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Two Evenings with John de Ruiter
Andrew Paterson—06/2002 |
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Born in Canada, John de Ruiter lectures
around the world on his new vision of an enlightened
humanity. A couple of years ago, I attended two
of his meetings. |
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DOUR, he's measured to the extreme, he's remarkably peaceful
and wise, and he gives the best impression of enlightenment
this side of Galilee. His name is John de Ruiter, a
self-styled Canadian teacher who lectures around the
world, and runs retreats back in his hometown of Edmonton. |
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| John was speaking at Conway Hall in London on the
31st May and 1st June, and I
was fortunate enough to be tipped off by a discerning
friend that this man was well worth listening to. The
meeting began in silence as John, sitting in a relaxed
position on a swivel chair, with legs apart and hands
on his knees, slowly scanned his audience. After about
10 minutes of silence, with expectation tangibly building
in the hall, a woman in the front was brave enough
to start the ball rolling by asking a question. She
spoke at length about the anguish that she felt in
a family situation and how she had lost the peace that
she had discovered during her last meeting with John.
How would she get that peace back? Instead of answering
her immediately, John stared at her for a good five
minutes. Finally, he spoke, in words so slow and measured
that I found myself hanging on to each syllable as
if it were Jesus himself sitting on that stage (John's
handsome features, beard and long wavy hair certainly
encourage such comparisons). |
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| "Its okay to feel as you do", he said, introducing
to the audience his central philosophy "okayness" and
to the hallmark husky voice of a gentle mountain-man.
John's compassion, his honesty, his sincerity and his
integrity were very obvious to those of us present.
His "its okay" wisdom was a soothing balm for
so many of us on the spiritual path who feel pressurised
by the agenda to evolve, to create our realities, to
judge our progress, to reach for what has always been
in our palm to begin with. |
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| For John, what we feel, believe and think has nothing
to do with the essence of truth that is within us.
What we feel, believe and think basically doesn't matter
to that part within us that is "real" or is "true".
And to bring forth what is real and true within us
requires perfect honesty. In John's words, "Honesty
is the most profound happening that one could ever
experience. It finally takes us from the illusory path
to Truth directly onto the road of Truth. Every other
path leads directly away from Truth." |
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| Another man angrily told him about the loathing
and shame that he had towards himself. When he has
finished, John said that if he could say exactly what
he had said a moment ago, but with tenderness, he would
have no problem. When another man said that he found
it difficult to put down his defences, John bluntly
told him that he was not worth defending that the inner
truth needed no defence. |
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| The evening was quite long, and I left the first
night feeling moved by what I had heard. His message
of okayness was refreshing, and I needed time to digest
it. So I slept on it and looked forward to the next
evening. |
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| The second session started in the same manner: again
a woman started things off (women do seem braver than
men in this regard) with a long and involved question
to which she received the usual reply of okayness.
Then a man began asking some very probing questions,
and I started to feel the edges or limitations of John's
philosophy. The man pointed out how important for him
integration of his thoughts and feelings had been,
and that he could not understand how John could dismiss
them as irrelevant to the soul. Although this was a
question that had been on my mind, what struck me most
about the questioner were his sincerity and humility.
His honesty matched John's. |
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| I enjoyed that dialogue because it showed me the
power of honesty, and in that moment it dissolved any
notion that John was more or less enlightened than
any other honest seeker. From then on, having removed
John from the peg of enlightenment, I was able to see
his philosophy of okayness without getting destracted
by his enormous charisma. For me, the spirited questioner
who dialogued with John was like the boy who saw that
the Emperor had no clothes, and from that moment on
I could see the same. |
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| The main problem with John's lectures is the limit
of semantics. Describing "things" that to most
of us are abstract to the extreme - such as "okayness", "truth", "honesty", "it", "real", "reality" -
will always present an insurmountable problem. These
terms were used by John without any explanation, and
when some of the questioners did challenge them, his
definitions were tautological, involving further nebulous
abstractions. So "truth" became that part of
us that is "real", and "reality" became
that part within us that is "true". When John
was trapped in a corner, he would appeal to our sense
of direct knowing, placing his position beyond critical
assessment: "You know what is true inside." He
even came up with this gem on okayness: "Nobody
needs okayness. You can let yourself be unconditionally
okay with never ever being okay again. That's okayness." |
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| Such obscurity may well be a reflection of language's
limits in depicting the reality of a realised man.
