Authentic Living With John Siddique

In conversation with fellow Insight Timer meditation guide, John Siddique about how to let an authentic life find you. John is a sacred teacher and writer who is not aligned with any particular religion, philosophy, or tradition. His teachings have helped hundreds of thousands of people around the world through his writings, recordings, videos and personal appearances. Discover when Led Zepplin IV is more mind opening than you might think.

Transcript

So hi I'm Tom Evans and after a bit of a hiatus we're getting back on to the Zone show,

Getting back in the Zone and today I'm delighted to be talking with a fellow Insight timer meditation guy John Siddiqui.

Hi John.

Hi Tom how are you doing?

I'm not bad.

Well listen it says on your website here you're a spiritual teacher,

Poet,

Essayist and author so a few coincidences there.

So I'm all of those things but I wouldn't call myself an essayist unless I maybe am one and then didn't realize it and we're also from up north and we also find ourselves on this wonderful app called Insight timer and love coincidences I've been sort of tracking you on Twitter not stalking,

Not stalking just been looking at your stuff on Twitter,

Listening to your course on Insight timer and I just sensed there was a kindred spirit there.

Absolutely,

Absolutely.

Just had to reach out but you know that I've been following you back actually so I've been secretly doing your timefulness course.

Reverse stalking.

And keeping an eye on your Twitter too so it's very nice.

But you know those those labels that we give us you know because they're not really us are they because they're not labels maybe other people put on you or you put on.

Absolutely.

So how did you attract your labels and when did you get into meditation for example?

What was your journey?

Well I was a strange child I was one of these strange children who had mystical experiences from the word go basically so I can remember being age six and just being absolutely full of like sunlight inside myself and thinking that there was a light shining on me from somewhere and there wasn't it was it was kind of a dull day but it was like I was in full sunshine and feeling part of everything and this continued right the way through my childhood with quite quite great frequency so by the time I got to because you can't do anything when you're a child because you know you don't have the means to do so or to express yourself.

It wasn't until I got to my early teens and then I discovered that my Catholic school library had an amazing book section that I kind of started putting my hands on meditation books and the first two things I ever picked up was Stephen Levine's A Gradual Awakening which is a glorious book and The Secret of the Golden Flower the Evan not the Evan that's what I'm talking about the Carl Jung I can't remember who the other person is.

These are advanced books for a child of that age.

I was a very strange child I could read anything quite honestly you know I'd out read the entire school by the age of eight and things so.

How did your parents and the teachers find that?

The teachers loved me being a big reader mm-hmm my mother hated my spirituality being different from hers.

Well there's another coincidence I'm one of seven Roman Catholic children my mother was a staunch Roman Catholic I'll tell you a funny story you came to see me once and said I've got this I've got this painful shoulder can you do some of that reiki on me and I said yeah no problem but I only want the Roman Catholic spirit she said.

That's okay.

Love it.

You just go and tell her.

Exactly so that was good isn't it.

Another coincidence I love all these coincidences.

Yeah but my mum just wouldn't have anything at all to do with so I just I had my own life from very early on and I and I realized really early on because I grew up in a very poor and abusive family from my mum's side we were in care and things like that for periods of time while my mum got well shall we say all the social workers worked with her but things wouldn't last so I learned very quickly to be self-reliant which has been a pain in the butt actually a lot of my life being overly self-reliant now as an adult me has meant you know that I really have to work hard to let anybody come near me or help me sometimes I could do everything like this you know I've actually softened over the last few years quite a lot with that but yeah from 13 I was off basically and that was it so this is my 41st year of meditation.

Wow that's incredible and so how did you when you do the transition from a meditator to somebody that can help other people meditate.

