Well we're back. It seems like an eternity John
but here we are back in Bakewell parish church where we've been excluded for the best part of
a year - year and a half going on and now we're back and I've got a question for you direct from
the scriptures - from the words of Jesus in fact who who says in John chapter 15
"If you were of the world the world would love its own yet because you are not
of the world but i chose you out of the world therefore the world hates you." Rather more
uncompromising words than what perhaps what we're more familiar with is the phrase being
"in the world but not of the world." Well I always found that verse rather comforting. I suppose I read it as a
young man and thought about it In our time of political correctness and you
know the requirement for equal rights for all we we're a bit sort of guarded about
hating other people. Even if we do inwardly we we don't often express it so openly
as that. What we tend to do is ignore them. And I've certainly felt ignored and unappreciated
for most of my life almost all of it apart from this rather extraordinary explosion of
interest in the last few years on internet. I've been coming here to
the church to meditate for 24 years believe it or not night and morning
I've been coming up the hill to the church yet I've never really lost the sense
that the church disapproves of me. I'm certainly not you know I'm certainly very much on the fringes
of the church and largely ignored by ... It's only really now that I have have a following on YouTube that suddenly I'm of more interest. I understand this verse very well and And all I can say is amen to that. It is
so ... I suppose if we were in medieval days I would long ago have been burnt at the
stake or killed as a heretic or even perhaps even longer ago strung up on a tree for my views.
And then something happens the swing in fashion happens. You know you might be surprised that
being one of the first organic farmers how much I was laughed at by all my neighbours.
Laughed at me - thought I was nuts and one or two more thoughtful ones said well
maybe you've got something there John. But the vast majority just laughed or
ignored me - the world swept by. And then you know the pendulum swung and suddenly
organic farming has become fashionable hasn't it and everybody jumping on the bandwagon. There's money in it. And much the same has happened with meditation
which was a very alien thing when I started 65 years ago no 60 years ago and certainly
regarded by the church with great suspicion. My father for example was very suspicious of
this eastern stuff. In fact right up to the day of his death he talked
of my mystical nonsense. And my dear sister who who suddenly made friends
after after 80 years of warring between us I remember she just couldn't
bear me talking about meditation. She said why can't I be just normal. So I
know a lot about the hostility of the world. But can I say that the world hates you? Well yes
I can in a more specific and personal way because it's funny enough an incident happened just
recently to me somebody I know very well got into what you might call a proper state and and was there wrestling within herself with
problems of of money and the pressures of life, past relationships and all these sort of
things all sort of crowded in at once. And I didn't get it right to start with and
I took a rather detached view of this and of course that's deeply
offensive to someone who doesn't jump in and sympathise with your predicament. And hatred - when you're really dealing
with these dark forces and they are dark my god they're dark I'm sure we all of us know
this despair that completely overwhelms us. And to someone that appears unsympathetic
they're sort of rather detached it can burst out in hatred certainly it
can. Again I can think of another instance. You know I'm rather a shy speaker and often
just don't know what to say and I tend to lapse into silence. And I remember another woman just
exploding at me with absolute venom in her voice "why can't you say something just sitting
there with that silly smile on your face? Why don't you get involved? Why
can't you say something useful?" I was so shaken to the core - you
know ... that hatred in her voice. Oh god what have I done wrong? And only later I
thought about it and I realised how offensive it is when someone's at peace in the midst - think
of this present crisis in the news about all these pictures we're getting of these frantic
people at Kabul airport in Afghanistan. You know to sort of stand in
the centre of that in peace seems so offensive doesn't it? How can you just
sit there like some airy fairy guru just being at peace in the midst of all this. Why don't you
get up and do something? Do what? What can you do? You see you you're undermining people's
belief in their separate existence. We love our suffering - we just wallow
in it and someone that looks and thinks it's not as real as it seems - it's
it's awful isn't it? You hate them. How can it happen? How can you say ... it is
real - this is what I'm struggling with. Look at poor me. I don't have the money. I haven't got any
friends. How am I going to cope with this terrible situation and all you can do is just look from
a distance sit there in the corner? Maybe that's why the church gets crossed with me the church is
struggling with how to pay its bills and how to sort out the world and look after the hungry
and worry about you know whatever the latest political trouble is and all I do is sit
there day after day with my eyes closed like some statue meditating. Why doesn't
he do something useful for god's sake? You know. That's as near to hatred as you could get isn't it in this this sort of super
civilised world we live in? So yes i think those words are bang on -
absolutely. I want to tease out more what Jesus meant by saying "you
are not of the world "?Well, like it or lump it we are in the world.
