A few weeks later I came the first time to Edmonton. That time I didn’t dare to go to the chair. I stayed in the youth hostel and on the third night I woke up in the middle of the night, sat up straight, and at the foot of the bed, there was John!
And he asked me, “Do you think I forgot you?” I could only nod yes, that was my hidden fear. And John said “How can I ever forget you when I’m the same as you really are”. From then on he appeared every night, answering all my hidden questions. I ate little, slept not much, went out every morning before dawn and all the trees with frozen leaves were glowing!

Back in Germany, John appeared irregularly, but with impeccable timing, including our wedding ceremony, my son’s birth, my father’s funeral and many others, each time giving me brief transmissions of knowing. Sometimes also in the middle of the day.

After two or three years he told me, “I don’t appear any more to you, because you can find me”. I had no idea how. After a while I tried very hard: then there was John, saying, “You don’t need me”.

Often when I sat in the meetings John was luminescent golden; sometimes endlessly patterned, John floating on the spot… With the years this luminescence widened almost to the whole meeting hall “Reality is golden and what we think gold is, isn’t.” is one of my favorite of John’s sentences (the most awesome door to Reality). After John initially points to where to find the gold (in every pattern) it is completely in your accountability then to believe that knowing, follow it, apply it.

Some gold is found in open pit mining, some only in the deep underground…
First you adore what you’ve seen in John and later you become what you adore….Who isn’t touched by the shine of the subtle gold, will not take the opportunity and sometimes unpleasant task to dig through the dirt of the unconscious—until you realize that digging was unnecessary because the surface is the deep…But only after you have excavated the gold, you’ll realize that its light is everywhere: so no worries.

The river is within and without; it’s then only one-way. And to realize that the sea is within you makes you very calm. The torments of life are then an adventure in which the water remains still because it doesn’t identify with the waves any more.
John is the most particular, kind and benevolent golden warrior I have met so far….and he has showed us unceasingly that THIS is it….and if you become what your first love is, then truth is a pathless land—whatever you touch is real….

One day while sitting and thinking about the implications of what Dr. Lipton had written, I was drawn out of my body and through space-watching planets, stars and galaxies fly by. While this was happening it occurred to me that all forms-physical, thought or energetic-might be analogous to cells. It would follow then that the context and environment of a thought cell or a physical cell, for instance, would be the key to its growth. I started wondering if there was a membrane at the outer limit of all forms.

My awareness bumped into something that one could imagine the membrane of a cell might feel like. It was not the usual layers of phospholipids that cells are made of. These layers were made of meaning, knowing and purity. I saw that this thinnest of gossamer veils was a membrane encapsulating all forms.

I wondered how to get through this veil to what was outside of form. It became like I was swimming or wiggling through a medium about as viscous as watery Jell-O. Then I popped out into black upon black. Nothing, no person, experience or reference points cold be seen or felt, but it was natural, not numinous. As awareness settled, the worlds of form could be looked upon as one cell or being, wth activity and light discernable.

At some point I felt drawn back through that membrane and felt the shock of being in time and space again. Realizations of some of the implications from that first experience of consciously exiting all form, as a cell, and reentering so dramatically, flowed for some time.

To continue using the cellular model, the environment outside the cell of all forms is new to me and I have just begun to explore it. If I call the “environment beyond all form” the essence of “Reality”, it can be known by Identity”: that is, Being It. It is there, it is all meaning; it appears to support all form. If there was a Big Bang fifteen billion years ago, beginning time and space, that is the environment that spawned the event. However, my present experience showed me that the wondrous environment outside of all form continuously emanates essence-which creates individual awareness. This awareness and essence permeates the great membrane surrounding all, so creation and therefore evolution is continuous and not the result of a solo event and lineal timetable.

When the Big Bang is used as the start of the lineal progression of everything manifest, no matter how much one feels a participant in it and related to it, the perspective is still one of being the effect of the universe rather than its Source.

The emanation from Source flowing through the membrane is love. Differentiation of these energies not only creates the evolution of the 100 billion or so galaxies, our milky way, solar system, earth, but our own individuality in form. To say we are all connected is a narrow perspective: we are, in fact, it all. So here is a question: is relationship even possible except through imaginary separation by identifying with the form we inhabit? Living as Awareness in this context, any point in time and space is accessible; compassion knows no separation; merging is by awareness and attention. Since we are given individual awareness and points of view in this Oneness of Being, we must each have a purpose and role to play.

I wonder if this cell has a true nucleus, the equivalent of DNA and all the programmed inheritances we assign to it. Perhaps all that has happened as our karmic inheritance is what the codes consist of. Maybe like the code breakers of WWII we just need one of those decoding machines, the philosopher stone of our own knowing.

When I try to be that context of it all from a personal level, my head and body get tense with resistance. I believe that signal is a call to return to Being the formless environment. This change of orientation includes the All in the formless environment rather than being overwhelmed by the immensity of the personal viewpoint.

