John Butler Interview

Summary

The conversation explores how silence, nature, prayer, and meditation can reconnect people with a deeper sense of reality. It also examines ego, spiritual practice, and the way a mantra helps quiet the mind and reveal the stillness already present.

Questions This Interview Explores

• How can nature support spiritual awareness?
• Why is meditation useful if stillness and the divine are already present?
• What role does a mantra play in meditation?
• How can spiritual practice help people move beyond the ego?
• Why is direct experience more important than spiritual ideas or concepts?

Key takeaways

• Nature can reveal spirituality through silence, simplicity, and direct experience.
• Meditation does not improve the divine; it removes the obstacles that obscure it.
• The ego creates a sense of separation and can cast a shadow over inner clarity.
• A mantra redirects attention from thought toward stillness.
• Spiritual practice is a return to what is already present, not a search for something new.
• Silence offers a direct approach to mystery beyond intellectual explanations.

Transcript

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews and discussions with spiritually awakening people. I’ve done hundreds of them now, and if this is new to you and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to www.batgap.com, b-a-t-g-a-p, and check out the “Past Interviews” menu.

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My guest today is John Butler, and John is a delightful man who lives in the U.K. He came to my attention, and perhaps that of many others, when he did an interview on ConsciousTV some while back. He’s become something of a rock star, and I’m sure he’ll find that phrase embarrassing, but his ConsciousTV interview has something like over 800,000 views, which is quite remarkable—far more views than I’ve gotten on any interview before, and probably more than any ConsciousTV interview has gotten.

I think people are charmed by his wisdom, his authenticity, his gentle demeanor, and various other qualities which you will see as we proceed through this interview. So, welcome, John. Good to see you.

I’ll read a brief little bio here just to get us started, but then we’ll be fleshing this out a lot during the course of the interview. This is written in the first person by John:

Childhood accustomed me to nature, solitude—a sense of God which needed no explaining. Stillness, beauty, depths of love called my heart back John: Well, that’s one way of approaching it. I told you I was accustomed to silence since childhood. My early books on spirituality—I hardly remember what they really were. I don’t think I understood very much about them at all, but I started to meditate when I was 26 and fairly soon—and I used to attend what were called “weekly groups” then—and fairly soon they began to talk about stillness and silence. Well, I thought, almost to my surprise, “Isn’t that obvious? Isn’t it?” It was obvious. It’s always been obvious for me, and particularly alone in the fields, you could hardly not be aware of it. So why was that suddenly equated with such a spiritual practice? It couldn’t be more simple. Ah! And gradually I began to figure things out: this is what they’d been talking about all the time. Where does stillness end and God begin? What do we mean by all these high-fluting words anyway? We talk about them as though they were items in the supermarket, as it were. What are they really talking about? We’re just swapping ideas, and as you say, “concepts.” Ah, come back, come back, come back and just be. Stop talking. That’s the great key: stop talking, just come back to listen. Listen to the skylarks and the wind blowing, and you’re right there in that peace that passes understanding. So much of this mystery becomes very simple. It’s not a thinking process at all, it’s not reasoning: “The world is wonderful, therefore there must be an intellect behind it.” Never regard it as that sort of approach. It’s so simple and practical. It’s not a thinking approach; it’s a realization, a practical realization, that here and now we’re living. Well, in those days, of course, I thought it was there in the fields. Now I’m more accustomed to finding it where I am; it is always here and now.

Rick: So, in other words, you could now be living in the heart of London if you had to for some reason, but that silence, that Presence would be just as palpable there as it is out in the countryside? John: Yes, of course. Yes, exactly. When you get accustomed to it, it’s… Of course, we do forget. This is our human condition, isn’t it? We forget and we get lost in thought, but practice—good practice, good spiritual practice—is always bringing us back to recognize what is already here, from which we have simply wandered away, like that prodigal son. Mm. Some people criticize spiritual practice because of what you just said. They say, “It’s already here. Why do you need to do anything to get that which is already here?” John: Well, only because we’re unnatural, artificial creatures. And so meditation can sort of restore our naturalness, you’re saying? John: It can restore our connection with naturalness. Good point, yeah. Another thing that people sometimes say to me—I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this—is, “You’ve been meditating over 50 years, haven’t you gotten it by now? Why are you still seeking?” Why keep beating a dead horse, so to speak? Do you ever get that one? John: Laughable: “Haven’t you gotten it by now?” Where do you think we’re going? What are you expecting to find? What is it? Yeah! John: Whatever are you expecting to find? What is “it”? Look, this stillness—let’s figure out just sitting here, because it’s always much simpler. You and I are sitting here—you in America, I’m here in England—and if we just listen, just listen, stop talking for a moment, we’re maybe aware of stillness. Just simple stillness, in which my voice sounds, my eyes blink, there’s a sort of slight hum coming from the computer or something, but the stillness is like an invisible background. Now, where does that stillness end? It has no end, does it, because it’s like a gateway to the infinite? And one of the few things we can safely say about God is that it is infinite. Now, the infinite has no end, does it? So where does exploration end? The adventure has no end. It goes from better to better, ever more wonderful. I know that in mathematics they say, well, you can take infinity and then you can add something to it—take infinity and add 10, and then you have, in a sense, created a greater infinity, which is kind of an absurdity or contradiction in terms, but mathematicians talk that way. So, in the case of someone like yourself, you’ve been deeply steeped in stillness for a long time, but you still meditate quite a few hours a day. In your personal experience, do you find that somehow stillness, even though it’s always there, is becoming enriched or deepened or something through your continued practice? John: It doesn’t become enriched; it is already infinite. What you can do—and this also has an end—and there’s a lot we say about two things that have no limit: the foolishness of man and the mercy of God. Now, so long as I’m living in a body that’s going to die, a mortal body with aches and pains, then I am in a corrupted condition. Now, the infinite—this stillness which is so easily present—it doesn’t die, does it? You and I, generations could die, all the bombs in the world can go off, but it doesn’t change it; it is