Well early on in my early 20s because there was no name I had no name for what was happening I mean now I can speak about it basically I was kind of aware of my soul from day one and and not through any practice I think one thing that we make a mistake about is we think that if we practice hard enough somehow that will lead to an awakening or some magical thing will happen but actually it's grace that allows us that access but there's nothing wrong in having a practice because it makes your life a hell of a lot better in many many ways and can open up the space so that grace can enter but doing a practice itself does not create grace and I just think I had a blessed a blessed existence quite honestly so that I knew my own soul from the outset and I've always been a soul led person and I've had to teach but I had no way of expressing this whatsoever so I went to my Catholic priest at the age of sort of 17 18 I was actually having visions and things at this point and he told me I was the devil quite honestly so that was the priesthood out because I was seriously considering the priesthood so I ended up in a Buddhist community by the way you went for the priesthood did you know my mother tried to force me down it yeah so yeah the priesthood was out for me and and and I didn't hate Catholicism because I could hear the beauty of Jesus's words and I was thinking why is this guy not understanding what Jesus is actually saying and so I ended up kind of gravitating towards Buddhism and I lived in a Mahayana Buddhist community for ten years and so it was during that time that I began teaching meditation it was like around about 21 22 well actually I was leading my first beginners classes and things but then when I left the bus well I left my hiyana and kind of went to Zen I actually left just before my ordination I was meant to be an ordained Buddhist but they were just too anti-family and you know my son was on the way at the time and yeah lots of really strange stuff around sexuality and real difficulties and as your son picked up your your spiritual and soulful DNA he's he's very soulful but he's very very different he's very very similar and very very different yeah interesting sometimes that goes down the generations and sometimes it's the generations he's definitely got the rock and roll spirit he's got exactly I've got quite a rock and roll sort of spirit and and I think he very clearly has that you know and yeah that is the same thing so but after I left my hiyana I just I didn't my practice was just my own for many many years and then in the last ten years or so it's got to the point where I'm sure you found this with your practice actually be nice to hear it what you think about this it gets to the point in your practice where the practice is teaching okay so unless you actually work with other people your practice can't go any further and it just became an absolute necessity because I don't know how you feel but when I take my classes or run my little retreats or whatever I sometimes think I should be paying them because I'm the one learning everything I'm the one who gets to sit there in being with this other person I get to see the beauty that this person can't see about themselves you know and sometimes and and I just feel like oh my how can I how can I be this lucky really it's it's I'm ridiculously blessed to be able to get paid for for the thing that I love most which is being alive yeah I'll just ask that that that word practice I don't come from a classical background at all so I've had no training at all in meditation I'm really accidental meditator an accidental meditation guide it wasn't very insight timer I wouldn't be we wouldn't be having this conversation right now and then so I come very left field as you've probably heard in some of the meditations and so I don't use the word practice I call it more like a self-indulgent joy really and maybe the word practice is something a bit onerous that people might find what kind of practice it means I'll never be perfect I don't know practice isn't the sitting yeah I think people I don't mean that by practice yeah so the practice isn't the formal sitting part at all the practice is meeting your daily life with your soul rather than false identities and the defenses that culture and society and politics and television and so on have convinced us to believe that we are when we're not and as you of course is a really an aspiration of that isn't it the the idea of I just read the title out which I've got a question about self-acceptance through authenticity and it can almost be reversed to being authenticity through self acceptance it's one of those things yeah I love it and yeah and so what what what what point then in your life having that brief synopsis of you starting out very young did you get to the authentic John when did that when did that person appear I think you know we were talking just before we started recording for this podcast and I told you that my life came into real crisis around about 2012 and everything that was my way of living being a writer relationships the way I went about my relationships rather everything I came crashing down not that I lost all my relationships and things but my life in in in in the ideas of the life that I'd made just could not sustain me I couldn't find any juice in it at all and it was then that I realized that the only thing to live by was with integrity and authenticity that anything false no matter how well-meaning or how nice it looks or how many likes it get even even meditations that are spoken so beautifully or whatever if they don't bring us back to the truth of our soul they're not worth anything whatsoever and and I just made that my my life now really and so authenticity is not an identity that we can wear and that's what's so hard about it you actually have to do the real work on a psychological spiritual emotional level to create that space and let go of those false identities no matter how amazing they seem you know I was at a without embarrassing somebody I was at a huge yoga expo a few days ago and I went to a meditation guided by somebody and the way this person introduced themselves they told us that they