Since I was raised and educated as a Roman Catholic, the idea of having a vocation (a calling) was often talked about, but had no reality for me. Now as an adult, and as an individual self, what is my purpose and responsibility in what I am seeing and knowing? In knowing what I first am, the environment beyond all forms, a calling arises o be true to that and bring it into form by living as a knowing self rather than the “patterned self” of the mind and ego. The only dream to live for is complete alignment with all the elements of what one is.

Is it too big a leap to say I/we are the environment or Source of All by what we are as Awareness moving and generating light from perfect stillness?

Here is where John de Ruiter became so vital to my present life. I am devoted, not to John, but to what he represents as a model for living as meaning and knowing. If I were learning a sport, it could be compared to finding Roger Federer as my coach and practice partner while taking up professional tennis at an advanced age.

One recent example: During a meeting I was looking at John from about thirty feet away while he was dialoging with a questioner. Without preamble I suddenly knew I trust him without a mote of doubt. I trust what he represents when he sits in meetings with us; I trust everything he says to be true.

As days passed it became clear that the quality of certainty I first assigned to John was actually in me, as part of my being. With this realization came profound relaxation from the tip of my toes through all parts of my awareness. I could now look at anything with certainty and be certain. Uncertainty and doubt had been a lifetime theme for me, as a real “doubting Thomas.”

This new freedom spawned new thought and a sense of knowing my place.

At about the same time I was discovering the certainty in me, I was troubled by an investment. The payoff was way overdue. The principal, a woman financier, had not communicated in over a year. My mind would spin with anxiety. One morning my wife woke shortly after I had been sitting up dwelling on the problem and said “I want that woman out of our bed!”

I mentioned both the certainly and the spinning to John at the next seminar. He did not say anything. We just looked at each other while I calmed down and was drawn back into the formless environment. From that context the personal difficulty was seen at its proper level of meaning.

For me, the meaning of the four years of attending quarterly seminars with John has been the development of trust in him, myself, and the Reality I experience in my daily life. With that has come greater personal honesty and more recently the willingness to apply my thinking to the concepts and knowing that I see. Most of my life was spent in a personal/emotional matrix that was needful. Moving from an orientation of needing to one of meaning opens doors of purposeful and satisfying living.

In the seminar the previous morning John had glanced around the audience as he was settling into his chair. Our eyes briefly met and instantly my awareness dropped into profound meaning, a reality of pure essence. This state of peace and expansion stayed for several hours as speakers were dialoging with John. At one point I became aware that the questions and answers were reversed in my consciousness. Love was known as indiscriminant and a state of being before a questioner asked, “What is love?” Reflection that meaning was deepening like a taproot happened several moments before John started talking about just that. While reorganizing thought to accommodate meaning flowing from and through me, John spoke that meaning can happen directly or through thought.

At some point the act of giving up the personal self to be meaning was asked about. John replied to the effect that one would enter the ‘halls of awe’ doing that. That transmission gave my awareness a glimpse of being the infinite continuing emanation of meaning flowing from Source as ‘all that is.’

By the end of the seminar these experiences of “pre-cognition” seemed natural-lifting and unhinging me from a life stance of being a non-participating observer- to living as Meaning in infinite context, and loving all that is.

I had never had a dream about John, but the next morning I had a dream set in a beautiful ranch. My wife and I were caretaking the ranch until John came to take over the property and live there. The grass was lush and bright green and the oak trees were crisp with the bark striations clear. Looking over a pasture there were three Appaloosas grazing alongside what used to be a fence line. The postholes were still in the ground but all traces of fencing and paddocks were gone. At the ranch house we met with John. Nothing was said about the new ‘open range.’

It was then that I knew the title “Paradigms Lost” had some meaning and purpose. That it could be a project for the ‘WE’ (Oasis) community. Stories of meetings, experiences, and the life changing effects could be compiled and published for:

• Sharing our own experiences in a new way that may fast track the ‘WE’.
• Sharing our knowing of John and his teachings with others.
• Providing validation for others who have openings and have no context for the new reality or anyone to share it with.
• Something to hand someone who asks, “What is John about?”.
• An avenue for the spread of information about John and his work.
• Other reasons not yet seen.

I mentioned this idea to John the day after the seminar ended. He seemed pleased there is no financial incentive for the work. I believe it was he that first mentioned the potential benefit for a person who has had an opening of some type with no reference for it. It was made clear that this is not an Oasis project. References and excerpts could be made from tapes and John’s book.

For many months I had set the project aside since mentioning it to John and a few friends. At the end of a conversation recently, John said he likes the idea and suggested we go ahead with it.

The invitation to write is not from John nor from Oasis. Please consider it an invitation from You to you. If there is a response in you to write, great. If no response, great.

As long as I can remember, I have had a subtle but sometimes strong feeling that something was wrong with my life—but I didn’t know what it was. As a teenager and as an adult I often cried in despair because I knew there was “more” to life and I wasn’t living that “more”.