indestructible, whereas this mortal figure you see sitting on the screen is only too destructible. Quite soon now I shall die, and what’s left? Go into the ground for worms, aren’t I? This is the fate of man: mortality. So I lost the thread of the question, but something about adding something to infinity, yes. Now, this stillness—because “stillness” is sort of a very approachable word, isn’t it? We could use “stillness” as something we can comprehend, whereas “infinite” is somehow out of reach, really. This stillness, you can think of it like a great umbrella, really, a sort of invisible background umbrella that contains the whole world, everything. All the numbers anyone’s ever dreamed of, everything, all the millions and billions of subdivisions that make up what we call creation—it’s all included. You can only add to it what is excluded. So the question is really meaningless, isn’t it? How can you add one to absolute beauty, for example? Or freedom? Or love? And so what are you adding then by your spiritual practice? John: You’re getting out of the way. You remove the impediments. That’s what spiritual practice does. Now, of course, to begin with, we don’t like to think that John Butler is an impediment, but if you go into the subject more deeply, you’ll see that mind is constantly throwing up distractions, appetites, and things. It’s a very fickle companion. And it is this unruly mind of ours that really gets in the way all the time. What meditation does is help one to pass through that. This is the trick, really; this is the technique of spiritual practice. You can’t improve God. You can’t make God’s love greater than it is. All we can do is try to diminish the folly, the corruptible folly called John, so that I am not impeding the light. Look at me. If there’s a light and I put up my hand, I cast a shadow, don’t I? You see? It’s as simple as that. My hand is a block to the light, isn’t it? Therefore, I project darkness into the world. If you open your mouth and look inside, what’s inside? It’s dark, isn’t it? So that’s how darkness is created. We stand, as it were, as a block to light, and stillness, of course, is equated with light because it has no weight. Stillness is—well, you can carry on the sequence of it further, but I can talk more about this later. Or maybe I’m straying from the point. No, you’re doing well. John: We’ll come back to this again and again: the only problem in the world is me, is this ego. I think that’s a fairly well-known term these days: ego—the I, me, or mine—that thinks of me as a separate entity, body and mind, something called “John,” with all his thoughts and emotions and all that. When we meditate, you see, we transcend, we go beyond, just like an airplane goes through clouds. We go through this overshadowing, or these clouds of the mind, and access the open sky beyond. Well, there are no “bodies” there; there are no material, mortal bodies up there. Naturally, what freedom is, and that is endless. And then it all begins to make sense. We begin to understand what life actually is. And so has it been your experience that repeated immersion in that sky-like, unboundedness of Presence has kind of cultured the instrument that we call John, so that it can embody or better live established in that and not get overshadowed as easily by things? John: Overshadowed as easily by things! Yeah, no guarantees. John: No guarantees. Although, I’m sorry, I’m fumbling with my words, but I’ll get into my stride soon. Oh, that’s all right. John: How could I possibly sit here in front of the screen and say these things unless I had experience of it, enough experience to give me the confidence to express this? It’s not something I’ve read; it’s nothing anybody has told me. Some of the things I read may have confirmed it, but it arises out of actual, practical experience, and that really is its validity. Feel free to, any time I ask a question and you want to go off in a different direction, feel free to do that because there’s no script here. We’re just playing this as it goes. But as I understand it, you learned meditation at something called “The School of Meditation” in London, which was established or founded by Swami Shantanand Saraswati, right? Who was Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math? John: He guided the school; I never met him. The principal of the school used to go over to India every couple of years or so and have an audience with him, which was then recorded, and these teachings were conveyed to us students over the course of the weekly groups that I used to go to. And I count myself very fortunate that I had that introduction to meditation, and I think I’ve been pretty well taught. I know no better. Yeah. I’ll tell you an interesting tidbit which you may not know. Shantanand was the successor to Brahmananda Saraswati, who was the Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math before him, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was sort of a brother disciple to Shantanand in that ashram. Shantanand was a cook and Maharishi was some sort of secretary. And then, when Brahmananda Saraswati died, there was some controversy about who the successor would be, and it’s a long story, but it ended up being Shantanand. Maharishi was a friend of his and a supporter of his, and so on. And the interesting thing is that these swamis were what are known as dandi swamis. “Dandi” refers to the stick or staff that they carry. But the dandi swamis practiced an effortless japa meditation using a mantra—an effortless technique of meditation, which is what Transcendental Meditation is and which it sounds like your meditation is, what you’ve been practicing. So I think what you’ve been practicing is very akin to what I learned back in the ’60s, and it would be interesting perhaps for people to understand the mechanics of it. I could perhaps ask you to explain that, because you’ve talked a lot already in this interview about naturalness and the beauty of naturalness—of nature and its naturalness, and so on. But I think that you kind of stumbled upon—we both did—a technique of meditation which employs naturalness and which kind of uses nature’s intelligence, rather than individual will or effort, to do what it does, and which kind of attunes you to that naturalness in nature’s functioning. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but does that resonate with your experience? John: To some extent, Rick. Well, I’ve already used the analogy of clouds, haven’t I? And I used the analogy of a mantra being rather like an airplane. The human problem is really that we are lost in thought, in what you could call the clouds of the mind, that we’re always interpreting and creating, as it were, a secondary existence based on me and my experience. John: Now, meditation uses a word—“mantra” itself is a word—which, if you focus on this word, diverts your attention away from thinking. If you attend to something with full attention, you can’t at the same time be thinking of something else; that’s the simple principle of it. You’ve got to do it with full attention. It’s no good if you do it with half attention. If you sit there thinking and maybe do the mantra a few times, it’s better than nothing, but it’s much better if you do it with full attention. This takes some learning. It’s quite difficult to attend to something for a prolonged period. But then, gradually, this becomes subtler and subtler without your doing anything about it. And gradually you find that somehow this drip of the dispersive mind gives way to a feeling of