were a Vedic astrologer that they had done this that they were doing that they were doing this they were doing that and it was a list of things to make you believe in them as it were but actually the only thing that's believable in any of us is the truth of presence the only and it's not then it's not a belief it's the reality like you and I talking right now are we in being with each other or are we projecting something at each other and anything less than you and me actually being I think in the old Tibetan they call it isn't it Adi yoga yeah in Zouchen it's Zouchen so anything less is is not sufficient well this is interesting isn't it because this is a very this is a live example people listening to this afterwards should be able to tell how can how can you tell that I'm in my authentic space and how can I tell that you're in your authentic space is it the words is it the gap is the gap between the words or people picking up something more subtle maybe there's a comment section they can let us know yeah that's very interesting isn't it yeah but what do you what would you say that it is I think it's um it's it's a knowing but it's not from the brain it's not it's not it's not it's it's other mind centers and also soul to soul connection so you know I knew as soon as I spotted you on I think I spotted you through the mindful living show first I thought you were there with Andy Hobson who has been not met Andy either which is you've always so go so lovely it's really funny we joke Andy and I when we have phone calls with each other because we both just say lovely all the time so he always refers to me as lovely John and I refer to him as lovely Andy is my Andy if you're listening by the way absolutely and I love I resonate with his work straight away on yeah on the AC and that's one of the joys is that this this app that these fantastic people have put together has brought all these like-minded soul I'm a bit in love with inside time yeah so am I and I must have created I must have helped him I don't know right four or five meditators become meditation guides now which is just absolutely phenomenal you know and and and not with any formal training but sometimes the mechanics of it and sometimes knowing what to say at the right time and how to pace things and that kind of thing and I guess the only way to do that is if like you had no formal training it can only come from this very soulful and lovely places training is worthless yeah unless again that it leads you to the truth of being no matter what it is no matter what form it's a Catholic Buddhist Muslim Jewish whatever unless it brings you into the being and there's a way of revealing that and each one can absolutely can it's just the clinging to forms that we have just gets in the way basically so there comes a point where you know the Buddha used to say that you know these things are boats but once you've crossed the river you don't carry the boat with you and a meditation is the same actually meditation is just another boat not the thing itself so what what do you tell tale signs then for someone listening to this that they're not living as an authentic life as they might be able to hurt anybody with this sort of thing what are the signs that you are living an authentic life well I want to tackle the first bit I'll tell you how I can tell mm-hmm besides actually just seeing the person and having a sense of them actually being there so it's not about how special they are how religious they are or spiritual or anything it's whether we're actually there or not that's it if you're so you know if you're in the future or the past if your life is based in all your memories collected together to create an identity you're not here and if your life is only about the future future future this this this I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this you're not here so it's not that we don't have future and past it's just that it has to have a gravity of nowness presence but the way I can tell quickest of all is the way somebody laughs because a fake laugh is a fake laugh is a fake laugh you can't you cannot do an authentic fake laugh or you cannot do a fake authentic laugh and make it authentic fantastic sounds like some laughing meditations absolutely yeah well laughing and dancing I think you can I judge myself by my dancing myself am I dancing authentically today I love dancing absolutely adore it and so when that authentic laugh comes through the authentic dance comes through is it like your soul laughing and it's just a totality isn't it it's not that we we have to get rid of anything it's just everything is upgraded by our authenticity and it's not that we have to be at any because the other thing is somebody listening to this might think I'm talking about some form of a hundred percent of perfection or something like that it's just more authenticity is better than less of it so because if you think about it if you're not in your authentic self if you're not coming from the truth of yourself which your mind can't do you actually do have to do the work and it's allowing that to happen is the hard part and well-meaningness doesn't take you anywhere and even being really really committed to it doesn't get you there either but if you think about it without authenticity none of your relationships are real you know even if you marry somebody if you've gone into that with some kind of trying to be something then and you want something from the other person which kind of adds to your identity all you've done is both objectify each other and you've never really met you know so and that's why so many relationships fall apart and could also the pain body begins to you know sort of start working quite quickly usually during the honeymoon and and then we try to negotiate our way around those sorts of things but we meet everything as from an objectifying place rather than just with what is you know we're not seeking perfection we're just living with what is and that is perfection the perfection that is within you know the soul what a lovely thing to say I love your phraseology and I love a lot of this comes through in your poetry as well as now let's see yeah well the