is the surrender to the self that is unchanging and unchangeable forever and when we can truly surrender to what is light consciousness awareness self God whatever you want to call it and we can be what is then we are able to be with what is happening because all the things that are happening are always temporary they come and they go just like everything else but if you've tried to be with the temporary while you think you're temporary that's scary a because you're certain that the temporary things are never going to stop and if they and if these temporary things can hurt me because we perceive that we're temporary it can be a really really traumatic and I have seen people in spirituality bring great trauma upon themselves with this surrender to what is it's just almost like this perpetual state of suffering they bring upon themselves with their stuff coming up and whatever but the only way to truly be with what is happening the temporary things is to rest into our eternal nature as light itself that which is unchanging and unchangeable forever it's only from that place of true safety which for me was never a surrender I mean this whole idea that I had to surrender to something never made sense to me for me I had to accept my true nature as this and once you learn how to rest as that at one with what truly is because it's unchanging and unchangeable then we can truly be with what is happening the temporary things that come and go and that brings us that that's our being not of the world but yet in the world being the eternal present to the ceaseless unfolding of temporary experiences because it's the only place you can truly experience them with a place of from a place of utter safety from a place of utter allowance and from that place there's never any suffering the suffering is when we identify as the temporary trying to be with all these overwhelming big energies that are temporary because we haven't rooted into what truly is so it's a it's a very worthwhile exploration of what is and for Jesus he that he had defines what truly is is that which is eternal temporary so John how do you miss how do you move from one to the other I mean particularly if again with all the misunderstandings that come through being a long-term student of the course for example how do you how do you move from the temporary surrendered to the temporary to this place where you're talking about from experiencing from the truth of who you are this place of eternal this this unchanging this I'm I get what you're saying but how does how does one move from one place to the other well isn't that what we're all about here all on our unique journeys to there and if anything I'm sharing is contributed to you I hope you may use it if not throw it out like the toilet paper and you know make your own way the first thing I would say Jacqueline is give up trying to get from here to there thank you because if you're playing the either/or game you're gonna suffer because you're actually empowering your own being in separation the real if there's a trick to it it's being the eternal which unfolds all temporary experiences when we try and separate one from the other we suffer because we're actually manifesting the very separation that we think we're trying to wake up from and overcome right so you know I could certainly share but it would take a lot more time and a whole lot of practice or at least it took me some of you may get it just like that bit fix and it'll never go away you know pin the concert in the awareness right on the donkey it's it's not about getting away from I bet if we were all honest every one of us would probably say I want to wake up because I'm trying to get away from something I'm trying to get away from earth I'm trying to get away from suffering and try to get away from being responsible for money I'm trying to get away from bad relate whatever it is we're trying to get away from some and what we come to discover when we do awaken to this self which is within and it's within all of us right now it's not like it's you know some obscure thing we we make those things up in our mind to further create the distance it's present within each of us right now if it wasn't you wouldn't even be aware that you existed you wouldn't have any consciousness to even engage with what we're doing here together tonight so get rid of this I have to move from the temporary to the temporal and there are simple ways to become aware and pure pure pure pure pure awareness still requires movement of temporary things in order to know its eternal nature so it's actually that the eternal and the temporary they're actually one because how does what never changes have experience unless they're all manner of things that change in which to it and no temporary thing can come and go if there wasn't an already existing eternal field with which they come and go in so there's actually one where we're not overcoming a separation by getting what away from the temporal we're finally bringing back together an original wholeness so that we can experience the temporary no longer separate from our eternal truth from our eternal nature from our oneness with the source so it's it's Alma it's it's a little counterintuitive to the mind that says okay temporary bad gotta go totally good where are with stop that that attempt because it's futile yeah and actually find how they have eternally been one and this is when forgiveness truly ends when you realize that you've never been separate and that nothing ever needs to be forgiven not as a concept or idea because we've all tried that and our still pours forth right yeah but when we when those two things come back together as one we know that we were the self in that expression and it's all very very good it doesn't have to be forgiven it doesn't have to be overcome it's actually one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself to come to that level of wholeness not because you've purified and this is one of the things you know look at the course you have to be purified purify purify have you guys ever asked yourself what database of purity am I using to a judge what should stay in what should go I mean what belief system do you use to evaluate your belief system or just think about it what what criteria do you use to choose what needs to be forgiven