spaciousness—a peace, or spaciousness, or stillness. Any words or analogies work; they’re all saying the same thing. And so you realize there’s something beyond the normal thinking mind, and this, in a way, may rather whet the appetite because it’s a nice experience. It can be absolutely thrilling; it can be a bit frightening for some of us, until you get used to it. But it simply gives an alternative to this intunement—I like that word here—within our own personal thinking process, our own personal mind. And really, it leads on from there into deeper and deeper and deeper, into that which you find beyond the mind. There are two aspects of meditation: what we call the “inner aspect,” which I’ve just been describing, which takes place within the mind, and the other, called the “outer practice,” which consists of simply giving attention to the here and now. And actually, if we do that, it has much the same effect. If I really listen to the sound of my voice without doing anything about it, I’m aware that my voice is sounding within stillness, within something which is bigger than my voice. A listening, a reception, a silence in which not only my voice, but all voices, are contained. Now then, we’re getting into big country, aren’t we? What’s all that about, then? It’s really allowing our awareness of what’s already here. It’s rather like cleaning your eyes so that you see better; it’s rather like removing the debris from our eyes that tends to make us look at everything and then say, “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” It’s just looking at what’s here, and when it happens for the first time, it’s often amazing. Good heavens! You just see the tablecloth in front of you, and the play of shadows, and the vase and things—amazing. Well, this is just the first step, more and more. You know, it’s said that true knowledge—you can’t learn knowledge; it is revealed. The words of Jesus: “Know what is in thy sight, and all that is hidden will be revealed unto you.” Now, that is absolutely it: know what’s in our sight. And not only know what’s in our sight, but in our hearing, too. If we listen with attention, the background, really, to it just expands. The subtlety of the vibration has no end. So gradually—and it is a very gradual process—I’ve been meditating now for at least maybe 55 years—a long time! I’m afraid that all the enthusiastic people think they can just sit down or go on a retreat or something and they’ll get it straightaway, but I assure you, you do get something very soon. But the adventure—and it is an adventure—has no end. You can sit down at a piano and bang a few keys and make a sound on day one, but it takes a while to be a maestro. John: And of course, people always say, “Well, what’s there? And how do you describe it?” But you can see that words themselves have a limit, have a boundary, and that’s why it’s actually beyond description. Because description can only take you as far as time, and space, and name, and form, and all these things are really limitations encompassing what they appear to mean. And again, if I may quote from the Bible, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those that love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). You see, it’s so much more than what we can even presume to access with our thoughts or mind. The heart can take us much further when we start functioning from the heart, because the heart brings us into these unlimited aspects that we’re all familiar with and use every day, and we’re failing to always realize that these things are indescribable. Who’s ever been able to describe love, or freedom, or indeed, life? Or anything, for that matter. I mean, try describing what a mango tastes like. You could hear a two-hour lecture on it, you can go home and think about it, but it’s not going to be like tasting one. John: Absolutely, Rick, that’s absolutely right. So the word that’s often used in spiritual talk is “realization.” It’s when something becomes real to you. And of course, we all try, in our ways, to convey this because it’s so good when you discover something wonderful; we all want to share it, don’t we? I often think that the deepest, the deepest meanings in life are often, it seems, best shared by silence. Yeah, especially since the deepest meanings lie in the realm of silence, and one can only experience that for oneself; it can’t be conveyed verbally or conceptually. John: Something I could say here, perhaps, is that, to some people, concepts of stillness and silence seem empty. “What’s there?” they say. Like that airplane going beyond the clouds—well, what’s there? Nothing’s there, is it? No thing. And yet, everything is really—it’s really the causal world is another way of describing the spiritual world. It’s all that we see and hear, the names and forms and creation, are really like precipitations or crystallizations of what’s there before the name and form. Like ice. We can pick up ice, we can draw it, we can—it’s an object, isn’t it? It’s a thing. Before ice there is water, before water there is steam, vapor, and then subtler and subtler and subtler sorts of vapor. This is how creation arises, from the unmanifest into the manifest. And that’s why those that explore Spirit—it’s far from being empty; it’s actually the fullness of everything that appears in limited form in the material world. That’s why there’s no difficulty going deeper into Spirit, because that is the fullness of what we experience on Earth, in part. It’s the totality, it’s the oneness of what we know as separation, it’s the undivided wholeness of what we know in little bits here and there, which we’re always trying to put together. But the wholeness is just found by letting go of our identification with the separate part. You don’t “lose” anything, even though you may appear to be just sitting there with your eyes closed in deepest meditation. You’re actually in the fullest possible participation in the creative process, because you have gone to that causal Source of it all and removed the barrier of separation. That’s why, incidentally, prayer, which is really another way of describing what I’m doing, is the greatest power on Earth. Pardon? I was just going to say, there are of course levels of prayer, degrees of prayer, and the Christian mystics talk about this. Some are much more discursive or verbal, asking for specific things and so on, but others are much more akin to what you’ve been describing as your meditation experience—very deep, nonverbal, settling into the unboundedness, communion. John: Yes, because, as we know, separation is really something we manufacture in our own mind, this idea of “me.” You can see it in a little child, how very early on in life it begins to—often encouraged by its parents—talk about “me” and “mine,” and then divides the world into want, “I want,” and then “I’m John,” and somebody else is Sammy, somebody else is somebody different, with different names and forms. This is what we call “growing up.” Well, actually, we’re really growing into imprisonment. You can see, really, life is an imprisonment, where we live a sentence of hard labor and a sentence of death! That’s really what life is, what we call “life.” But of course, it isn’t life really; it’s a shadow. This whole world is really a shadow of Divine origin, but we live in it because we know no better. We try to figure out one bit of darkness in the shadow with another. But those of us who are lucky enough to somehow get drawn into a meditative process, which enables one to let go of this fixation on separation