poetry was a was a you know poetry taught me everything that no I've let the writing go I published quite a lot of books and things but I let the writing go in a lot of ways not completely I'm an editor for the Royal Literary Fund and and I do write the occasional thing for the BBC again as we were discussing before but yeah writing took me from being completely identity-based me me me me me and if you go through my books in the right sort of order you actually see space starting to creep in especially round about book five but right the book recital and then full blood and that became the point where things started happening at Picasso talks about trying to paint the tree before the word tree enters his mind tried to see the being of the tree the life of the tree and I started wanting to write about people without getting in their way without commenting about them but actually showing people for who they were rather than my idea of who they were as it were so that transparency sort of started in that and then carried over into this falling apart that happened and then this movement towards an authentic life well a good example of that is my questions for you today because I rarely have much more than the first question lined up which is you know how did you get into this is a thing but remember I'm speaking to a meditation guide or a rock star or an author or whatever but the other day I was there was a tweet that just jumped straight out at me and it had all these bullet points on it and I'd love to explore them but the first one I explore it's Led Zeppelin for Oh Led Zeppelin for now obviously it's got a stairway to heaven on it which is a fantastic track and you know one of my favorites of all time and and I love love how the guitar build softly and then it goes into this rock sort of anthem which is great and always the words are important so stay away to heaven is a pretty good aspiration for us to have what is your what's your fascination with the album you know I was like 16 and I was going to Oldham Technical College I was training to be an electrical engineer when I was a boy and coincidence number six well Oldham well I'm from Manchester and and I was trained to be electronic engineer so you didn't I did indeed yeah HND in electronical eclectical engineering well I got a Desmond in that Desmond a 2-2 in electronic engineering yeah I won't even wire a plug these days if I can avoid it but and TVs you can't fix them anymore so I didn't do anything with that you know that was not that was just kind of oh I can do that I'll do that but no and and one day I think I was kind of missing a lecture and I actually hadn't heard Led Zeppelin for but there was a record shop in Oldham and I went to this record shop and there was the cassette of Led Zeppelin for and it was just the cover I looked at the cover and then I pulled out the cover and inside as it as the cassette fold out it folded out and it folded out and it folded out and there's this hill with a wizard standing with a lamp on top the hermit from the Tarot set yeah and I bought it because of that and then from there I mean the minute kind of you know dog starts you're away quite honestly but my favorite is the Battle of Evermore oh yes yes which I just think is it's such an underrated piece of music it's just incredible everything every moment of that album is special though and then my copy my vinyl copy I have these days is quite a thing as well I have a plum label first pressing sleeves very very tatty but you know that my friend who owns a record shop just literally 300 yards from my house turned up for me and you've never heard anything like it never led Zeppelin for sounding like this it's unbelievable one day when you're up in the north you should come around here and we'll have a Led Zeppelin for listening and dancing party that's right you haven't seen my dancing do you identify them with the archetype of the family you know this guy that stands on the hill he's got a staff to hold him so this is too deep now he's got a light to show him the way into show others the way to know an archetype you see I don't think so no if I was any if there was any any kind of archetype probably my favorite poet is Ikku 15th century Japanese Zen poet and teacher who was kind of very very rebellious and anything that wasn't again it was we talked about the same so he's like my brother from another time anything that wasn't the real deal he would really have a go at I don't tend to have a go I just let things be and just try to you know just be loving no matter what really and often fail and yeah and so the I still I'm quite monkish in a kind of very rock and roll and rebellious and dancing and you know quiet sort of way so maybe more a high higher front connecting the disparate yeah it could be could be the higher fence yeah absolutely yeah and what you also said in that same tweet you talked about the sacred aspects of meditation now what are they as opposed to any other aspect of meditation well because I think with our kind of Western methodology and our Western approach to yoga and meditation there's a real danger to dispense of the sacred you know to think of meditation being in terms of I have stress therefore I need stress relief I will meditate so kind of functional yeah it's functional what I call it scientific materialism which kind of comes from Newtonian times actually so you know it's a 400 year sort of history of that but there's also other problems in that in that that that kind of the kind of the early translations of the meditation text and so on were done during Victorian times and have kind of come down to the debt today and so there's words like focus and concentrate and things like that that we use which I would never use quite honestly because focusing and concentrating does not lead to meditation and so my own kind of soul experience has just kind of shown me that this is not the way for me and while those benefits are wonderful it's a bit like kind of missing the entire point because yoga means the union of you know body and soul quite honestly you know what's the union of Shiva and Shakti but it's the union of energies and meditations you know 10 15,