and what doesn't well we can't do that obviously that's not up to me but right but don't we spend an extraordinary amount of effort doing just that yes so when when that truly ends when this eternal self and this little self come back together you know in your own sanctity and the own sovereignty of your own unique consciousness they come back together that's when forgiveness really ends and it's not because you finally have mastered it in mind or you finally have gotten every crumb out of the corner of your you know depth of your mind and you've sifted through every past life that you could regress to it finally ends because you know that it's not affected your eternal nature and all all my journey ever disturbed was to reveal my eternal creative freedom every bit of it every guilt every shame every projection every attack every broken heart every lifetime as a murderer every lifetime as a trying to be a saint you name it all of it revealed nothing but my infinite creative freedom so I hold my journey in reverence not in forgiveness and I as it was to evening anyone who would wish to look upon it and take it within their own being because it's a rich journey a very very rich journey sweet sweet thank you John mark thank you for letting me use your quote here to get us working on what is what I want to do now is invite the folks who are in the virtual room and the folks who are in the room here with me at the retreat house to to ask questions and I'm not sure that I've got the proper set up here to see who might be raising their hands so Don you might want to help me with that but you all jump in because that's one of the the benefits of this kind of setup while I'm doing that I noticed that many of you have taken on a much more relaxed physical posture you know because I'm not sharing things to be mastered to be done or encouraging you to try harder I'm just sharing directly for my own experience and something that's bringing about a state of ease and many of you I can see it I can feel it that's your own knowing that's that spirit self informing you beyond mine [Music] so any anybody here in the room wanna have a question they want to ask John Locke okay please and George has his hand race so listen and Darlene George all right it's work I'll go hi mark thank you so much for for being part of the evening and I have I'm just I'm very curious in this relaxed atmosphere what is your setting right now are you in an RV or are you what what room are you in I'm in my Airstream I thought so that's great yeah there's the aluminum ceiling there's the kitchen oh there's the living room it's very small I find it fascinating I love it just kind of gives more bearing to who you are and just please know how much I've enjoyed listening tonight and hearing your perspective it's really really really nice thank you you're welcome Susan we're sending I love our we call it being home free and we realize our own eternal nature and that was true anywhere place no longer meant to us what it did possession no longer meant to us what it did what called to us was the exploration of our freedom so we're living full-time in an Airstream and having the ability to move freely across the country is just the out picturing of our own inner condition an own inner freedom a no longer needing to be identified with place or thing but rather the joy of being in discovery of life and moving freely and I assume that transition for you was not a difficult one to make it must it sounds like it was a very natural one it was it was very easy for me but Cindy had a very different journey about so if you ever get a chance to talk with you with her she was very she was very frightened by my this kind of abandoned for life that I had come to she had to come to it in her own way and in her own journey in their own time I'm and I'm not saying hey you know when you wake up you're gonna go won't be an RV and be free you may feel too nasty even more deeply than you ever have before I don't know what you guys will experience but for us it felt like a very natural outer expression of the nature of our own inner being oh it's amazing with the adventure brings thank you yeah Thank You Susan and I honor your journey thank you George one minute go I've got to jump in there Jacqueline thank you George hey hey John you know you haven't mentioned your ministry waking up with the movies I've enjoyed many many of your movies probably most of them so and I'm sure most of the people here know that you have that ministry so I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your presentations there well George thank you very very much they were an extraordinary fun thing to make but almost I mean I don't make any more of them I don't seem you know I don't go to the movies like we did at that stage of my journey that's one of those things that it was an important stage of my journey but once I was out once I was beyond it I let it go and I haven't made any more they're there and they're free and available if they speak to anybody great but just know I'm not the same beam now that made those then and use them as joy and entertainment but if you don't need them hallelujah and move on to whatever's next who else do we have other questions for John mark dawn had her hand up Don I was putting my hand up because no one else was so I was just afraid so all righty then everybody take a deep breath Don's gonna be brave for Dina's here I'm gonna stick my head in here hi Joe mark hey Regina I love that's really really good to see you you too my friend you know I mean yeah I just love you and and and you know having you right here in front of me reminds me of how much I love you okay so we want you to come see our house you know the one right here lovely when next time we roll West it's a guarantee well and there are RV parks right here in town so that should be easy but not enough room in the driveway huh well maybe I mean here just a park it there they had were in a zoning area well you couldn't stay in here okay you're still in your old house so there's room next door at my house and we could drive down here that would work okay that works perfect yeah and then you can just stay here in the house but aside from all this chitter chatter I want to know what you were up to cuz last time I saw you you were gonna do