and taste the Source, discover a completion. Because everything is contained in its pure existence, and in pure existence there is no corruption, there is no death, there is no killing and eating. There’s none of this incessant chasing after insatiable desires because one—and it is One—is complete. One is complete. You find completion by letting go of incompletion, and incompletion is “me.” Why are people interested in listening to a program like this? Because they feel in some way that we’re incomplete. You think that somebody else may help to fill out some blocks in your understanding, maybe. I know it’s easy to talk. I hope something of the attitude of what I’m trying to express comes through. I often feel I fumble with words. And I hope even, if you’ll forgive my words, you’ll pick up this unchanging stillness that lies behind the words. Well, people, for thousands of years, have been trying to put into words the things that you’re saying today, and I think you’re doing a pretty good job of it. No one has ever been able to completely convey what they were trying to put into words, as we were saying about the mango; you can talk all day about one and it’s still not going to be like tasting one. But words are how we communicate, and I think that the value of words is not in the words themselves, but perhaps as an inspiration to get one interested in having the experience themselves, you know? You go to a lecture about a mango and that sounds good. I think, “I’ll go home and buy one and try one,” and then you have the taste and, “Oh, now I know what he was talking about.” John: Yes, yes, yes, of course. Communication—well, yes, it usually starts with words. Sound waves soon come up against barriers, don’t they? Like anything, if we come back to the stillness and, to a little extent, merge in this stillness, you realize that this stillness isn’t confined to this room, is it? It actually is outside the room, too. It contains the whole outside, too. Where is the end of it? Is the whole world contained in stillness? And it knows no barrier, does it? Now, see, stillness—isn’t it the same as silence? Isn’t that the same as peace? Look how many people are longing for peace, and yet it’s so immediately present and really available, isn’t it? Peace. Now let’s go on a bit further: space. Is space any different? And what do we mean by “spirit,” anyway? What is spirit? Is space the same as spirit? Where does one end and the other begin? And isn’t spirit—well, we say that God is Spirit—so where do any of these things begin or end? Or is this simplicity of just being still actually synonymous with what we call “God?” Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10). John: Well, exactly. This is a very well-known quotation, isn’t it? And yet it’s so practical, isn’t it? How can it be more immediately available to us than simply this stillness? This is a theme that you’ve been touching upon throughout the last—well, throughout this whole conversation—and I wanted to sort of interject a comment and have you elaborate on it. But before I do that, I want to remind those who are listening live that if you have a question you’d like to ask John, you can go to the “Upcoming Interviews” page on www.batgap.com and scroll down to the bottom, and there you’ll see a form through which you can submit your question. Yeah, I mean, you’ve been talking about stillness, you’ve been talking about the fact that the world is kind of tumultuous and yet stillness is all-pervading. And so somehow this tumult is happening in the midst of stillness, unbeknownst to most of the people who experience it as tumult. They feel like life is crazy, and they’re upset, and afraid, and this and that, and yet they have this treasure within of deep silence and deep stillness, which they could access if they had a means to do so. And you’ve talked about your meditation practice, and you talked about subtler and subtler levels of thinking or experience, meditation leading one to subtler and subtler levels. And I’m reminded of an example that we could use: if you and I were to shout what we were saying right now at the top of our lungs, people would probably have to turn their speakers down; it would probably be really obvious and gross. Speaking in this tone of voice, they don’t have to turn their speakers down; they can still hear us. Or we could just start thinking what we’re saying right now, and people wouldn’t hear us at all, but we’d still hear ourselves. And so, in the same direction, there are yet subtler levels of thought which we ourselves don’t experience because they’re too subtle. We don’t experience a thought until it becomes sufficiently loud in the mind, or gross. And so what meditation does is enable you to, step by step, traverse those subtler levels of thought right back down to the field of silence or stillness from which they emerge. And then, as you say, to just sort of marinate there—you didn’t say that!—but to rest and reside there and kind of imbibe that stillness into your mind and body, your physiological functioning. And when you come back to the field of activity, you bring it with you to some extent. It naturally is able to be retained or stabilized in the midst of dynamic activity. You could be doing something very busy in the marketplace, and yet it stays with you to some extent. And that grows over the years, which gets us back to this question of why you would want to meditate for 55 years. Well, it just continues to grow. John: Well, yes. But may I come back to very simple, ordinary, natural behavior? I happen to live in a little tourist center in the middle of a beautiful part of England, and many people come here on sunny days in summer. There’s a lovely river just down the road. And they just sit by the river there and maybe feed the ducks and feel the quietness of the water flowing by, have their fish and chips, let the children play, let the dog run in the park, and at the end of the day they go back and say, “I’ve had a lovely day.” They feel better for it. Now this is a district of hills, great walking country, and many thousands of people come from the cities roundabout with their hiking boots on and go for a walk up in the hills, again without any thought of being spiritual. They just feel better for it. Now years ago, when everybody had a coal fire in their house and there were no televisions, people would just sit by the fire at the end of the day and watch the embers. Maybe the wife would knit, do her knitting and mending, and that brought people peace. They loved it. Naturally, they probably didn’t even think of peace; it was just natural. Now life is full of these natural, what you could call “meditations,” because meditation is as natural as that, as natural as going for a walk in the country or taking the dog out. People have always known the Presence of God; it’s only when they got so clever that they began to doubt it. One of the notable things about real experience is that there is no doubt or question about it. Doubts and questions lie entirely in this part of a human being (pointing to the head) . And truth is actually utterly simple. It’s the simplest thing, the simplest thing there is. It’s simplicity itself, just like sitting here, hearing these words, and feeling the peace, the stillness. And all the walls in all the world aren’t big enough to interrupt this peace. It’s universal. And all the little human irritations that go on, even the pains of your body, are contained within this. So I don’t get along with people who start talking too much about, “Oh, I