What does it mean to be not of the world? What does it mean to be not of the world? To be asked questions like this about the
words of Jesus I hardly feel I'm in any way qualified to give an answer. And all I can really offer is my own experience and hope that may help to illustrate the point. I think back to my early days
of a little child of seven sent to boarding school. I remember one
of my school reports the master wrote something about me being in a shell - it
would be nice if I ever came out of it. Well, maybe it's taken me 80
years to come out of my shell. Too easily i can shrink back into it feel safe. To be not of the world. Yes I suppose the interests of the world I just never really felt I was very much
part of this world. I suppose I've loved the country - I love my animals. But I never went along with developing science
as scientific farming - I always sort of hung onto the old ways. I've always
preferred horses to motor cars - I still do. Yes the world swept by and rather left me out on the fringe of it I think but
then I developed an early interest in well I didn't call it the mystical then but but
I suppose I might have done. I love to go out on the hills and love the stars loved silence. I
was perfectly happy working alone in the fields. I never really liked going to pubs or
company or parties all this sort of thing. No, iIwasn't very comfortable in these situations
so I never really felt very much of the world. And then as I began to meditate in my early 20s
I began to discover this other world the world of what iInow call the spiritual
world and immediately that that sort of that beckoned to me in a way that attracted me I
just felt drawn to - I felt like if in this world i was a fish out of water in the world of spirit I
felt like a fish in the water in the right place. And as I began to understand
more about the significance of spiritual work the work of prayer and the real beneficial effect that spiritual consciousness
could have upon the world and I began to gradually discover what real work is
and discover a real function for myself. Not really comparably useful because it's
infinitely the most useful of all works but of course that's that's all
right for those who believe it for the majority you don't it's still as
my father would say mystical nonsense. Some might say john that you were born with a
natural disposition to be otherworldly or not of this world so it's a it's not really
a fair comment to put it in a sort of scriptural context if I may probe you on that.
You were naturally out of temperament and choice you were certainly not engaged in much of the
world's activity but that's just that's your personal temperament and human choice. What
about the spiritual imperative - Jesus says he chose us out of the world - what does that
really mean? Early on in life I discovered the lives of the saints of which there are quite
a number of books written about all all sorts of saints in different parts of the world. Often
there's not very much is known about them but in some cases there is. But really in nearly
all of them as far as I remember there's something about them being born
with a sort of predisposition to spiritual work - to faith to religion
and now that I'm better known on internet and that and I have opportunities to tell my
own story there are quite a number of people who communicate with me that - yes, I was much the
same when I was young. I felt I never belonged in this world. Well, I feel a bit nervous to say
I'm chosen - I wouldn't dare say that really. I'm more inclined to use that
phrase of other people than myself. Well, why does it happen? I don't know
I can't explain it but some of us are just in this position - we're like this. Why I
don't know - it's certainly not my doing is it? Why are we made the way we
are? Who knows? God knows. I think there are two polarities to this if
I may say so. There's this sense of being called out of the world but then there's the other
dimension of shall we say - normally you could say we are attracted to the things of this world -
do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world love for the father is
not in them. This is again really uncompromising stuff and not very palatable to the modern
ear. Yes it's very black and white isn't it? May I give an example of meditation.
You know when we start to meditate there's always two pulls - the pull of the
mantra or whatever the method of meditation is and the pull of the world -
our mind likes to swing back onto our favourite subject you know whatever
we're interested in. Whatever we love because we do love most of us our interests our
hobbies our family and all that. Our work it can persist throughout the whole of one's lives
that one's sort of got a foot in both camps but I'm not sure if we ever can really
give ourselves 100 per cent to it. Maybe we can when we're in times of utter despair.
Yes I think I have known times when when I was in such despair that I just threw myself lock stock
and barrel into the arms of God. Jump off the cliff - yes that's the way to describe it - into
the ocean of love ... total self-abandonment. With a bit more experience it isn't absurd at all
- it is the most completely logical thing to do. It may seem absurd to someone that
hasn't got so much experience of it but once you begin to realise that
this really is the ocean of love if that's what you want it can be sometimes
... we usually try to love something of this world as well. That's why it can be very useful
... in fact one of the drawbacks for people who who try to meditate is that we're usually not
sufficiently unhappy. It's the really unhappy people who reach the pit of despair and often
throw themselves immortal the more to ... the most totally into at God and of course that is a
spiritually speaking the best thing we can do. Yes, usually we've got too much of a bit of a
compromise about it. Love for the father. See what's that mean right here and now? We get
a lot of visitors coming to Bakewell church and we're just sitting on some really lovely
marble mosaics in this part of the church and many people come here and immediately
their interest is taken by this and they ask questions about it and wonder how
it was made and where it came from and all that. Well when people are doing that and
then their interest is taken by these old wooden pews which are medieval
many of them and there is carvings. The love of the father. Yes, what is that? What
is this presence this still eternal presence here? The stillness that I have so often referred to.
Now which is the father? Is it these mosaics and the wooden carvings lovely though
they are or is it this infinite spirit? Unchanging infinite spirit which is
actually the ocean of eternal life. See this probably puts it as clearly as
anything. We can either be in this world of seeing and hearing the things of this world which is really spiritual blindness
and deafness or we can open our insight and inner listening to this invisible and
silent presence. Now one is the world of spirit God the father - this is the world of matter and we can't do both. it's that or this. Now in meditation we endeavor at least to begin with
to let go our hold on the material and by letting go like a balloon we rise
into the invisible silent world of spirit. Later on we may be taken which really
means the end of our own efforts - it just happens naturally. We sit down and we
are just taken - uplifted. How? God knows. And then when we're taken up there what happens
to the world? It drops completely drops out - it no longer exists. It's like waking up
from a dream and the world is no more. This world passeth away. So John could you say then that love of the
world is a bit like the sandbags the heavy sandbags in a hot air balloon that
just keeps you grounded and you just don't get up in the air and see the bigger view.