000 years that we know about it has always been about realization of the highest of the truth of God if you want to but I know people have problems with that word and by God I don't mean be the guy in the sky who's angry with us I mean that thing that is producing you and me right now and everybody who's listening you know the yoga teacher Donna Fahri says something quite beautiful she says your life right now is the proof that your soul exists you couldn't be here without life in you and that life comes from this unmanifested aspect we might call it that and that's what I refer to as God that thing that is producing everything at all times and ever presently so and so meditation is the way that we dwell and learn begin learning to dwell with that center and any again anything else is is could be useful could be beautiful but it's not that well it's a question for you and this is a kind of authentic question as well so when you're writing poetry or recording a meditation or scripting a meditation or whatever and I don't script actually yeah and I believe I've only done it recently because inside time of asked for some transcripts and and so I have to go back into some of them and type them all up or send them to me I really struggle when I do my course and ask for transcripts oh well I found that there's a there's a great company called rev.

Com and they'll use it for you which is great but anyway so do you I can't remember mine if someone says oh you said that beautiful I have to go listen to it yeah and and because I've got this this vague theory or whatever that you have to be in trance to entrance exactly yeah well so yeah I mean my mate I scripted I actually wrote what's read out in the course the actual course material yeah but in terms of the meditations I meditate my way of teaching meditation is to meditate with the people who are meditating with me and so that hopefully comes through and if there's any appeal in my shared practices online or through the website or whatever because I have different stuff on the website that's kind of I suppose a bit stronger than I share on insight you know kind of removes more stubborn stains perhaps then it's that reality of practice that is the thing that does the work not the words themselves it's always the spaces between the words and behind the words that's why all guitar teachers have that as the gaps between the notes not the notes themselves without the intervals there's no music so the the the zone show is not just about chat it's about getting in the zone and what have you now a lot of people are listening to this are in their car and I always say if I do a meditation I tend to and they part the car and then listen to it so and and we're gonna give people links I can listen to your meditations any time on through inside time or what have you at the end of it so I thought what we do I'll throw the gauntlet down to you now and I'm not even you don't come to me at all I don't know what's coming here oh that's the whole point because then the only way you can deliver this is with true authenticity and with your soul doing it now I was thinking do I get you to read your poems out do I get you to to whatever but I thought what I'd like you to do is just to imagine swearing at you with my loving heart here just imagine that this podcast is a blank sheet of paper okay thank you the paper and but this is not gonna be a meditation as such it's just gonna be some words that come out if you want to riff off it you could rip off the word zone I don't mind a unit of all that because it's nice to have a seed sometime isn't it in this sort of stuff and you can make it as long or as short as you like but what would you what what what what words come from your soul out of your mouth when you think about the zone there you go there's my gauntlet for you the first word that is arising is the word silence like your blank sheet of paper silence which even though my wife doesn't believe me I have a great tendency towards but if somebody's listening to this while driving I would actually say to you you know you don't need to pull over to meditate that the meditation itself can be the driving itself can be a meditation or if you're listening at home or you're on a train or on an airplane or something that there's no need to get special there's no need to kind of sit cross-legged and make a meditation face or anything like that and a really lovely way to enter presence to enter kind of the heart of your own being is not by any forced action or concentration but by choosing one of your senses because senses always lead directly to a more truthful aspect of our consciousness before the mind begins to translate and judge and measure and criticize so if you just listen to whatever sounds are around you right now and notice that you can hear my voice notice you can hear the space between the words and then you will that you also hear the sounds in the train or on the plane in the car and we might notice that there's a judgment or a criticism or a kind of comment about what we're hearing but if we allow ourselves we can notice that the sounds come in first and a really nice way to do this is we just listen between each sound and you can actually just hear the spaces in the sounds and we don't need to force any concentration because you're just listening at all times your senses operate continuously you might also be able to hear that underneath each sound there's a layer of silence without which the sound can't exist and so if you allow yourself even just a few percent to just drop into that silence the silence of the car moving the silence behind the hubbub at the train station or the airport or in the house that you're in or if you're in a house that is silent the silence behind