It had to do with a sense of wanting to be more “present”, more active, happy and doing—expressing what I love. I yearned to be more creative, to enjoy life—I didn’t want to live from fear— and work just to make myself secure.

I could see when I really did what I enjoyed, like dancing, for instance, I was doing what I was longing to do: expressing life from my heart.

I just didn’t know how to sustain that in other parts of my life, like at work, with my family and friends. I didn’t know how to be grateful for what was there for me: the beautiful countryside and so many opportunities. Instead, I lived a dull life, listening to others instead of my own inner voice. I didn’t know how to be happy without getting my feelings satisfied and I used everyone and everything to find it. I tried to feel happy by getting from the outside: food, sweets, clothes, friends, partners instead of just listening inside myself to find what was true for me.

In February 2000 I received a flyer about John de Ruiter from a friend after years of searching for truth and reality— the “more” I was looking for.

I had searched through alternative medicine, astrology, meditation, spirituality, Christianity and nature. When I held that flyer in my hands my whole body responded in a way that I knew I could trust, and I also knew with all of my heart that I wanted to meet this man—to attend his teachings. I found myself traveling with a dear friend to Hamburg in June 2000 where we would see John de Ruiter for the first time. I just knew to follow my heart. Nothing else in my daily, normal life seemed important any more.

It was amazing to be there at the seminar with John. It seemed to me that he was looking at me the whole time. I was bathed in light – it was so lovely and sweet. I understood everything that he said with my heart although I didn’t understand with my mind yet. I saw that we are all connected and that we are all love. I couldn’t have put words to what I knew and saw then. Everything that John said about reality I knew was true. I knew something “bigger or higher” had happened. I didn’t know Hamburg—it was my first time there—and it was funny that I met John almost everywhere, like at certain restaurants and on the street. It was like magic. I saw inside that I had met a real way of being because he was living it. He was living in a real way, not ruled by wants and needs. I had been looking for it all of my life and now he was there— a real human being.

When I sat in the train back home I realized that I didn’t have my return tickets — and I knew then that there was no return for me any more. I had signed up for being real and honest in life.

After that meeting with John my whole world started falling apart – nothing was the same any more. I couldn’t be with people the old way any more. I couldn’t be with the world in the same old way. I saw how dishonest, untrue and unreal I was in life. I decided I would change and become what I saw John was inside: loving, straight, clear, clean, patient, certain, soft, tender, integrated, honest, kind, and caring. I trusted him totally from the very beginning.

So I began my journey toward becoming the qualities I saw in John, and I’ve been walking since then, step by step, into what I really am. I am integrating my mind and will with the support of John. I am learning, for example: to think things through, get all the information that is needed to make a good decision; to apply his qualities by using my mind to express them; how to be responsible and not to hurt others by my way of being. I am learning to use my will for something that is lovelier—instead of for my feelings to be satisfied.

I am learning to apply a finer way of being: to be aware and listen to that clear voice that knows how to be a better person. For example instead of choosing to be angry, at least being aware and expressing that I feel angry—and then not identifying with the anger, and from there making a different choice. It’s about not being controlled by anger and other feelings but being controlled by my clear and honest awareness and abilities. I remind myself again and again that I’m not my feelings and thoughts and that I can choose what to think and feel and put energy into what is of more value. I believed for a long time that I had to change the world to make my life work. Fortunately I now realize that I can change and because of that the world around me is going to change, as well.

Now, after being with John for seven and a half years, I see clearly that I had identified with having and wanting more and more instead of being and expressing what I am inside which is love, straightness, softness, tenderness, openness, clarity, honesty and excellence. I’m learning to express these qualities in life and I LOVE that. I’m very grateful to have this privilege. Not everyone has and sees the opportunity to become a person with an expanded and finer consciousness. Some don’t know about it, don’t want to see or are not interested in knowing there is more to learn, express, apply and live in life. As far as I can see most people don’t want to change because the cost is too high. They would rather use their will and mind for surface satisfaction.

This story is not about me— it is about something bigger than I am— the more of me. I’m telling it because I have the hope that I can reach other people who have suspected that there is more to life than they thought, and also for my family and friends in my home country because until now I wasn’t really able to describe to them what the MORE for me is all about. I hope my little story is able to give understanding to why I chose to live my life in Edmonton attending the meetings with John de Ruiter at the “College of Integrated Philosophy” every weekend.

Weekly meetings and extended seminars with John are held at The College of Integrated Philosophy, Edmonton, situated in the Canadian province of Alberta. John also presents seminars internationally: Germany, Britain, Denmark, and Australia are among the destinations that he regularly visits. The format consistent at the meetings is an unscripted dialogue between a willing member of the audience and John. Questioners are free to enquire into any subject, or state an experience or insight of their own. Talks are often interspersed by long periods of silence before John gives a carefully worded, sometimes almost poetic response. People can choose to simply sit with John, with nothing to say; they may be connecting with his beingness, his presence, which can have a powerful affect – or waiting for their own inner response before speaking. Occasionally John will initiate a discussion. The tone at the college and international seminars has become that of reverence, maturity, integrity, and deep respect.

