We are all on an inner journey... but to where?

Seeking to discover deeper understanding of what lies behind all that happens, and with this, more peace and the sense of flowing creatively with life.

This series of short sections explains what happens during the Inner Journey of Awakening. This explanation is based on my own experience over 40+ years, and from talking to many others, and from researching a huge range of esoteric and spiritual sources, including the writings of the most revered of the great mystics in human history.

What is the Inner Journey?

The Inner Journey is often called 'spiritual seeking'.

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What is the Fog?

Driving through fog is a good analogy for Awakening.

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Expanding Awareness

As Awakening progresses, the fog thins and our perception expands.

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Life Changes

The process of Awakening always leads to changes in our life experience.

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Where are We?

How can we know 'where we are' on our Inner Journey?

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Into The Light

The word enlightenment comes from the Latin prefix 'en' meaning 'in, or into', and the word 'lux' meaning 'light', so : In The Light.

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Are we travelling in the right direction?

We are all on our own unique inner journey... but to where?

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We each travel our own unique journey in life...
There is our 'outer' life in the world, and our 'inner' life of thoughts, feelings, sensations and experiences...
And there is also another dimension - our inner 'spiritual' life.

One-to-One sessions look at the outer and the inner.
And with the greater understanding that results, comes more inner peace, happiness and purpose, which also unfolds into our outer life, where we find that conflicts and difficulties come to resolutions more easily - and we increasingly feel that we are flowing creatively and positively with all of life.

Here are a few things people have said about their One-to-One experience: What Others Have Said

In-person meetings are preferable but they can also be online. Please use the form on this page to ask any questions and arrange your session.

I do not ask for or accept a fee for my time, but when people wish to 'give back' I ask for a donation to the charity I support: Contribute.

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What is Mind? What is Ego?

What is Mind?

The mind is far more than many believe it to be.

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What is Ego?

Looking inside... Is there a sense of self, of all that you are?

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Awakening from Ego

Looking inside...

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Peaceful Mind

The nature of the mind is constant motion - but by stepping into the background - becoming aware of mind activity - we can find freedom from the turmoil - and this is the doorway to peace.

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An Excitable Child

Like a child opening presents, our mind jumps on every thought, then the next, and the next...

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Mad Mind Of Man

Why do humans cause such endless suffering and destruction?

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A Peaceful Minute

Can you spare one minute?

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Being In The Now

3-minute spoken contemplation on the difficulty of 'Being or living in The Now'.

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Presence is the Background

It can be helpful to sit quietly with eyes closed...hope you enjoy it. ...Deep in the background behind thoughts-feelings-experiences - in the absence of the relative and transitory knowing of the body - the knowing of Oneness is realised. Behind even that lies a portal - 'the gateless gate' - through which we may begin to experience the in-flowing of the qualities of the 'Beyond' - peace, joy and love.

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Tools to help manage difficult thoughts and feelings.

Can we permanently escape depression?

Can we learn to overcome depression when it arises, or even permanently leave it behind?

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Through The Clouds

To shine light on the causes of troubling thoughts and feelings, we need to rise out of the clouds - into the sun.

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Stop Lighting Matches

We may not always be able to stop ourselves from lighting matches, but try to watch the flame and drop the match before getting burned.

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Freedom From Suffering

Once we have had a first taste of this, we want it again. We want to experience it more often, and more deeply.

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Eye of the Storm

14-minute spoken contemplation that offers a method that helps us avoid getting caught up in the energy of unwanted thoughts and feelings that arise in us, and energies from other people and situations.

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Good Morning

5-minute guided meditation for when you first wake up in the morning, to connect to creativity, clarity, non-reaction - all the things we need for a productive day.

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Refuge from the storm

9-minute spoken contemplation on taking refuge deep within when we're experiencing difficult thoughts, emotions and feelings.

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Unwanted Thoughts and Feelings

17-minute spoken contemplation that offers a practical way of managing and resolving unwanted thoughts and feelings. Practised consistently, benefits will soon become self-evident.

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Unwanted Thoughts and Feelings (practice reminder)

3-minute practice reminder for the non-connection method of managing and resolving unwanted thoughts and feelings. It is recommended that the full spoken 17-minute contemplation on this page is listened to first.

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Grief and Loss

6-minute spoken contemplation to uncover what dies, revealing how pain can transmute into peace - and the warmth of remembrance.

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Looking at the topic of choice, decision making and free will.

I Know It In My Heart

Can you let your heart guide you? Does your heart know deeper answers than the mind?

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Wave or Ocean

The wave is a temporary expression of the ocean, dancing on the surface, below which, powerful currents move.