something I think you didn't do which was take this huge boat trip remember tell me about that we did not take the great loop so I want it I just want to know what you're up to that's my question we live an incredibly simple life it's not complicated we don't have big agendas we don't have some big spiritual manifesto that we're supposed to be fulfilling on behalf of God to sell to liberate all our friends you know we don't have any of that we have an utterly simple life that moves us in the ways that were moved and he likes to do a lot of crafts she does felting Metheny vibratory which takes wool fibers and creates these incredible scarves and 3d stuff it's really really fun we are sharing a version online of what I call beyond belief into presence where I share how I was taught to come into what I call a tounament or alignment to the self within no longers ideas or concepts but as a living breathing manifestation of what that self is and we're having a good time with that sometimes it feels an awful lot like teaching and that almost makes my stomach turn because I my own level of awareness how can you teach someone what they already are I mean we can't we can point to ways in which we all use what we are we use consciousness we use light to create shadow and distortions and all manner and stuff like that but we're sure having a good time sharing experientially what Cindy and I have come to embody for others if it resonates with them and they're drawn to it great if not then you know the universe will provide for them I love to play pickleball if you guys heard of this game pickleball no I saw you laying on the ground after a round though that was like my first week that you know everybody gets like an introductory injury then when you get passed that's good it's this great game it's it's kind of like on a badminton court with a low net played with an oversized ping pong paddle with a wiffle ball like we used to play baseball with wiffle balls it is the RV park that we're hearing in Florida there's a community there probably 50 people who played pickleball and I love to play pickleball every morning and I have a really great time doing it play poker and cards sometimes with friends here at night but that's the simplicity of what my life is here Fort Myers Florida I am awake and aware of the multi-dimensional nature of my being and while my life here is very simple I'm quite joyfully expressed and expressing in ways where physical limitations are not a barrier and that's an awful lot of fun or not a barrier yeah you know there I don't have to get in a vehicle to move from here to there I can just move I can have a body or not well it sounds like fun it's all of our inheritance I just finally I you know I always think you know waking up or enlightenment is nothing more than who gives up first you know who gives up suffering first you know we would if you look at yourself you might you might be on schoo now I really do hold on am i suffering what am I thinking about but yeah you know enlightenment is not as special as everybody wants it to be even in the course I think he says it's not really a change at all but it will change everything so thank you for the question Regina that's our simple life and what we're up to now right you see a unmarked no I think Susan was getting on Dawn for not actually asking a question oh yeah on your okay so here's my question I recently spoke with another spiritual teacher kind of known about a situation my 15 year old son is estranged from me he doesn't speak to me it hasn't spoken to me for a while and it's funny that you mentioned the way you were describing surrender because it is really big for me the way you're describing it because I'm the way I was surrendering was that surrendering to the form or the weight of things were happening instead of surrendering to the light that's within me so perhaps that is the answer to the question of how do I cope with the extreme sadness that I feel the source of our sadness is always contained within our separation it's the sadness of a temporary thing separate from a temporary and when all the only thing that we have are the temporary things in forming our experience and back to what Regina was talking about when I first came on when that's our frame of reference and that's what we're looking from to speak to my what is question and what we are experiencing is reality we can really really suffer when we can surrender to truly what is by resting and for me it almost feels like a reclining back you know behind the thoughts behind all the temporary things and we connect to that eternal aspect of our being the amount of incredible wisdom and acceptance not through a strategy to be with not through an evaluation of the choices you made or the different ones that you should have made but just an utter unconditional embrace from that place we can find enough distance from the you know what yes will cause the battleground of the temporary we rise above that not because all of a sudden they have higher thought or I'm going to be more spiritual and blah blah blah but because in the sovereignty of your own being using the power of your light you rest back without need without attachment and we let that self inform us you never know what's going to be shown to you about the nature of that soul which is your son you have no idea the jury that they have been on before nor the purpose where for which they engaged in this lifetime and when we are truly informed by that light it's like all of a sudden it becomes clear rather than this not knowing because if you look at the temporary you've you've got all this not knowing going on when we rest back into that eternal by being what eternally is and then we can be present with what is happening that's where the spirit the Holy Spirit is we want to call it that can inform us and direct our thoughts our feelings our behaviors our actions so I have no idea if it's if you want to do it privately at some point you want me to actually tune into your son which I can do and kind of act as a medium for the spirit I'm happy to do that this probably isn't the right context but it may be that that being is coming to overcome a sense of abandonment by having another experience of abandonment and I can speak to that for my own journey because that was so much