John’s teachings are constantly evolving, expansive beyond the realms of conventional thought; nevertheless, there are themes that form the foundation of profound learning. At the heart of the philosophy is an uncompromising “core-splitting honesty”. That means fully seeing what we actually are being on all levels – not kidding ourselves, justifying, or rationalising anything- simply being honest about what we are being: either true to what we know; or not. As awareness we have he ability to know the difference. We live in a world that is predominantly self-orientated. This is not necessarily bad or wrong; however it is also not necessarily true. When we see our own self-orientation, it can be painful and very uncomfortable on a personal level. Often we spend much of our lives, and a lot of energy, avoiding such seeing because we do not like its consequences; we look outside ourselves for gratification and good feelings without ever finding true satisfaction. It is only through relating to what we first are, to our “innermost” being, that we can find contentment and know what we really are: “Truth could only be truly known through sheer honesty……if we let ourselves be honest inside, then what we will find is totally irresistible” (de Ruiter xiii, xiv).

An underlying premise of the teaching is that you already know what you first are, even if you don’t really understand what you know. Often we cannot explain why we know something, for instance, knowing there is more to reality than is generally considered. A knowing might be tiny and easily overlooked; however, if we open to it, allowing its possibilities, it may be understood. Being in John’s presence and absorbing his teachings awakens such knowing; he acts as a catalyst for our own inner growth facilitating accelerated knowledge of our true nature. The following excerpt from Kahil Gibran’s classic The Prophet, eloquently illustrates this point: “no man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher that walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness” (64).

Our true nature is not foreign to us or abstract; we implicitly know it. Qualities of its beingness are familiar – kindness, gentleness, fairness, straightness, compassion, strength, and intelligence, for instance. These qualities are valued, we relate to them with ease. As our awareness opens to the depth of these qualities, we realize that we are them; they form a part of our essential nature. We can let ourselves rest in our true nature, allowing its resonance to permeate through all levels of being, self and person. This kind of deep shift of orientation – from the self to the profound – naturally imbues us with qualities of profound beingness, they become integrated into the whole; hence, Integrated Philosophy. In an interview John gave for Australian magazine Inner Self, he states: “When you are living from a much greater context everything becomes integrated…your capacity to think as [a] self and as a person…everything becomes sorted out from a deeper place” (7).

It is only when we value our true nature, more than anything we get from being confined to a self, that we will make a shift. If we like, and love, being infused by qualities of profound beingness, we willingly pay the price of pain and discomfort that can arise when we are honest with ourselves. Shifts in awareness and beingness can be very subtle, often occurring incrementally; conversely, the process of awakening can be punctuated by radical realisations, altering an individual’s perceptions and whole way of being. It is such a process that we are all capable of undertaking if we choose; John has the ability to catalyze it.

John has been and continues to be influential in my own development. I first attended one of John’s meetings, during 1999, in Bristol, U.K. I was impressed by how he related to people in such a gentle, fair, intimate way; yet, remaining direct, frank, and true to what he knew. It was obvious to me that he had the ability to deeply touch people and address the heart of a topic. It was also clear to me that he was sincerely coming from a deeper place, possessing a more expanded awareness, than anyone else I’d ever encountered. What I most appreciated about him was his clarity of knowledge about the nature of reality – he helped bring together many ideas and concepts I knew that were scattered, incomplete, and ambiguous in my own understanding.

In 2004 I came to Edmonton, from Britain, for the first time to participate in a 10-day retreat. I found the focus there was very strong, enabling me to embrace the teachings in a more serious way than I had before. I decided to stay because I wanted to follow through with what I had seen; to become more of what I know I am. It is true that the process of awakening can take place anywhere; nevertheless, with a teacher and a group of like minded individuals, it is a more potent, quickened process. I have become more honest with myself; my sensitivity and perceptiveness has heightened; and I am in touch with a much deeper flow of reality than ever before. I experience a greater sense of wholeness. I have seen a lot of ways of being in myself that were painful to let in, I didn’t want to see them. When I made the choice to be fully present in them, however, they started to soften and open up. Over time, I have been slowly healing. I love what John invites me to be – whole.

For anyone who yearns to know truth, deeper meaning, and expand their awareness, John offers a rare opportunity to facilitate the fulfilment of these wishes. Through embracing complete honesty within, trusting what you deeply know, and valuing your true nature, fundamental shifts can occur within an individual. Change in ones beingness, self, person, and life are possible – change that is not superficial – change that comes from the core, from the deepest of you. Change that is not held together by effort or doing. Change that integrates all that you are, that allows the real you to shine forth.