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Making 'Right' Decisions

It's always a balance between head and heart. Head = 'mind' = thinking (influenced by the ego aspect of mind). Heart = 'intuition' = feelings (inclined towards selflessness and kindness).

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Choices & Decisions

5-minute spoken contemplation to help when we are faced with choices and decisions and are uncertain which way to go.

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Seeking Meaning

4-minute spoken contemplation about answering questions like: Why are things the way they are? Why do we feel drawn to find deeper meaning?

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Free Will?

5-minute spoken contemplation 'You Are Not The Doer' is a phrase commonly found in spiritual teachings. But does it mean that everything is predestined?

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Exploring the 'spiritual dimension' to relationships.

Meant To Be Together?

The awakening event in one partner creates a fundamental incompatibility between them which was not there before.

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Astrology And Compatibility

Could astrology help in relationships? Wouldn't it at least be worth taking an open-minded look?

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Meeting Mr (or Ms) Right

Every person is ‘right’, even if the initial rightness becomes wrong.

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What's Love Got To Do With It?

A soulmate? Blissful love? Fanciful idea, myth or possibility?

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The Donkey, the Horse and Wise Owl

A TRUE STORY (I was told by someone who says they are an expert in understanding animal language, that this story sounded true, so it must be true!)

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Acceptance In Relationships

5-minute spoken contemplation about when we create expectations in our minds of how other people should be, we can harm relationships - and how to break this habit.

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Exploring the profound spiritual question: Who Am I?

What is Self?

Is self the root cause of all that is not good, not truthful, all wrongdoing and self-ish-ness?

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Consciousness

The real question is 'Who/What' has consciousness?

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What Is Presence?

In the presence of what? Presence is not a thing; it is the space in which things arise.

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Presence Is The Background

In the state of presence we are not lost in the experiences of our body or the thoughts in our mind - we are 'in the background' to them.

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We Are The River

One consciousness, one with consciousness.

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Can You Find Yourself?

Looking inward, our self, or at least what we had believed our self to be, is impossible to pin down.

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Meditate On The Self

Excerpt from: Living by the Words of Bhagavan - by David Godman

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Many Ways To Meditate

The goals and ways of meditation may differ, but once the benefits are felt, you know how truly valuable it is.

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Foreground and Background

Who ARE you???

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Contemplating the Eternal Question

Is this the answer to the question: Who am I?

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You are an aspect of all-there-is

The body/mind is believed to be separate from the world, from the ego's viewpoint.

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Beautiful Mystery

The 'I' cannot know, in fact the 'I', is in the way of knowing!

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Perceived understanding, prior to actual Knowing

Awakening progresses through innumerable subtle stages, and at a certain point comes to this...

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Finding You

12-minute meditation You - the one listening - can you find yourself in your body? You - the one listening - are you your mind or the thoughts running through it?

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The Ocean

16-minute guided meditation into that silence and peace beneath the surface, deep in our inner being.

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Who You Are

14-minute guided meditation to explore what you are not - and who you are.

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Consciousness

10-minute spoken recording looking at what consciousness is - and is not.

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What is Belief? Is it helpful on the spiritual journey?

What is - and isn't Non-Duality?

In the experiential reality of Non-Duality, causing harm to others is hurting everything - including oneself.

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Manifesting What We Want

Physical needs will always be our highest priority, but beyond these, what do we ultimately most deeply want?

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Unacceptable!

You will never be able to accept anything that you perceive as unacceptable - so don't try!

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10,000 Years Old and Flat

What's the difference between Belief, Knowledge and Truth?

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Law Of Attraction

Have you seen the Law of Attraction at work in your own life? Was it intentional manifesting on your part?

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Words Are Just Pointers

Words are needed on the Inner Journey - or are they? Words lead to more questions, more thinking - and isn't that just more mind-stuff?

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What do we really know?

Only evidence, real evidence, should be considered a sound basis on which to accept something as true.

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No Journey?

Some say there's no (spiritual) Journey because there is Nowhere To Go. What does this mean, and is it a helpful concept?

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Happiness That Lasts

5-minute spoken contemplation on the three types of happiness - why the least known of these is the only one that lasts - and how to find it.

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God Or Nothing?

5-minute spoken contemplation exploring what might have existed before the beginning of time, and all that we know.

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Belief And Suffering

7-minute spoken contemplation looking at how beliefs arise and how to become free from the suffering they can cause.

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'Spiritual seeking' began for me in my early 20's and, looking back, it is easy to see the synchronistic events that led into what I now call the 'Inner Journey'.