the silence and just notice how that feels in your body just check for yourself don't take anything that some meditation teacher says to you as being any kind of truth you have to find out for yourself and if that feels closer and more authentic and original or that there's less pressure between you and the outside world then maybe there's something there and interestingly this leads to the next question I didn't know I was going to ask and it was in that tweet the other day that this awareness is the superpower yes because there's no end to that is that that is so multi-level you can just keep going and going and going yeah and you're home straight away yeah you just you know depending on on our level of fear that the world because we've been trained to be frightened of so many things so it's a gradual process I love what Stephen LeVine calls it a gradual awakening there's no rush for anything but on the level that we will allow ourselves to be and this is one way to experience our state of being that will kind of begin to work away and clear away the fear that's in us and we'll be the first thing that we'll probably notice if somebody's new to meditation is they'll notice all the noise and fears in them you know those things show themselves very very quickly and then our inclination is to try and get rid of that because that's what we're taught but actually every fear that arises and every difficult thing is an opportunity for us to bring love to ourselves I always feel that if something is hurting in us it's something that needs our awareness first which creates space and then it needs love and that love may take the form of actually going getting the help that we need or it may be just continuing with the practice and letting because a lot of stuff will actually begin to slowly be transcended as we come deeper and deeper into awareness now that is so interesting because as I said I come from the school of make it up as you go along and let it all come through and I've got this course on how to channel your book by channeling I don't mean connecting with your dear departed I mean connecting with that same God that you were talking about that source and for some reason and well it's not for some reason the first meditation in the whole course is becoming fearless before you turn this tap on let's just deal with those fears isn't that lovely how that that that intuitive knowledge of this is going to be marvelous and you to get these superpowers it can be you can think of them as a burden and you know why me and all that kind of stuff you're gonna guilt around them but they're just amazing things for us to possess and it's amazing that in the days that when so much is going on in the world in the news in the media I don't really watch it you breathe and watch it too much it's that you don't know TV well there's a TV set but it's not plugged into anything but every single person on the planet and every every being every plant every animal every insect it's just an amazing self aware being all different levels of self-awareness which is great and I don't know is the is the the number of steps and the number of stairways infinite but they're all stairways to heaven but the thing is that heaven is now this is it and which doesn't mean that the world is perfect and that everything's okay and that we you know definitely you know spiritually bypass things we actually do have to turn up and meet the world and its difficulties and that's the time that we're in spiritual practice is no longer in caves and monasteries it's actually in finding what's true in us and then actually meeting the world with that not trying to change anybody else but if we meet things from a false place all we're gonna do is meet it with reaction and create further reaction and if we meet it with love which can only come from truth that doesn't mean that we love the difficulty and we love the thing that's going wrong or the kind of you know the rise of this power or whatever in the world it means we meet it with that open space which allows the transformation to take place and people can meet you anytime they like through the app can't live it's free to download yeah and I think you're inside time become slash authentic living that's the thing to look for isn't it I think so there's a link down the bottom but you also do physical retreats for people can meet you face to face then I do a little bit I'm trying to do more of them so I run retreats up here in the north yeah at the Quaker meeting house in Manchester from time to time but next year and this is just in the planning stage at the minute but we're looking at exactly this time of year next year I found a gorgeous little retreat center in Corfu and and the woman who runs it is a just a lovely yogi and so she's gonna provide a bit of yoga every day and she's a kirtan singer as well so we'll have a bit of singing and stuff and then I'm going to actually create a retreat that's like a deeper version of my insight course so because as you know you get 15 minutes to try and say something and and it's amazing how impactful you can be how impactful the material can be on people's lives but just imagine being able to do that and actually have the teacher there ask them what you want right there and then or just be in presence with that person or be presence with each other and then have a lovely lunch and go swimming in the sea fantastic and of course it's just a wonderful island yeah and then next year I'm planning a it's really quite weird I don't know if you check out your analytics sometime on your website and things like that but such a large part of my audience is in California that it makes me laugh there's more people listen to what I do in California and that part of the States Arizona