We live in a distorted, unbalanced world which has become out of touch with its essential nature. We often feel discontent, disconnected. We endeavour to find meaning, to bestow purpose to our lives. We struggle with our relationships and personal lives. On a bigger scale we face environmental destruction, pollution, over-population, social decay, the threat of wars, multi-nationalism, the squandering of resources – and many more issues. We can feel like victims of these things, powerless against them. This is not true. How can the conflicts and imbalances in the world be sorted if we are not conflict-free and balanced in ourselves? Are we really being honest with ourselves? Are we really satisfied in our lives? Real change in the world starts within us – within you and me.

Most people would consider the rich deposits of oil, gas, and coal to be Alberta’s greatest natural resource. I disagree; I believe it is John de Ruiter: Prairie Sage.

Works Cited
de Ruiter, John. Unveiling Reality. Edmonton: Oasis, 1995.
Drioli, Leo. “Living as Profound Honesty.” Innerself. 10 (2007/08): 6-8.
Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet. London: Penguin, 1923.

Lying beside each other before sleep one night, a dark memory rose up in me and fell open between the two of us. In starts and stops I revealed to my husband a personal hurt I had experienced. In doing so, I wasn’t convinced he understood what I was saying or that he’d really heard me or that he knew what it was like for me. It seemed to fly in the face of his expectations of me. I felt he didn’t really want to hear it.

An old wound came open inside me then and I withdrew into a familiar place of pain, feeling dismissed and alone, separated from him and from the love I knew between us. It was my personalized set-up for disappointment. Though I have developed the dubious skill of creating emotional blockbusters within myself, I wasn’t aware at the time of what I was actually doing.

By morning feelings had festered. I was in a full-blown mood. Looping through familiar justifications, my mind was moving in a predictable pattern – if only I could see have seen it. How aghast and in awe I was when some months later John referred to moody people and bluntly said, they’re all liars! There you have it. I was in a full-blown lie that morning, experiencing all the different ways I had repeatedly convinced myself of being unworthy of love, of care, and of understanding.

I skipped breakfast in order to prove how badly I felt, although despite my mood I still hurried to claim a seat close to John for the first meeting of the day. Hungry and cold, I held myself tight against the winter weather outside and the cold lie inside of me, how unlovable am I! How despicable! I sat on the floor looking at John, scrunched up and held in tight with a big winter parka around me, arms folded across my chest and spoiling for a fight inside myself.

Not long into the meeting something happened. John leaned forward. How is it we all move so blithely through all we do, without a thought of our hand reaching out to scratch an itch or set straight a loose strand of hair? We are, most of us, in constant motion, most of the time. When John moves, the room he sits in moves, so rarely is his rooted stillness interrupted.

Something glistened in his eyes then. Something sparkled there and fell away, within or without they fell, I couldn’t say. Seeing tears in his eyes was new to me and I was fascinated. What was he experiencing? What touched his heart and fell to tears? What mined those precious diamonds shining in his eyes? These questions moved slowly through me and the answer to all of them came surely and clearly, clear as a tear.

He was gently weeping for the scrunched up, held in, cold, tight me, sitting at his feet and clinging with all my might to a haughty feeling of self-contempt, at odds with myself in that way. On seeing his tears and spontaneously knowing in them a willingness to wholly be with my distress, to even lean into it, there and then, as if all my feelings and thoughts were a tempest in a teacup, the teacup cracked!

And nothing happened. I was still there, sitting on the floor in the meeting hall looking up at John. The lie was simply gone. What had held it in place was gone. The age-old self-loathing and the accustomed way of being angry with myself and disappointed in my relationships was for that moment eclipsed by what I perceived as a subtle willingness in John to be with the distress in me, to gently move into it, quietly opening to whatever it was I might be doing. I experienced the compassion from John that made way for a complete breaking through what was old into a tender spaciousness where my feelings were simply a misunderstanding and the tender space beyond a dear reality.

Out of the opposing fragments within me, a few were wholeheartedly relieved, seeing the possibility of putting down the heavy load I’d carried through life. I didn’t have to be something I really wasn’t. Instead of the lie, there was the tiniest glimmer of an ever-present opportunity to see clearly, to know what is real and to be true to that.

Though I did not understand it, could not encapsulate it with my mind, I knew that glimmer and the nurture in it. It is the invitation to be free from the bizarre creation I have made of myself. It is the essence of what we truly are and of what we are all a part of. It is the space between molecules. It is the time between two people meeting. It is a gossamer wisp that contains everything, now you see it! Now you don’t, but you know it’s always there. It is the meaning that stretches out behind the light and dark of a puppy’s eyes. It is an atmosphere of radiance, an expanse of fineness that only bears the most delicate and subtle touch. It is stillness without end from which reality is known.

We returned for the following retreat in April, an unusually warm and sunny springtime when more often it is still cold in Alberta. Voluminous clouds created a vast celestial geography in the big sky of the prairies, giving form to height and breadth over the unending flatlands below. I was happy to return.