ought to meditate,” or something like that, because one of the first and most important things in life is just to stop talking. I really think this is the first step in the spiritual life: just to stop talking. Just be quiet. And then do what you love. If you ask people what they love doing, it very often brings you to just some simple thing, and that gathers all your interest. It really goes to what you love, to what you find attractive. It’s true, John, but even in your own life, you were doing what you loved. You were living in the country, farming, and you did some traveling around the world and this and that, and yet you had your problems and your difficulties and your heartbreaks, and you didn’t feel there was a lack of contentment. And then you learned to meditate and you did that, and gradually, over the years, contentment grew. And as you say, everybody in the world takes walks or looks at a fire or has their peaceful moments, and yet you alluded to wars, which are the opposite of peace. So obviously, there have been a lot of horrible situations in life, and yet all of that is on the foundation of stillness and Presence. Apparently, those who were perpetrating those things weren’t very well tuned in to that stillness or Presence. And so perhaps a collective attunement to that would be beneficial for humanity. John: I suppose. You’re quite right in what you say. Nearly all spiritual life starts with one’s own self-interest: what’s in it for me? Very soon, as identification with “me” begins to loosen and expand, it begins to include a wider and wider world. It’s said that the second step in meditation is with and for other people. For me, of course, I always thought in terms of animals and the land. And then there’s a further step even beyond that, when we meditate for the love of the work itself. “Work,” by the way, is what I’d call spiritual work, which is the work of dealing with all this, with the realm of darkness, or the works of darkness, or the unpleasantness in life, the conflict in life. If it doesn’t come from your own self, it comes from all around you, and we have to face this day by day and deal with it. And indeed, the deeper and stronger we become in our own practice, the more it seems we are given to cope with. We somehow embrace all the troubles of the world. And again, I often think of the words of Jesus: Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 —the law of truth. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and indeed this is part of the work, at least what I tend to now call “the work” of prayer. Yes, I listen to the news; I’m well aware of what’s going on in the world. I’ve had a very full experience of life myself. I’ve not only been through awful depression and troubles in my own life, but I’ve seen much of the world. I’m no stranger to the works of darkness. And somehow all this is brought to peace in—well, perhaps even better than that, because I’ve already alluded to prayer. Of course, in all spiritual work, one’s own understanding of what is meant by these things grows and develops through many, many years of life. I really think of prayer and meditation as the same thing. I know one starts thinking of God as something over there, to whom you ask for something, and meditation has a slightly different approach, but they come together. And indeed, what really gives this work meaning, at least in my state of life, is this worldwide absorption or realization of the human agony and its redemption through prayer, in the all-perfecting love of God and Spirit. And again, you know, this is something hard for people to understand: when you’re blessed with times of light, of enlightenment, there is no more darkness. There really isn’t. Does the sun see shadow? In the light there is no dark. “But, but,” everybody says, “what about Syria or crimes?” or something. Well, I showed you before how my hand casts a shadow, doesn’t it? And how this shadow is actually the beginning of what creates the works of darkness, which is everything that we call “wrong” in life. And as you learn to—and of course you can’t cut your hands off, can’t get rid of my body; it’s still like that—but as you lose your identification with this and, as it were, merge more into the light and no longer function as an impediment to this light, then what stops the light? What stops the light flooding the world? And in that light, what happens to this appearance of darkness? Is it as real as we think? What happens to death? What happens to depression? It just melts away as mist before the sun. People say, “Why does God make a world like this?” This is made by you and me. This is what man does with it. This is a projection of man’s blindness. The world is what we make it. The real world is perfect, is heaven, is the kingdom of God, and there’s no darkness there at all. There’s no separation. One complete perfection: that is the destiny of man, that’s what we’re called to. And you referred in that reading you made first of all to how, as a young man of 26, I think, in South America, I seemed to receive this message: “To make whole, be whole.” Of course, I didn’t understand what it meant then, and almost the whole of my life has been spent trying to understand a deeper meaning of what that meant. But I think I’m nearer understanding it now: that in wholeness, or holiness, everything is whole. That’s really how it is. So are you saying that as one becomes less and less an impediment to the light, one at the same time—to the degree that one does become less of an impediment—becomes kind of a transmitter of the light and helps to infuse it into the darkness, or to illuminate the darkness? John: So deeply embedded is this idea that “I have to be instrumental in this process!” No, no, I’m saying that if there’s less of the “I,” then the inner light can shine through without impediment. I’m not saying that I am shining light on things, but that light within is passing through. There’s that saying in the Bible, “Seeing through a lens darkly” (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12) , as if the lens is occluded. And then William Blake talked about “cleaning the windows of perception.” So there are these metaphors about a lens or a glass or something that’s dirty and isn’t allowing light to pass through very well. John: Yes, yes. All these are relevant at different stages on the way, but ultimately, one merges in the One, and there’s no more two. And that’s how it is: there’s no more instrumentality about it. One, and no more two. It really cannot be described. Why do I still meditate? I’m not sure that I have a reason, really. Or that you need one, even! John: I’m not even really sure what I do any longer. I go through the process of sitting down. I don’t really know what happens. I suppose I’m taken in some way. Yeah, you say in your book— John: And yet, and yet, sorry to interrupt. No, go ahead, I’m sorry. John: And yet there is nothing, nothing in life more meaningful. It is the completeness of that which we call life, which is but a shadow. Sorry, Rick, I’ll get back to you. No, that’s okay. I was just playing off the point you made. You said in your book, “Realization comes not at our bidding, but as it were, from the other side.” So it’s not like you’re doing something; it’s more like you’re… John: On this long process, and bear in mind, I’ve been practicing for 55 years. Twice a day, without fail, for 55 years I’ve been doing it. So, if anybody starts on this journey, do be prepared for the long haul, and it’s said that the most important