In the early years I explored the writings of Jung and the psychology of my own inner experience, then became interested in philosophical thought and the eastern wisdom teachings of Lao Tzu and the Buddha. Later I became involved in practicing meditation, studying karmic astrology and tantra.

Years later, during a traumatic period in my life, what is commonly called 'spiritual awakening' occurred. It was a shift in my consciousness - as if I had being woken from a trance - and the John I had believed myself to be - my psychological self - lost solidity. I became aware of an 'awareness' in the 'background' - an unmoving stillness behind all thinking and feeling. 

From this 'place' of 'awareness' I became a 'witness' to what was arising into my conscious awareness, and could now see how my ego had previously been controlling my thinking, feeling and behaviour.

With this new 'perspective' and the new ability to 'sense' the selfishness of ego - and do something about it - my life quickly went from conflict, stress, discontent and unhappiness, to inner peace and a joyous sense of being connected with the flow of life.

As the years have passed I have explored many spiritual and religious traditions and teachings, and continue to do so. And through ongoing deepening, further 'realisations' and experiences of a mystical nature, I have come to realise that the first experience of 'spiritual awakening' all those years ago, was just the beginning of my Inner Journey.

John Foster

What is Awakening?

What is the Inner Journey of Awakening?

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Unbecoming

The arrogance of self belief is unbelievable.

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Being the Beingness

There is an essence - an original 'beingness' - in all creatures.

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Words

The real question is, who am I that has consciousness?

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Living The Dream

We cruise along looking out, imagining we're living the dream.

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You Are Not The Doer

A dangerously attractive proposition for the ego.

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You are the Programmer

Re-write your own programme.

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React or Respond?

Can you remember when someone pressed your buttons?

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No Journey?

“There is a vastness beyond the farthest reaches of the mind."

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You Are What You Eat

The full truth of the saying 'You Are What You Eat'.

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Reality is Relative

Your reality is relative to you alone. This is important to understand.

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Love And Do What You Will

Navigating life by asking; 'What would love do?'

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All time related to everything provided through this website, in One-to-One sessions and in the Inner Journey Facebook Group is offered as a service. 

If you wish to give back in some way, please help me to support TreeSisters with their remarkable work via my JustGiving page John's Fundraiser for TreeSisters

When people ask what contribution is appropriate my response is simply this : whatever you decide, will be exactly right!

All profit from the sale of paintings in my Online Gallery is also donated to TreeSisters.


TreeSisters is a UK registered reforestation charity that has so far funded the planting of over 26 million trees. In addition they actively seek to support a shift away from consumerism to a restorative culture by providing resources that inspire personal and collective action.



 I truly connected with John. He’s genuine, selfless, and dedicated to helping others find peace. His grounded approach offers practical wisdom while opening up new perspectives. I'm truly grateful to have found and spent time in his presence. 

Roger

 I met John in 2018. Since then he has become my spiritual teacher and guide. The person I turn to when I can’t find an answer myself. Our conversations range from how to deal with daily challenges to really deep rewarding philosophical ones around the awakening journey. I can now live life in a way I never would have done without John’s loving understanding and support. A life of peace and endless gratitude. And yet, as John points out regularly, I still have so much more inner exploration to do! 

Joanna

 Thank you for yesterday - I felt I learned/absorbed a lot. 

Anonymous

 My one-on-one sessions with John were extremely helpful in giving me a new perspective on bothersome life situations. His suggestions helped me progress on my spiritual path as well. He gives his time and expertise selflessly and generously without expecting any material or non-material returns, which is so rare and refreshing. Thank you John, and hope you continue to help many more people like me! 

Srividya

 John has provided me with guidance on a path towards freedom. Speaking with John remains a helpful ‘reset’ for me and truthfully the only “spiritual” contact I continue to return to since his offerings have a truth and understanding I have not experienced elsewhere. 

Anonymous

 This was a very enjoyable meeting. Thank you again for your hospitality in accommodating my early arrival - it was great to meet you x. 

Anonymous

 My communications with John, whether one on one video calls or email discussions, have been transformative in the deepest sense. John has taught me how to tap into greater inner intuitive awareness to find answers and seek the best path forward amid multiple challenges. I will always be most grateful. 

Raisa

 I learnt new ideas and consequently found myself thinking in different ways and feeling almost 'refreshed' as a result. I liked how my topic of interest was actively sought after, and I really supported the fact that, yes although huge, unanswerable topics are fun to discuss, it can be more beneficial to find ways to utilise elements we can understand/hold onto. 

Anonymous