Yes exactly so - yes that's just how it is but you see here let me enlarge a bit on what we mean
by love of the world. Because you see there is there are different aspects of love. I suppose you could vaguely
call it pure and impure love. Now normal love is a relationship between
you as a separate individual and the object. There's another love. Think of this - "for
God so loved the world that he gave his son to die for our sins." Now if love for
the world is translated into service now then we may say serve in the
sense of going out to take meals to poor old people or something like
this in a sort of worldly service but those of us called into spiritual service begin to
realise it's all about raising consciousness which is called by another name prayer - the great work
of prayer. Now prayer is understanding the world and knowing exactly what happens in the world and
the pitiful state of sin which is absence from God and the cause of all our trouble and doing the most effective thing we
can possibly do about it which is reconnecting with spirit putting it back in the context of spirit. In other
words by raising consciousness those that are attracted to that those who one could
say are called will be drawn likewise. I remember once reading a lovely thing. A butterfly flaps its wings the whole
world is affected. How much more by this by the work of raising consciousness. What is not affected? i think how the sun
rises in the spring and every insect and plant in creation is moved is uplifted too. Well
spiritual consciousness is even greater isn't it? Take the phrase almighty God. There's
nothing more powerful than spirit. And most merciful but what
is mercy? It's a response to need isn't it? It's love in response
to need to the needs of this world. The world cries out have mercy on us sinners and so we are raised. So there's another higher form of
love isn't there - love of the world? Which is not what's in it for me. It sounds to me
as though an over love of the world as we know it can veer the plane of course the hot air balloon
of course to disaster. Is there ... would you say John there's a virtue in keeping clear of the
delights of this world - a sort of an ascetic approach shall we say. So this
question of the delights of this world. Love - can we have pure love in this world? Well
iIdare say we can. Completely unselfish love ... divine love. Totally unselfish love. The great qualification is ... you see we
talk of pure purity. What do we mean by purity? Purity is the absence of ego - I, me,
mine. What's in it for me. It's unselfish. When you love for the sake of the beloved - when
you give your life in service to the beloved. Mother love - certainly to begin with when
the mother first holds her baby it's usually something pretty close to pure love isn't there? When you look at animals with their newborn
young - not a thought for themselves is it? They fight with all the lives in the
world for the sake of that little floppy thing beside it - give their lives
for it without hesitation wouldn't they? This is not only in the human realm. Let's say yes it's - something to aspire to. Rather more prosaically John
i wasn't thinking so much of sublime love but rather more mundane things like a
nice coffee in a coffee shop and a piece of cake. And correct me if i'm wrong you once revealed to
me that you have never bought yourself a whole parkin cake which is your favourite cake. I'm
not sure that I can really explain it except that I was brought up by a mother who had known
starvation in the days of the Russian revolution and I was born just before the war so we lived
in the time of quite severe food rationing. You know mother was so deeply affected by her own experiences as a
child in Russia - a young woman growing up there seeing the terrible effects of starvation
on her own family and on herself that I remember how even if we left a few
crumbs on our plates as children mother would eat them herself she couldn't bear
to as a crumb should be wasted. She always gave us whatever food there
was and took the scraps for herself. It was how I was brought up - that's how I
think now. You know I've never not felt this almost sacred nature of food and how wicked
it is - how wrong it is to waste a crumb. And then as a farmer - of course, farmers
are like that. There' s an old saying about farmers - they're too mean to cut a piece of
string. Well that's that's me in a nutshell. I wouldn't spend a penny. I wouldn't go and buy
myself a bar of chocolate. It's just not in my nature to do that. I just don't. This sort of
... you know I would if I wanted to but the want the desire somehow isn't part of my thinking
really. So John you have the the benefit of many years experience in this life you say it's still
a school - you hope to graduate to high school. So what advice would you have for younger people
setting out on the path in regards to this being in the world but not of it with all its
attractions? I think probably the most meaningful advice that was given to me as
a young man agonising over whether I should leave my father's business and go out to South
America to try to make the world a better place was an elderly French woman who
said you must follow your heart. Yes, I think that's it that's as
near as I've ever come to good advice to a young man and that's what
i say to anybody that asks me. Follow your heart what it is where
your heart is leading you. Now then we may think we love wine and women and the good things
of this life but and of course we do but ask yourself what's really your
deep heart's desire even deeper what is what we love more than anything else - what
really calls to us from our deepest inner heart. Many people express peace or freedom in some way how to be a better person how to better serve the people and things we love. Now that voice is worth following. Don't worry about what the world says,
don't worry about money, don't worry about position or anything like that what the
social convention is. Follow your heart my dears. You may be a failure in this
world but you'll be in the right place. You'll come out okay in the end. This world comes to pass
but real things are eternal. Anyway my friends - thank you for listening and there's a bit of life in the old man yet
so until another day god bless you all.