There was a lively joy in returning to the teacher, an excited openness to see and learn. Those qualities are nurtured and encouraged, being in the John’s expansive presence. A wonder filled flow moves from him and seems to enter my heart directly, filling up all the holes, those places in myself I would rather ignore because of the discomfort I experience in them. Could joy and openness and my willingness to see and learn withstand the pressure of those hidden places, a pressure that seemed to protest the light of honesty? Could they be sustained within the luminosity of John’s beaming, a light that reveals what I would rather not see in myself?

What is most delicate within can withstand anything, John has said. I waited there expectantly in joy and openness, until one day something horrible happened.

In reasonableness and fairness it was nothing horrible at all. It was an innocent gesture on my husband’s part that touched a place in me I had always done my level best to cover and deny. I was jealous.

I am born from a long line of jealous women. Jealousy has been passed down through the generations more consistently than china or silver and has menaced every intimate relationship I have known. One therapist sorted it out for me in one uncompromising aphorism: “If you’re jealous, they will leave you.” They had, they did and I had come to expect it.

How quickly the joy and openness receded as those emotions surfaced, uncontrolled and seemingly uncontrollable. Somehow I couldn’t utilize my everyday mask, the one I used to conceal my unwanted feelings. It wasn’t working in the environment of the retreat. I just could not access it to make it function. All that was there was a raw and painful sensation that pulsed through my body, my thoughts and my emotions. Livid and boiling, my mind and heart were no longer my own. I was thinking and feeling for my mother and her mother and the mothers before them.

Emotions simmered inside me until the last meeting of the day came to a close, until we were in the car, and until we were nearly returned to our accommodations. Then, going against my own will, I unleashed an unholy hell upon my husband. He was forced to pull out of traffic and get out of the car to escape the vitriolic cascade. It was like the explosion of a pressure cooker. Don’t remove the little rocker on top, is John’s advice. But I did and I made a big mess.

In learning by being with John I’ve come to see, after many repetitions of the same form, that where I am open and able to meet him directly within myself, he is able to infuse me with a goodness that moves like grace and for a time I can see clearly, know what is and move forward in that without resistance. Like a child learning to ride a bike, the experienced rider holds the bike upright, moving it along while the child learns the action of the pedals. Once the child has some sense of it, the teacher gives a little shove and lets go, and for awhile the rider is moving on her own, pedaling free before realizing oh, I’m on my own here! Oh! Geeeeeees! Then comes the real learning and getting it on my own, knowing that I’m able but not fully aware of the concepts and components that maintain equilibrium.

There is a beingness that means more and matters more than feeling, John describes. In the midst of what I felt after blowing up at my spouse, being so attached to the power of my emotions, I couldn’t relate to a beingness that meant more to me than feeling. However, I was learning a little bit about being still. John’s steady example through every single meeting extended that ground of stillness to all of us. Like his leaning forward to meet my distress, it is a stillness that can move with profound purpose.

So I sat still. The feelings were there, the love of the power I experienced in them was there, the spins I inevitably added to the feelings came but in one small part, a part I gave the most attention to, I stayed still. Through one meeting after another in the warmth of John’s beingness, I slowly descended, awareness moving inside me, to a depth I had not known existed. It was quiet there. It was peaceful. And I recognized something at that depth that I had always known. It was an understanding that was unchanging no matter what the circumstances of my life— were. I knew what Love is.

Like watching a little flower open, I saw love is not something to have or to hold. It is not something we get or give to each other. Love is what we are and we are always in it. It is the matrix of life itself, the field out of which we are all expressions. It is omnipresent, always available, in all ways accessible and I get to choose whether I want to be, likewise, available and accessible to it. It is a discernable shining web that connects me to everyone else and to everything else I can see and know. Every moment is a precious choice to energize that gleaming web by knowing the reality of love or conversely enervating the web by believing something different.

I left the meeting hall whole-heartedly believing what I know about love. I was ecstatic. I understood then the poetry of the Sufis, the drunkenness of knowing love. For a little while I was pedaling along in that ecstasy, meeting everyone with the awareness that we are connected regardless of our situations and I was met in turn with the same awareness. Life sparkled on all sides. I was riding on the grace of a willingness to be still and know.

We moved to Edmonton within the year and now, five years later, I am still learning how to ride my bicycle in what I know is real, how to deep-down know the equilibrium of being that awareness, of being in all ways, through and through accessible and available to Love. There’s been a lot of falling down, discovering the ruts in my personality that are recalcitrant and the divots that send me flying into old ways of being.

Because I’ve designed them to be so, there are innumerable measures within me that automatically rise to their occasions, measures coming from a belief that it is better to keep some things out or some things in. They are like so many shards covering what I really am. Staying close to John, I am sorting through those many pieces, becoming aware of them, turning them over and recognizing the pain they have not protected me from. Without his abiding guidance and kindness and goodness I would not know how to do this. There is no other support I know of in the world that bears up honesty above all else, honesty that simply and matter-of-factly lays self-centeredness to rest. His example is the light in my darkness reminding me I am able to see clearly, know what is true and gently put a thing down when I see and know it isn’t.