and so on then the rest of the world put together and so I'm going to do an exploratory trip I've got a small group of people who are very keen for me to come over and I've had this idea of almost doing little kind of house meeting retreats rather than setting up something formal we just have little weekends in people's houses and and and and just kind of hang out together and practice now correct me if I'm wrong isn't going to California a track on said Liz that it really is it's the connector of all things for all things really there you go I hope you don't make the levy break while you're over there oh my god I'm not going to Mississippi I don't think but no I mean and my thing is you know is I'm really keen that that we just get together there's nothing more beautiful than sitting in presence together I can't think of anything more beautiful that the human being can do I mean well literally you know breaking bread together being with each other meditating together when we drop beneath the identities that we think we are project and we project those things out into the world and our own consciousness and our pain and stuff like that and when we just step out of that so even the the smallest millionth of a degree in a group together you can just actually feel what we're meant to be which is just life we're just life together I think life always wants to pull together but we've we've learned to push apart nothing else in nature pushes apart but we do and maybe that's what the spiritual path is it's kind of moving from from a fear based way of living to a true love based way of living that that deals with fear you know and that acknowledges fear has been a useful knowledge is it absolutely because every fear is a doorway yeah if we if we will allow ourselves to actually see it's all pointing us the only reason the fear is there because it's pointing us to something that we need to look at well it's been absolutely lovely to bless you Tom today yeah John has been wonderful wonderful we can speak for hours and hours I know now you got your you're like me you've got books you got meditations you got poems where would you recommend people dive into you what's the your main URL first off and what you say if somebody never listened to anything of yours already knew yours where would they dive in what I mean intuition the the the website is easy that's just authentic living dot life I've got the coolest instead of dot code at UK I got dot life and I can't I can't believe that turned up on the day I was looking for a domain to buy so authentic living dot life is the website if somebody wanted to read a book the thing is my writing has been called pure filth and and the book full blood is is there are some very strong material in there in terms of eroticism I wanted to explore sensuality and mortality in that particular book so and I and I went for it very strongly not the whole thing but some of my best work is in there for sure I mean there's things that have really made it into kind of you know a lot the larger culture in some way so there's a poem called first which I was actually commissioned to write by somebody from the House of Lords to be used at the House of Lords which then got taken up by the Occupy movement in the States and was used when it was way a long time ago but when the New York police destroyed the Occupy Library somebody came on CNN and read out this poem of mine and that was their response so that's a place that you could look the book before that recital is very close to my heart but in terms of meditations you can get most of my books from your local library if you're in the UK actually or Barnes and Noble if you're in the US or I'm afraid you know Amazon the rest of the world but but those are those are an earlier John so this John speaking to you is now and any John that comes before is somebody else so you know don't judge this meditation teacher by his books the book by the cover or something in terms of meditations I would say there's one I've put up recently on Insight which is actually one of my main meditations from the website so kind of a rare crossover for me but it's a 30-minute one and it's called thriving in your life and it's about how to actually connect with your purpose I suppose and how to be of service within your own life through the roles that you live so as a as a as a man or as a woman as a you know a wife or a husband as a teacher as a person in your community and kind of it just guides you very slightly into presence and then ask shows you how to ask of the universe what your smallest step today could be brilliant well if anyone's listening that's a nice small step to take and it's one small step for a man or a woman but be one giant leap for the humankind exactly yeah 21st century we aren't it well it's been a joy and a pleasure thank you to anybody listening to this as well you've honored us by turning up absolutely right great stuff so I'll put them some links down the bottom of the the show notes and what have you to take you directly into these these meditations anything that links in in sub time if you've got the Africa she opens up the app on your device which is kind of cool as well they're called deep links and we'll link over to your your books as well John and I hope this is the first of many conversations obviously now we're in the now right now but we'll we'll let the future come and arrive we'll have another now in the future absolutely go through the rest of the the Led Zepp archive at some point well present is my favorite there you go honestly Achilles last stand don't even get me on Achilles last stand fantastic John deep bow to you it's been a joy and a pleasure I'm glad you Tom thank you so much our timelines are crossed lovely take care and you

