John Butler has been meditating twice a day for more than sixty years.
He was a farmer first. He fell in love with the stillness of wide-open landscapes. Meditation showed him the same wide-open space within. Now, that stillness is all-pervasive.
As a young boy, it grieved him that his beloved animals and plants had to die for his sake. In church, he heard that Christ is the Lamb of God, and it made sense to him. He sees Christ now in everything that offers itself up so that life may go on — in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the grass we walk on. "Every potato is a mini-Christ," he says.
As a young man, he set out to save the world. An inner voice said to him: to make whole, be whole. He has spent his life realizing that wholeness — through years of depression, through unrequited love, through traveling the world while continuing to travel inward. Wholeness, he says, is "less of me, more of God."
His is an epic adventure across both terrains, inner and outer, until the distinction no longer holds. Listen closely, and you can hear the stillness in his voice.
Timestamps
00:00 "To Make Whole, Be Whole"
04:18 The Less of Me, The More of God: The Great Work of Prayer
18:20 Despair in the Mojave Desert and the Presence of Jesus Beside Him
26:06 "Every Potato Is a Mini Christ" — Sacrifice in All of Nature
32:55 On Poverty of Spirit: "God Knows, and I Do Not"
39:42 Depression and Stillness: "Don't look for results"
42:55 The Infinite Beyond in a Woman's Eyes: Losing Love in Form, Finding it in Spirit
49:17 Human Love and the Love of God: The Sky Beyond the Clouds
53:46 Is Love the Same as Stillness? Silence, Peace, and Beauty
57:44 Discovery of the Inner Space at a London Train Station
01:02:53 "Don't Try to Sort Out the Mind — Go Beyond It"
01:07:33 "I've Never Been More Alive"
01:12:09 The Extraordinary Love of Sheep
John Butler is the author of Wonders of Spiritual Unfoldment, Mystic Approaches, Mystic Burning, and Mystic Love: Letters to Christine.
Website: https://spiritualunfoldment.co.uk/
YouTube: @SpiritualUnfoldment Intro and outro music by @BenBigelow3