requirement is determination. And there’s another thing I sometimes throw in. I think in many ways it helps to be a pretty unhappy individual, as I was and have been, because if you’re really miserable in this life, there’s a motive to find, look for something better, turn to something different. I think you’re right, and you might be more likely to notice a contrast when you do turn to something better, and that will motivate you. John: Yes, yes. It’s funny, looking back now, I can see all my periods of despair and misery actually as … Goads! John: Actually as aids on the way. I’m quite sure this life is like a school in which we learn by our mistakes, and we never stop learning. But keep plodding on, my friends. Don’t give up, even though it seems to be getting, you know… Ah, you know, but when you use words like “long haul” and “determination” and “plodding on” and so on, it makes it sound like a drudgery or a tedious journey, and I don’t think you would characterize it that way. John: On this journey of meditation, and this also is quite an important point, I’ve never, ever in all my years experienced anything bad, frightening, or sinister. So, it is a light. It is a journey from darkness into light, from confusion into simplicity, and it’s—you can’t argue with it. Even at the very beginning, it’s a real experience; it isn’t something that you can read about in books or be told. You know, just sitting here, I can look at a screen or I can turn and look at the sky through the window. Now, the screen has its—it’s like the performance, isn’t it? We’re doing this in the context of a Skype interview. Now out there is a sky, and there, in contrast, is a kind of freedom, an infinite dimension, isn’t it? Meditation is like that. You can’t argue about it, because when you turn from what is small and limited to what is less limited, you instantly recognize it. And then, of course, we come back into this world again, but something of that other dimension gradually, gradually permeates our existence, our mortal existence. Did Shantanand ever use the analogy of dyeing a cloth? They use this in India sometimes. You take a cloth and dip it in colored dye—a cloth, like a piece of fabric. Take it and dip it into colored dye, and then you bleach it in the sun, and then you dip it in the dye and bleach it in the sun. Each time it bleaches in the sun, it loses—or retains—a bit more of its color until eventually it’s colorfast. Whether it’s in the dye or in the sun, it’s the same color. So, it’s kind of what you’re describing here. John: Yes, yes, certainly that, and many, many other analogies are used, indeed. Yes, the wave and the ocean. I’ve already said “mist before the sun.” What’s your—I’m sorry, go ahead. John: No, no. I was going to ask you about God. Presence, silence, stillness—we’ve used those sorts of words, but obviously most of the religious Scriptures of the world talk about “God” a lot, and they also talk about presence and silence. But would you equate the two, or are we implying something even more profound or significant when we use the term “God”? John: Everybody—well, not everybody, but many people have a very definite concept of God, or were brought up on a verbal formulation that we repeat with more or less understanding of what it means. I’m a little bit wary of entering into religious language because so many people have so many interpretations of it. When I was a young farmer, I was very impressed by the fact that my feet would crush the grass under my feet. Now, I loved grass. I’ve always loved grass, and you’ve only got to kneel down and observe grass, especially an old pasture, which we have many of in England, to see the wonder of it—the delicacy, the beauty, the order, the unbelievable, miraculous miracle and wonder of what grass is, and the phrase, “The forgiveness of nature, growing over all the mess that we make of it.” Well, I think I—because you know the phrase, “The Lamb of God” (John 1:29)—I’ve kept sheep many years, and I’ve always loved sheep. As I began to observe my own and observe what happens to sheep, the life of sheep, this phrase, “The Lamb of God,” meant ever more to me: the way that these innocent creatures are sacrificed to provide for man, of course, food for man. Why should it be like that? Why should this lovely grass be trodden down, broken, and bruised under my feet? Still more when motor cars drive over it or something, without a second thought. And then I began to think of Jesus, the Lamb of God, broken for our sins, sacrificed for our sins. Where does Jesus end and my lambs or the grass begin? Is Jesus just a human embodiment from 2,000 years ago, written about in the Bible? Isn’t Jesus, as He Himself says, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20)? What do we mean by that? Do we see a man in white clothes walking about? No! We see lambs, don’t we, and grass. Well then, aren’t the lambs Jesus? Isn’t the grass— isn’t every blade of grass Jesus? Again, the Scripture tells us “all”—in all, everything is Jesus. Everything is the Spirit that we call “God,” crystallized or incarnate in this world in which we live, and dying, being sacrificed, consumed for our sins, which is my projection of darkness. I project darkness because I’ve turned away from God. I am a sinner. Fortunately, you haven’t asked me the question, “Am I a Christian?” or something like that, because I feel much safer saying, “I am a sinner,” because I am. For 80 years I’ve done my best to obstruct the light and created the works of darkness. And so, for my sin, lambs are killed, the innocent die, and the grass is crushed. And this really was—I’m beginning to get in my stride now, you see! Oh good, you’re all warmed up here! John: This really became the great motivation for me to practice ever more and more and more, as I began to realize that it was my responsibility how my beloved nature has suffered, how I was the cause of that suffering—not because of plastic bags and this sort of stuff, but because of what went on in my silly head! This is the original pollution. We’ve put all our outer pollution, which we typically think of as, “If we clear up pollution, it will be better,” but dear friends, if only you’d attend to cleaning up the pollution in your own mind, you’d be a lot more effective! And so, for this, Christ is crucified literally in every creature on earth. It is incarnate God—God in everything. And I remember how, step by step—perhaps I’m really— it seems so simple and obvious to me now at the end of my long life, but it’s been thrillingly exciting as, little by little by little, I began to realize what it’s all about, whatever they mean when they talk of sin and Christ and redemption. And you asked me what we mean by “God.” Well, if I would even venture to confine it within words, God to me is, as I’ve said to you, perhaps the best way I can convey what I understand by it: taking this simple stillness and just keeping expanding it, expanding it beyond all limits, to where it has no end. Some might ask, based upon what you just said, that, okay, you wanted to diminish the footprint, so to speak, of your life on nature—the damage you might be inadvertently doing through your actions. “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do” (cf. Luke 23:34)—you wanted to diminish that. And some might ask, “Okay, well, have you stopped eating lambs?” You know? And there was a passage in your book where you had this pet pig who followed you around everywhere, and you eventually had to slaughter him. It took you three years to eat all the pork