However, there were also inconsistencies within his
abstract message which, for me, presented a more serious
problem. John said that it was "not okay to identify
with the self", that our thoughts and feelings
have no relevance to our truth. He encourages us to
identify only with inner "truth". In saying
that, he rejects a part of himself and others, contradicting
his message of self-acceptance. He gets away with this
by narrowing the definition of what is "real" in
a person to a pure abstraction, and in this manner
the judgement and rejection of aspects of "being" are
hidden in definition. (It is a bit like defining perfectionism
as self-acceptance by holding a definition of "self" to
be "that which is perfect".) |
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| In rejecting thoughts and feelings, and appealing
to direct knowing, I believe that John actually does
a disservice to his audience because he negates our
visceral connection with reality, and presents a situation
whereby we could feel less compassionate for another
because the despair they might feel is unreal from
our lofty perspective. If we cannot acknowledge the
pain or joy of experience, no matter how much it is
ultimately based upon illusion, we can have neither
compassion nor empathy. It is ironic that John spoke
so beautifully about tenderness the first time I heard
him speak, while holding the view that "feelings
don't matter". What kind of tenderness is this
that is devoid of feeling? |
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| In dismissing the experience of the self in this
manner, John also dismisses our unconscious or subconscious.
Ignoring profound portions of being in order to focus
exclusively upon an abstract core would be considered
by many as unwise. After all, few can even comprehend
the true depth and meaning of our thoughts and feelings.
Maybe John has sorted this out in himself, but for
the rest of us, any path to "realisation" must
respect the unconscious portions of being, for it is
those portions, which John dismisses as "don't
matters", that direct our unfoldment. I remember
reading a little anecdote in Jung's autobiography where
a Rabbi is asked how come people could talk directly
to God in the biblical days? His answer is that "Only
then could they stoop so low." We need to delve
down into the depths of our being to find the heights
of enlightenment, and we need to have the humility
to accept that there are parts of our being which have
control over us! |
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| One of John's primary methods of defending his philosophy
is by stating that we can see that anything else just "doesn't
work". But what does he mean by "work"?
Does he mean that a life that is working would be a
state of bliss 24 hours a day? People are alive, they
are sad, they are happy, they are confused, they have
moments of clarity, they have moments of despair. This
is the human condition. Our problem has less to do
with serenity, then with the honesty of getting in
touch with our feelings, our thoughts and our physical
breath. With age and experience, some of us begin to
delve beneath this play of consciousness, to the stillness
in the depths, and we realize how the surface agitation
springs up from the combination of strong and slow
undercurrents washing upon the shore of three-dimensional
reality. Life is complex only when we seek to control
or understand its processes, but the actual living
of life is so horrendously easy that most of us have
dissociated from the experience into fantasy. |
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I have no doubt of John de Ruiter's sincerity and
his display of serenity. He seems, however, very stuck
in his portrayal of "enlightenment"… very
stiff and wooden. I believe that his message of okayness
has and will be very useful to many people, even though
he has tried to expand this useful tool into a general
philosophy, and fallen, in the process, into the very
trap the tool is designed to avoid — rejection
of the self. However, I am pleased that I saw him,
and I think he is a very courageous man to sit on a
stage in front of hundreds of people, playing out the
role of an enlightened being. |
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| To find more about
John de Ruiter, including his lecture shedule, visit: www.johnderuiter.com |
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| I am not starting
a new religion, I am unveiling what is real.
Reality does not ever originate from religion,
rather religion can arise from reality, and
on its own, falls. |
| John de Ruiter |
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| Andrew Paterson is an independent writer currently living in London. He has no affiliation to any religious or political organisation. To contact him, please email . |
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