of what I came to overcome you have no idea what's truly going on there or what's for the highest good of yourself and that must always be paramount beyond our ideas of what I need but for yourself as your own spirit in relation to what this other beings journey is and I have my own journey with the child who you know if she was sitting here beside me she would be countering everything I've told you guys and would be certain that we are all absolutely off our rockers you know so we can't truly embrace life because it's overwhelming we don't know how to be with life we don't know how to be with these painful situations we don't know how to be with others who are in pain or are confused because they're likewise experienced in only the temporary with a sense of loss of that eternality so when we rest into that that's where we can truly first answer our own call for love by closing the gap of our separation to receive that all-knowing all-loving embrace and then we can truly be informed beyond our perceptions of labels of motherhood and child and whatever else and can then be moved in a way that can be truly helpful and what that may be I have no idea I have no earthly idea but I would never prescribe to you what you should or shouldn't do I would invite you to get in communion with the spirit and let that move you perfectly because that's what you have to come to know and live as your own life not the prescriptions of anyone else no matter how enlightened or spiritual they may be this is why so many of us have suffered is we've tried to fulfill all those damned prescriptions we should throw our prescription pads out and get honest and get true with that that wisdom that is within us by truly being that eternal nature within and once we can do that and let go of all I think this should be or it shouldn't be or what everybody else has told me then love can truly inform us and when it does miracles happen but the outcome of those miracles doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna get together and kumbaya and do shmores you know who knows what it will be but you will come to peace you will have your own knowing whether the relationship transforms or not the transformation will be you in relation to that Spirit within and when you connect to that you inevitably will know the spirit within the other and the Tim the fear that is so much the temporary will go away because they'll be this eternal peace that you know of yourself and must also be true of your son and that's only that's really the place with which you can then be moved in a way that would be truly inspired so if that helps in any way Don great if use it if not toss it out if you want to get together and we can explore it more deeply more intimately let me know you're not all that far away if you want to come down from Tampa we'll hang out for a while but I would like some feedback if that if that resonates with you I'm gonna have to listen to this whole thing again because I was so caught up in the emotions that I feel because I can feel peace and I can feel the light within me every time the thought of him and that he doesn't speak to me it it just it's just a sadness it's so deep I honor that and I would encourage you to follow it to its death I know that may not be comfortable but once you rest is what truly is at the depth of that will be a gift if you're willing to take that journey to truly receive it knots no longer because you want to forgive it and be rid of it but because you want to know it you want to know the source of what that is and what gift it has for you because that's always some sense of separation and if you can discover that within your own being and close that gap not only will the sadness in this situation most likely transform but your relationship to sadness itself will become something very very different so I love and honor your journey and and your son's journey and I'm happy to support you both if it's if it's relevant thank you um and thank you John Mark I see raela Daniels has her hand up hi raela so it looks like she may need a bikini okay can you hear me I can thank you great I so deeply appreciate your response to that I lost I call it I don't feel that that is a habit I don't feel that way anymore I just worded it that way from 40 years and now it's a zit I was separated from my children when they were young against my will and I suffered for 40 years and I kept asking how to get beyond this grief that I couldn't let go of and scenario was of course everything was my fault and I was blessed to have a dream that revealed to me a big picture that I had not been aware of and what had upset me is I was in a bad position with my three children and I wasn't able to take care of them financially their father if used to help and I kept praying for a miracle for my children but I had a preconceived idea that I had to be part of that miracle they were my children and what I had been shown is that they I was never meant to be part of that miracle in the miracle he gave them was the difference between them crying themselves to sleep at night because they were hungry and we didn't have any food to they went to live with their father and his new girlfriend and traveled all over the world and had namebrand everything and went from utter poverty to filthy rich so they received the miracle that I prayed for them but I was crushed because I got left out of that and they their interpretation was that I had abandoned then and I'm now 63 they're all in their 40s and still none of them speak to me now I don't have anything to do with me and so when I had this dream I was completely the thing that amazed me in the dream is there was completely relieved of any guilt feeling for any decisions that I made because I was shown in the dream that that was not what it was about there was a completely different purpose at play and I had misinterpreted everything that had happened there was a different plan that had been for their life and the plan was for us to be separated for them to have their miracle and then I was to have my own path and so a few years down the road then I adopted a multi disabled child and so that ended up being my path which I could have never done had I had the path that I thought was supposed to be mine because they were my children I was so