that you got from that, and that might seem kind of contradictory in some people’s minds. How do you reconcile that kind of thing as a farmer? John: Well, yes, yes, I know this. One can get awfully bogged down in these things, can’t we? Well, it is a very humbling process to recognize—I’ll use this word “sin,” if you don’t mind. I know it’s rather politically unacceptable now, but to a degree… As long as we define it so that everybody knows what we’re using the word for. John: It’s very illustrative of our human condition. And because we are all sinners and we cannot not partake of the consequences of sin, we all have to share in the corporate guilt, if you like, of sin, and bear the burden of what we have caused, and realize that it’s only through the grace of this spiritual radiation, which one may turn towards, that one can—again, words, words. I must be very careful of what I say or I’ll say something foolish. You know the words at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion, “Not My will but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42)? We use the expression “God knows,” don’t we? I don’t know. I think one thing meditation has taught me is gradually to trust in myself less, and in this—in God—more. “The less of me, the more of God” (cf. John 3:30) is a phrase I like to use. The less of me, the more of God. And perhaps there’s no quality more suitable to our human condition than that of humility, or realizing that without that spiritual grace we can do nothing, and that in surrender to that—the inadequacy of John to really do anything very much, apart from writing a few books and fumbling about with words in an interview like this—is surrendering to that which we call “Almighty” and “All-Merciful.” And the deeper one gets into that, the more you realize that that, perhaps particularly that second description—“All-Merciful”—is absolutely true. I spoke previously of the foolishness of man and the mercy of God, the wisdom of God that governs all things. Why does He allow wars? Well, you see, it’s all a great lesson for us. We learn by our mistakes. God doesn’t create anything bad; there’s no darkness in the real world. In the real world, there’s light. What’s described in Revelation is absolutely correct—there is no darkness. It’s life, full life, as we cannot even conceive of with our human concepts. Yes, we’re all tarred with the same brush. We’re all sinners. Even if you stop eating meat, you’re going to eat something. Do you think if you eat vegetables you’re killing anything less? You can’t do anything; you can’t function. Everything—you can’t breathe without breathing in microbes and killing them, you can’t walk without treading on things and killing them. Your very existence is, again, the Bible says, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Genesis 3:17), as when Adam left Paradise, which is all our natural home: Paradise. And bear in mind, there was only one Adam. Man was singular then; man hadn’t divided himself. That is the union, that is the true communion. Not communion with something, but union—one. And then you go into separation, and cursed is the ground. And of course, everyone’s talking about it now. We call it a new word called “conservation” or something, but the whole world is infected with this disease of sin, which actually is humanity, is mortality. That which we so esteem as human is actually a shadow of divine origin; it’s a sort of inversion of real life. It is literally a disease. That’s why it is full of corruption. It is, isn’t it? No matter how healthy you try to live, we’re all—you’re going to die. That’s the wages of sin, is death. Whatever dies isn’t real life, and what in this world doesn’t die? Because the whole world is infected with man’s disease, or sin, and that’s why we need to return, to come back, to come back to our senses. John: In that story of the prodigal son that you quoted, there’s a very important phrase. He was feeding the pigs, wasn’t he, and he came back to his senses. Literally, that means he opened his eyes, he listened, he saw where he was, and he said, “I will arise and go home” (cf. Luke 15:18). And the father came to meet him with open arms, didn’t he? The father ran to meet him with open arms. And you know, in the depths of meditation, far beyond where you and I can “do” anything, the door is open from the other side. And you get these, what might almost be described as, love running to meet us with open arms. This spiritual love holds not only you and me, but the whole of creation, in those open arms. Remember, the less of me, the more of God. In truly surrendered meditation or prayer, long after you’ve forgotten about your own separate ego, you’re no longer limited. It becomes an unlimited process. That’s why it’s true to say that I am also the first of sinners, because I’m the one who turns away in the first place. And “I Am” is also the name of Christ. As I recall, the etymology of the word sin is that it means “to miss the mark.” And perhaps the attenuation of sin involves, as you’ve been saying, surrendering to God more and more, presuming that if God were the complete motivator of our actions, they would hit the mark; they would be in tune with the will of God. To the extent that we’re involved in some egotistical volition, we divert that will of God and end up missing the mark. John: Indeed, indeed. We grope for words, don’t we? Such is our human compulsion. Well, there’s a lot of terminology like that, you know, like you were quoting Jesus: “Thy will be done, not Mine.” So there’s always this theme of, let me get out of the way so that Thy will can be done. John: Yes. Well, I don’t know where the process ends. But here and now, whatever we make of our human situation, whatever condition it’s in, there is stillness, isn’t there? This Presence. Just listen to it. It’s so immediate, isn’t it? Like an invisible hand that we can hold. It’s like I can put out my hand and hold it. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). How true that is! And how many countless generations have used those lovely words for their funeral service, even though they wouldn’t call themselves sophisticated spiritual people? I love that 23rd Psalm. My grandmother used to read it to me every night when I was a boy. John: It was so widely known, wasn’t it? Yeah. John: I’m so grateful I was taught these things as a boy. I really grieve for modern children who, under some sort of political correctness, are somehow deprived of this great heritage of these lovely words. It’s amusing that when you were a young man, you contemplated being a priest for a while, and apparently the authorities told you that you weren’t Christian enough. It’s kind of ironic. John: Well, soon after I learned meditation, I was so thrilled by it. I’d been reading Christian devotional books then, and I thought, “This is exactly what it’s all about!” Suddenly it all began to make sense. So I went off to the local bishop and wanted to be a priest to share this knowledge. But yes, I’ve lived most of my life under this label, half of which I’m sorry about, and half of which, in a funny way, I’m proud of: not sufficiently Christian! The Church is a little bit more open now than it was when I started. Well, you know, I think it would do church people good to study a little astronomy. There’s something like 40 billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy and an estimated 10 trillion galaxies in the known universe. I presume that any inhabited planet has had numerous religions on it, most of them claiming