I’m not always successful. I still remove the little rocker on top when I shouldn’t. I can still revel in the power of my emotions but more and more the messes are less and less. I see what I’m up to sooner and I am willing sooner to gently put it down.

When I am able to follow through, past the angst and insecurity of my self, for what I know is higher than myself, something extraordinary happens. Something golden streams forward and begins to shimmer. I can see it. The atmosphere shifts. A soft outflow of the most delicate almost imperceptible light supervenes. There is an awareness of something altogether different than what I am used to and yet… Bit by little bit, if I continue seeing, I find within what has always been there and will always be there. It exists before the choice to be Love even arises. It is already wholly that. I am that, too, plus the choice.

Time for an iced cappuccino? Yet somehow— “no”. My body was completely satisfied with what I had just eaten.

I didn’t require the iced cappuccino. Why did I want it? To have something cool and icy in my hand? To be sure I would stay awake in the meeting? To defer my caffeine withdrawal headaches?

Within me still, there was a sense of “no”. Taking stock, I noticed that my body didn’t want it. It didn’t want the sugar. It didn’t want whatever chemicals are put into those drinks. It didn’t want the non-food calories and caffeine. And so, in the end, it was “no.”

I stuck with my bottle of water. Immediately, as I made the decision, it felt as if I’d grown a little more backbone. I was surprised, as I hadn’t placed any great importance on the decision when I made it.

Soon, I began noticing how good I felt. My body wasn’t burdened with the stuff I would have taken in. I didn’t have trouble staying awake. I didn’t have withdrawal headaches.

What is especially precious to me is that in the whole process, there was not even a hint of “should” or “ought.” Instead, “knowing” carried the day because of its weight relative to the other considerations— some of them clearly rationalizations, but some perhaps not. Small as the decision was, it was me saying “yes” to knowing. And it left me in the much larger “yes” space. Something real happened in that tiny decision that opened up something within.

Even more touching to my heart is the strength flowing from how the decision of “no” was made. What possible difference could such a trivial decision make? I now know that this is how it works: by saying “no” to what I knew to say “no” to, it became a “yes”. You don’t know until you’ve already made the choice, when the choice is profound— that is, when it is aligned with Truth. It comes as a surprise.

Understanding this has helped to show me how I live my life, how Truth moves even in the smallest of details, and about how I can grow my humanness.

Anyhow, as I was witnessing this, I had a thought that perhaps I should also go up to him and ask for a hug. Perhaps that’s what one is supposed to do? Maybe I was missing out on an important teaching. So feeling a bit embarrassed and unsure, but over-riding it, I went up to him and blurted out something like “Can I have a hug?” He looked at me for a moment and almost shyly said “no”. A few seconds later, someone else went up to him and he embraced her in a heart-felt way.

Immediately afterwards, I felt myself burning from head to toe with shame. I saw myself go up to him, oblivious of him, just trying to get something from him because I had the idea that it was what I was supposed to do. Then there was the familiar flood of self-hatred, embarrassment, anger, envy (towards the other person that he embraced) and injured pride. But underneath that flooding of feelings and emotion, I was aware of something that I wasn’t familiar with. I remembered quieting down inside and attuning to that. What I realized was that my previous experiences of “no” from others were completely different to what I’d experienced with John.

In John’s “no”, there was no contraction, no pushing away, no rejection, no personal judgment – it came from a total openness of being, so that even though on a personal level, I felt rejected, on a deeper level I knew that I wasn’t. This understanding took a while to come through – but what was immediate was recognition of something unfamiliar that I could hardly identify—but was really there. When I opened to that and to seeing that, the understanding eventually emerged.

I wanted to share this simple example because to me, it summarizes the quality and essence of what and how I learn from John. The learning is immediate and alive —much in the same way as someone reaching over and touching your hand. There is no need for understanding at that point—you simply know you were touched and that the touch had a particular quality and intention even though you might not have been able to identify it. Imagine that the person being touched has never been touched on the hand with tenderness, perhaps they had only experienced a touch that was indifferent or rough or pushy. The person might not be able to understand why that touch felt different, but on the most immediate level they would know that it was different. And I would say that it doesn’t even require the person to be conscious that the touch was different for there to be a knowing at a deeper level that it was different.

This is what I believe people mean when they say that someone teaches by transmission— it is so simply direct. In a sense, we all actually teach each other by transmission all the time by how we are being with each other. But what is sublimely beautiful about the way John teaches is that, it seems to me, he is fully conscious of what he is transmitting or what he is touching and awakening in us.

