Real Transformation by Going Inside
A live Satsang dialogue
A live Satsang dialogue
CH: I’m very touched.
JD: Yes.
CH: There’s a deep longing to really live, to connect and to share. It’s very, very strong, I didn’t expect that.
JD: This came out of just doing this ten minute exercise?
CH: Yes, a strong urge to live.
JD: And what is your life actually?
CH: Kind of boring. (laughter)
JD: How much are you ready to change your life towards what you’ve just said?
CH: I want to go to Hawaii.
JD: What happens there?
CH: There’s the ocean; I can surf.
JD: Well,that’s not going to help you achieve any of what you’ve just said.
CH: You’re right, but I have a friend there.
JD: Yes, but that’s another reason not to go.(laughter) This is the basic mistake of everybody who says what you said. You said something very, very beautiful.
Incredibly beautiful. The most beautiful thing you could say as a human being. But then, you just completely don’t understand.
CH: I think I understand…
JD: It’s only going to work if you look inside yourself. This is the only possibility.
I’m sorry to be so ruthless but I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years and this is the only way to achieve what you said you wanted to achieve.
You didn’t say, ‘I want to eat chocolate on the beach in Hawaii,’ did you?
CH: No.
JD: No. I’m responding to what you said, I wasn’t expecting you to rush out and tell us that,so that’s very,very beautiful, but you’re completely sabotaging yourself when you think that by going to Hawaii you’ll get out of your boring life.
Well, yes, in one way you’ll get out of your boring life, maybe you’ll start surfing, and it’ll get more exciting. But if you really want what you said you want, it’s only INSIDE. Because the amazing open secret is that everything like peace, like love is already inside us.
You have to go in a different direction because while you’re looking for Hawaii and your friend you’re looking on the outside, and you are not looking where it really is, the INSIDE.
It’s very close, because probably you wouldn’t have said all those things except that you sat quietly for ten minutes and then immediately you connected to somewhere very deep inside you.
So it’s very close, ten minutes away. Flying to Hawaii takes twenty hours and when you get there, guess what?
CH: I’m the same.
JD: The same CH. will get off the plane who got on the plane.
4 Responses
I feel touched by the direction and focus of going inside. When I look deeply how something could become different in my state of mind, in my emotional world, in my energy, then I always come back to looking inside. Nothing else will do it. It has to come from a deeper place inside. Thank you very much for explaining it so clearly, this helps me to remember.
I have done this guided self-inquiry with John David many times and it is very beatiful, how fast and easy, EFFORTLESS, the finding of my true nature is. It is not hidden somewhere. I just always look anywhere else but inside. Looking inside and being quiet makes it very easy to come to the esence. I am every time very touched when i do this exercise. Every time i feel a deep peace and connection. But then it is, as noticed in this wonderfully honest dialogue, a question of priority to continue focusing on the inside or not. To be, or not to be, that is the question…
Very lovely and honest dialog.
Yes I know this experience to go inside and feel connected & peaceful, but also I know that at the end there is nowhere to go, no inside or outside, everything just is, expanded, content, ordinary and free.
Love Barbara
I know this from my own experience.
For the mind it is very difficult to give value to that which doesn’t change. It doesn’t want “ordinary”, it always wants “special”. That seems to be its nature. That is why I am happy to live in a spiritual community, where we have yoga + 3 meditations a days + plus regular satsang, theatre & mantra singing.