John 1:32 Meaning John Testified

When the mind grows still, something descends into you that was always there, waiting behind the noise of thought. To others it looks like a dove, gentle and unhurried, because that is how presence appears from the outside: a deep peace that has stopped struggling.

And notice that it abode upon him. It did not flash and vanish. When you stop taking yourself to be the endless stream of thinking, awareness settles and remains, and you begin to live from that stillness instead of only glimpsing it now and then.

Heaven is your own skull, the place from which every state is born, and the dove descending is the Spirit settling on a person who has assumed his desire and rested in it. The dove does not thrash or strive; it comes down quietly and abides. So it is when a state has been accepted at depth. The proof is not excitement but a settling peace that stays, a sense of assurance that all is well and the thing is already done. Imagination has clothed the one who received it, and the covering remains.

The mark of a completed assumption is this abiding, not a passing thrill. A feeling that flits and goes has not yet taken; the Spirit that abides is the sign the new self has been received. When your awareness rests on a state and will not move off it, the descent has happened. What settles on you and stays is what you have become.