stuck on that they're mine and I realize now they're not mine they never were mine what was I thinking and when I look now at the 27 years then I've been able to sit at my disabled daughters feet and she's been my greatest arrow I have been blessed beyond anything I could have ever imagined and so I got a miracle but it didn't come in a way that I had expected and I had asked you know what what am I to do as far as his four years I had tried to I would just have to call push myself on them you know hey don't forget I love you you know emails and all kind of stuff and it was reading cameo one out of the Accorsi miracles the CEO dition and in a cameo um Jesus tells Helen you don't give miracles where you want to you don't get to pick and choose your favorite people and where you want to do it I tell you where your to give love and I tell you where you could give the miracles it's called under instruction and where you're not supposed to you don't and that spoke so deeply to me and I realized I was trying to push love into a door that was not going to open and so I was wasting energy trying to push something into happening where I have been given this beautiful blessing that I've been able to pour love into my disabled daughter that he's so graciously put into my life to be my teacher and I felt so relieved by that and so set free that it it almost sounds bad but I'm so joyful now that I can see the bigger picture and I'm so it's a shame I guess maybe it wasn't supposed to I don't know but I think man if I would have known that to begin with in my sadness and loss of grief for 40 years for nothing I didn't understand the plan I didn't understand that I was never supposed to be there beyond in their lives beyond that time and I loved the way that you rented that that you don't know what their journey is and what their lesson is and apparently they have their own lesson and the course miracle says something about our only job as atonement for ourselves and so I feel as though that has just come alive inside of me to where this is this is about me returning to my true self and the blessing that I received I could have never come up with anything so wonderful that's what I have with my disabled daughter could never in a million years I couldn't have dreamed that up and she's been the greatest blessing in mind her life and that would never have been able to happen had I had the power to him fold things the way I wanted anyway I just wanted to thank you for the answer because it just rings so true in my heart because of me having just gone through that so thank you thank you I appreciate it I'm complete you're very welcome Riley I'll just mention one of my favorite little things that Yeshua told me one time in my own communion with him as I was on my journey he said expectations are a present choice for a future disappointment now you know if you still have a real healthy dose of that New Age thought thing and you're trying to create with thought in the future bla bla bla I assure you that no matter what you might be imagining it is you want as rila has so beautifully described to hear the gifts that we are offered are always significantly greater so the next time you find yourself disturbed or you've lost your peace because an expectation hasn't been met Wow remember that that expectation is always voluntary and that you can let go of living in those expectations or living in the need for them if you wish because chances are you don't know and you can't know but there's something greater than all of us that does so put use that one if it works for you that expectations are a present choice for a future disappointment that's great we've got about 10 minutes left did anybody here have any thing they wanted to ask John are they in the room no anybody out there have anything they want to ask John mark Christine I see Jay on the phone I just want to say hey to Jay coz actually him personally and I on Facebook that he's moving or something I guess from right here behind us I just want to celebrate him and then how great hey can hear me I can't hi Christopher hey um so first off thank you for for being here tonight and last but thanks for having me cool yeah me too this is a has been wonderful I recently saw one of your laughter group videos and I just wanted to thank you for that because that was I watched the one where you showed up about 13 minutes late the entire video I just laughed and laughed and it was just such a joy to share in that continuous laughter they felt like such a wonderful release I personally feel like you know especially being on this spiritual path sometimes I can hold in that laughter and holding that joy and that was just a great reminder just like letting it out and just laughs and and and especially about mistakes too because I personally can be hard on myself when it comes to mistakes so it's like oh I made a mistake so say thank you for that well thank you Christopher you're welcome you're welcome I I'm always amazed and loved to hear how people come to interact with any of Scindia nice work um I will mention just real quickly because it was an interesting stage of my journey when I was learning to manifest feeling states at will rather than in response to situations in circumstances you know learning true laughter without needing something to happen to be funny learning true joy without needing to have something good happen to make me feel that way and not just with good emotions but with negative ones too pure anger just for the sake that I am of sovereign choice of God and I can create that expression as I choose so when I was learning that I was the authority over and this is beyond thinking this is into our emotional body and subtler vibrational states that those are under our Authority and I was learning in that laughter thing that Christopher's talking about was one of the stages of my journey where I was learning to manifest those at my will at the choice not because they were happening outside because the truth of the matter is the peace that we all want is there the joy that we all want is there we've just made it conditional on everything outside of us rather than it being our own sovereign choice to express within so I'm glad that touched you Christopher and maybe this will invite you in to a deeper exploration of the