Time after time, I’ve had the experience of that touch from John, awakening my awareness to what is already present in me but what I’m not conscious of – literally bringing it to life by bringing it to awareness. During an encounter with John, there are so many of these touches – like seeds inside that are being touched by the sun – some of which flower if I’m willing and open and present enough.

I look back to the time before I met John, where my world had very definite boundaries and ‘progress’ took place within those boundaries— building intricate and sometimes beautiful structures for myself within those boundaries and feeling a sense of accomplishment in what I had built. Then after I met John, I began to experience touches that I knew came from outside of those boundaries because they were so completely new to me. What amazes me is that in the seven years I’ve known him, those touches from beyond what I presently relate to, not only continue to happen but increasingly happen. This is not always experienced as comfortable or pleasant but what I can clearly identify is that they bring a sense of greater aliveness in myself and in relation to the world around me. In writing this, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for what has already been given new life in me.

In the years preceding that moment, I was occupied with searching for something, but I did not exactly know what that was.

As a baptized Catholic, the following question had announced itself spontaneously to me: “Why are all those people going to church and what do they find there? This question initiated this search. “There must be something there…?”.

I decided to go to a church myself to find out what it was. On that Easter Sunday, many people gathered and after the mass I observed them enjoying their coffee and cake. What I saw were people talking and socializing with each other, but I could also see that they were not really in touch with each other. There was a spark missing.

This same spark I missed in the mass; the spark of an essence. That day I found out for myself that for me, there’s nothing to be found there. But in the mean time, a little spark had lit up in my heart, and it was accompanied with the words: “What is God?”.

The next years were filled with this new quest, and it took the form of attending many workshops and trainings in favour of personal development. Also, it led me to India, a land interwoven with religion, with little temples on almost every corner of each street.

You can find there (and I found there) yoga and guru’s, lama’s and monasteries and lots of holy places—but I found no satisfactory answer for my remaining and burning question. After a year I went back home. From then on, many teachers crossed my path: people who talk about life, love and God.

One of them was John.

So sitting there at a coffee place on that sunny afternoon around Christmastime in 2000, I was having a soup between two meetings in the Christmas seminar with John.

It was my first time in Canada, and my first seminar in Edmonton, although I had been to see John on several occasions in Europe. Again, a question presented itself to me: “What if what John is talking about is the answer for what I’m so passionately looking for?”

The next moment I found myself crying from a deep place, and it did not stop for a while. The tears came from a little knowing, which suggested that I had possibly found what I was looking for, and at the same time there was the recognition that my searching would be over.

And that was scary too, because over the years I developed myself into someone who had become a superb guru-hopper.

From this moment on, it was clear to me that I had to come to Edmonton, in order to be with what John is representing and to find what would make my longing heart come to a rest.

Finally, I succeeded in emigrating to Canada, and it’s here where my search found its end, and my heart found what it was looking for…

Dear John:

Thank you for being who you are. Thank you for doing what you do. I met you at one of your meetings in 1999. I recognized your lovely presence right away. You asked me, “Can you just sit in the meeting?” I said, “yes”. I have done this.

Over the years I have received healing by allowing myself to open and soften while sitting in the meetings. Being with you has eased my painful feelings. My whole self has slowly begun to integrate. My heart, mind, and soul has had reconnecting, mending and joining in a very gentle, kind and loving way.

John, you were available to me. You were so honest with me. Now I’ve had years of learning. I have also seen the people who surround you, changing, growing, and evolving. It has been a time of pain, heartache, tears, joy and laughter. Yes, it truly has been a transforming time.

You have always allowed me to be in touch with you. I have listened to your responses every week— to whatever you were presented with. I have learned to enjoy my life journey. I enjoy your stillness and your wisdom.

You have demonstrated a great love for all people. You are close to the source and in the source. You are leading us home; the light that is shining for us all to see. I thank you for living such a lovely life. Thank you for doing your life’s’ work so well.

You are living your life purpose in front of our eyes. You are who I trust. I have been allowed to live on the edge of your life’s’ work. I know you have always issued the invitation to me to just come in and dive right into the pool of knowing.

Many times I have managed to stay around the perimeter. I’m transforming, gradually. I have been invited to receive your blessings. I have gratitude in my heart. I am happy and pleased; working and enjoying my family and friends.

As I go through my days, I remember your teachings, John. I am okay.

I live in the little bit that I know . I know I have nothing to complain about. Everything is as it is. You have shown me amazing love.

I love you because you first loved me. If ever I loved you it is now. I know it’s true with all my heart. One of my goals is to be a gentle, kind, and lovely older woman.

Thank you for helping me to realize the value and meaning there is in such simplicity.

Meeting you, John, has been the most meaningful event of my life. You are worthy of praise. You are wonderful and powerful and you show me how to be this in a gentle way.

It is my joy to honor you. You have taken me beyond in my life into newness and meaning. To me you are John, the awesome, the light, the holy one, the Father, the Flower, and a living portal.

This is my thank-you letter to you, John de Ruiter.

All my love, Your devoted friend and student.