Reviews

Music, laughter, dancing touchstones = soSOso many insights shared. I found this to be both insightful AND inspiring! An www.insighttimer.com “collectible”, in fact! So fun to be able to share this content with my son! www.gratefulness.org, ahimsa

Fabulous. I’m very grateful for this interview. I’m going to try John’s course & meditations. I’m very grateful. 😊

Looking forward to more and especially happy with the present moment spent listening to this thank you 🦋

John is simply amazing...if you miss sitting in presence with him you've missed a true piece of joy!

Within this conversation, there are so many sparks☆ lighting up my soul ☆ that I will have to follow to be able to explore the space in between ♢ Thank you so much ♡ Silence is like a break within a song that makes us stop running and be present ♡ and btw, my favourite is Led Zep III ;-)

A deep well of truth and honesty....thank you both 🎈🎈

I really enjoyed this enriching discussion. I want to check out John's meditations and books now..oh and Led Zeppelin IV! 😉❤🙏 Thank you Tom for an inspiring podcast.

Wow! what a fascinating Life John has had. What an enormous pity his mother could not see and appreciate the brilliant soul she had brought into this world. She should have been so proud. I blame the Roman Catholic Church; it's a religion of control through guilt. One must not dare to think outside their parameters. They control who killed and squash brilliance. Tom's comments confirm this further. I moved to Mexico and I see how totally brainwashed people are. the conflict between who they feel they have to be and who they are creates dishonesty and hypocrisy because guilt does not allow you to be authentic. Thank you John for making me aware of the value of authenticity. I like to know I can say what I mean and mean what I say and not have to sugarcoat it to meet someone else's standards.
I am so disappointed in the way Insight Timer sprung their changes on us without any warning. Now I can't find John's yoga nidra sleep meditation and I love the way he explains what yoga nidra meditation is.
I have never listen to Tom Evans but this inspires me to do so; especially his time management course.

Beautiful. Although I would expect nothing less from dear John xxx

This was brilliant. The points about living an authentic life and that we all pick up identies as we tred along life really spoke to me. Thank you.

Thanks a lot for sharing this interview with us Tom. Very insightful, thank you.

TNX, I collected the gems...
Oh, and promise to set them free again ☺️

Well, I’m going to download Led Zeppelin 4 for my plane ride home to California. Wonderful listening to your conversation. I feel a kinship to you both.

Very interesting and thank you both so much.

Wonderful. You always surprise me. Thank you both. Karen

What a lovely conversation great questions and answers. I loved the part when Tom's mom wanted some reiki but it had to be RC reiki I laughed 😊 . It was nice to hear two of my favorite meditators in conversation. Thank you both . Hopefully we will hear more podcasts ❤️🙏😇☘️

Lovely talk. 🙏🏻

Wow! I so enjoyed eavesdropping on your conversation... it made me want to know both of you better. Thank you for sharing Presence with this listener.