full range of the emotional state and I would encourage you not to just do the nicey-nice ease but to also learn that you can be you know rage fully angry and in a moment switch it over to ecstatic laughter and you'll learn that you are that eternal thing not the temporary things and that as the eternal you have authority over the temporal things within the sovereignty of your own being yeah cool who was next Wow uh-huh hi how thank you for your visit tonight and all your words of wisdom I thought I had does something come up and it's been repeating in the last few days actually weeks and I think we Gina spoke up today she mentioned again about how very few of us will awaken I've even read in some of the ancient writings were I think it's in you and Upanishads or something about how we pronounce that that more than a billion of us will wait awakening I used to think is the kind of crude analogy but you know in the reproductive cycle and a lot of the male species that eject sperm there's our one or two that make it into the egg and the rest of them all die off and I'm thinking Humanity is kind of the same way but there's a so many of us Bart and come into this life and die and very few of us awaken and I was thinking about that actually today and I said you know what it's okay it's alright and there was a feeling of relief or release so to speak when I finally said you know what whatever happens happens in that sense I not that I will turn into a raging maniac and organic and all those other things but and I'll still stay the course but I just wanted to get your thought about what I just said I do honor that only one sperm seems to get the prize but boy they all get a fun journey and they don't they don't know they're not thinking about it either he's just growing like hell right I'll leave the analogy there and won't make more of it except to say that you know they're all good they're all participated in journey with all due respect to the upon assad's and all of these ancient teachings this is a different time now this is the time of the second coming not through one but through many and that very well may have been the case when that text was written that one in a billion but back then that one would be doing it with maybe one other being just look at who we've got here tonight and this is one thing that is happening all across the world I mean I bet you a third of zooms business has something spiritual at its core so I would take exception that it does not feel true to me at all that it is the exclusive territory that it once seemed to be I will certainly honor that the idea of Awakening is accepted by many many beings but they might not have the wherewithal to take the whole journey because we like the idea of oh I'd love to be one with God well that'd get me all kinds of power I bet I'd get what I want and love it you know the idea sounds really really great but what's required of us each within the sovereignty or a being to take that journey we might not have the stomach for right now but we are eternal Souls and we will come to it we will all come to it because we can't sleep and be sleepy time forever but I do believe very very strongly and if the visions that I have seen in my own inner consciousness are true it we are well past the the very low low low numbers of awakening you know what we are experiencing and stages of journeys that we're all going through you may pass to a stage in a year or two that might have taken many many many lifetimes before just access to the caliber and quality of spiritual teachings that are available you would have had to take a mystery journey to hopefully find some sacred text buried in meters are literally buried or hidden away now all you got to do is Google I am full of extraordinary joy and incredible hope that we are coming to the second coming not because Jesus is gonna come in a chariot although he may but because we are doing what we're doing right here and right now and the truth of the matter is that when one awakens it becomes easier for the next and then the next and then the next and then the next and the way of Master Yeshua even spells out the number of awakened beings that he says we need to tip the scale for all of humanity and it is an incredible I for those of you who relate numbers to money but it's less than point zero zero zero zero one percent of humanity tip the scale for the whole planet so I I have no doubt in my being about the nature of my journey nor the nature of anyone who's been brought to - what you guys are creating with awakening together will you see it through will you turn away from an uncomfortable doorway and come back to it later you may will you discover what truly is and know that you're absolutely safe and that you can start running through doorways like like a streaker and be perfectly safe and move through things with great ease and great speed so I do celebrate your release how and letting go of I have to because that's only held within our ego because in truth we all already are so you may have let go of the striving aspect and that will bring you to a threshold to rest more deeply in what truly is that eternal that I've mentioned earlier and that may quite profoundly accelerate your journey so but I honor your journey partner thank you mark we're out of time egg on it yeah I don't know about you guys but I had a blast we did it's wonderful to see we really want you to come here and see us physically when you can and thank you thank you thank you for your for your wisdom your humor for all of it thank you yeah well I trust and honor all of your journeys and please walk yours and let everybody else be responsible for theirs we don't have to be everybody's helper they've got the spirit within they're gonna have to find it on their own eventually anyway honor your journey and walk it with as much authenticity as you can and I'm certain all will be well

Channel: Awakening Together

Views: 606

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Awakening Together, Regina Dawn Akers, ACIM, A Course In Miracles, Nondual, Nonduality, Satsang, Spirituality, Awakening, Enlightenment, Enlightened, Insight, Wisdom, Clarity, Meditation, John Mark Stroud, One Who Wakes

Id: LblSY6rjhxA

Length: 87min 23sec (5243 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2019