to be the only one. So if you put that in perspective, it’s like you could be a little bit more humble. John: Well, I do have great respect for the Christian teachings. I said to you, I think our mistake is that we keep Christ too small. And I think for me, meditation—as I was describing it—means realizing that, in fact, every lamb, every animal that is sacrificed for us is, to my understanding—I know some people will be enraged by what I say—but for me, that is Christ. Everything is Christ, and in my service to that, as we say, thank God, God judges, finally. And I would just like to come back, because we’re getting into rather deep water when we speak of this utter simplicity of the stillness that is so near. Without any pretentious names, whether it’s Christ or anything else, it is just this simple, immediate rest. Rest is another good word for it. Rest, silence, stillness, peace—they’re all the same. Hopefully, you’re picking up some of it, maybe just from hearing my voice and hearing this interview. Oh, I am. I think you have a very soothing, settling effect. In fact, somebody took the audio of the ConsciousTV interview you did with Ian McNay and put up a YouTube video called something like “The Best Cure for Insomnia,” or something like that! Because your voice is so soothing! John: I’m greatly amused by this, and also by this ASMR that some people mention, because I had no idea what ASMR was. I don’t either. What is that? John: I’ll send it to you, but it’s some new word that people are using for that sort of soothing voice. But you know, it can’t really—it’s not really my voice. It probably has something to do with my many, many years of surrender to this real soothing comfort, which is this Spiritual Presence. And again, in the Bible, Jesus refers to the Spirit as “the Comforter,” doesn’t He? And It is that. Well, that’s kind of what I was alluding to before when I spoke of transmitting something, because I think it kind of permeates one’s makeup after a while, and one can’t help but radiate that quality, you know? John: I still feel safer calling myself a sinner than a conveyor of anything better! Well, that’s okay. John: If some people pick that up, well, glory be to God, not me. Yeah, nice. So, to wrap it up, if you were to try to say in a sentence or two what the essential lesson or wisdom is that you have learned in this life, that you could impart to or bequeath to anyone who cares to pick it up, what would that be? It doesn’t even have to be two sentences. You can go on a little bit if you want to. John: Well, you’ve asked me to put it into words, but I always feel safest when I’m silent. But if you press me to put it into words, perhaps: the less of me, the more of God. Good, and we can leave it at that. I don’t know if you want to elaborate on that, because that kind of says it all, doesn’t it? John: And it’s always now. It’s always in the here and now. This has become quite fashionable now, hasn’t it, to talk about— Yeah, Eckhart Tolle. John: Yes, he’s been very good at conveying this, but it’s been a timeless message: God is present, and all that we yearn and hunger for is to be found in those words: the less of me, the more of God. Paradise awaits us. It’s real, it’s really real! It’s not a matter of belief; it’s a matter of experience, the real experience. So, dear friends, be encouraged. Yeah. John: Tread the pilgrim’s way. Face the ups and downs. It takes courage, very often. Paths of darkness. I think we could say also that the paradise that awaits us is really everyone’s birthright. It’s not anything that’s an exclusive privilege of a few. It’s something that we all universally have access to, if we choose to take advantage of that access. John: We always think in terms of plural, don’t we? Of “we.” But actually, as we surrender our separate existence, we draw closer to one undivided reality. And you see, even when, just for a moment, one gets a taste of this undivided oneness, then what is excluded? What is separate existence? Are all these egos as real as we think? Now there’s a question. Don’t we all die? Are we as real as we think? What happens to a nightmare when we wake up in the morning? What happens to it? What happens to darkness when you switch on the light? So where are all these hundreds and thousands of people queuing up to be enlightened? I used to think as a child, when I first heard about heaven, “Well, where does God put all the people? What is it?” You talk about the prayer of the saints. Are they just repeating “Our Father which art in heaven” over and over again? What’s it all mean? That’s why I struggled for many, many years with all these theological concepts. What on earth does it mean? Am I failing because I can’t get it? And then it took me many years to become as confidently acquainted with unity, with oneness, as I am now. But truly, in oneness there is no more separation left. The whole world of separation—all these millions and billions of people, and never mind people, billions of ants and animals—we’re all in the same cart, as it were. It simply works like darkness; it disappears. It’s like a dream. When you wake up, it’s no longer like that. There’s only one perfection, one completion. To make whole, be whole. Do you think I figured out at long last what it actually means? It’s taken me well-nigh 60 years! Well, I think you’ve made it clear that you didn’t figure it out through some clever intellectual process. Even the words “figure it out” don’t do justice to it, because it sort of resolved itself as your experience really matured and blossomed. John: Yes, exactly. And yet we can’t not figure it out as long as figuring it out is real for you. In other words, I think we can’t avoid this long, slow, painful process of dealing with our separate existence step by step, unmasking it. That’s why I so esteem this blessed practice of meditation, which in a way does it for us. And so we don’t know; we just follow this practice, and in miraculous ways, it happens. That’s really all I’ve done. I’ve just plodded on with practice through a long life. Well, as I think they say—what was it? Star Trek : “Live long and prosper.” I think you’ve done that, although “prosper” would not necessarily—I don’t think Leonard Nimoy meant it in the financial sense when he said that in Star Trek . And I think you’ve done that. Admirable. It’s really kind of an honor to spend some time with you. John: Thank you very much. May I just say, God bless you all. Thank you, John. So let me just make a couple of quick concluding remarks. I’ve been speaking with John Butler. John lives in, I believe it’s called Bakewell, which is in Northern U.K. someplace—or, yeah. If you’re planning to go to the U.K. and would like to visit John, I think he’d be open to that. You might want to get in touch through his website to make sure he’s feeling up to it, going to be there, or whatever. But you can go and meditate with him in the church, or perhaps have some tea and a chat, or something like that. I think it would be a very edifying experience. So, thank you, John. And thanks to those who’ve been listening or watching, and we’ll see you next week. The next interview will be with Bonnie Greenwell, who’s been on Buddha at the Gas Pump before. We’ll be discussing some different material than we discussed in the first interview, but Bonnie is quite knowledgeable about Kundalini and the various mechanics of physiological transformation that take place during the spiritual journey. So thanks for listening, and we’ll see you then. [BATGAP theme music plays]