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John de Ruiter(born November 11, 1959) is a Canadian born philosopher-teacher, who conducts meetings and seminars at the College of Integrated Philosophy in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He also teaches worldwide and has produced numerous CDs and DVDs. He is the author of a book entitled Unveiling Reality (Oasis, Edmonton, 1999).

De Ruiter holds regular meetings at the College in Edmonton on Monday and Friday evenings and Sunday afternoon and evening, except when he is travelling overseas or during the annual five-week Summer break.

De Ruiter’s work is summarized by the following quote from Unveiling Reality, “It is so easy for everyone to just simply rest as consciousness in that same true way of being. All it requires is untainted surrender to what you honestly know is true...”

Early Life
John de Ruiter was born on November 11, 1959, one of two boys and two girls raised by Dutch immigrant parents in the town of Stettler in Alberta, Canada. While still a boy, he was taught shoe repair by his father, who was from a long line of fine shoemakers from De Bildt in the Netherlands.

Awakening
Raised in the town of Stettler in Alberta, Canada, De Ruiter remained indifferent to and unaffected by religious doctrine. At age 17 he experienced, without preparation or warning, a state of awakening. This state lasted a year, then left him as abruptly as it had come. Following this experience, de Ruiter spent several years undertaking a gruelling investigation of many mystical and philosophical traditions in an attempt to regain what he had lost. He found no existing system, religious dogma or technique that provided the means to truly answer the void within. Only unconditional surrender returned him to the state of awakening.

College of Integrated Philosophy
The College holds weekly meetings and four Seminars a year that attract visitors from around the world. Participants come from all age groups, many nationalities, divergent spiritual or religious traditions, differing academic backgrounds and a wide range of careers and professions.

The College website, www.johnderuiter.com provides details of seminar dates and costs, as well as information on regular meetings. The website also provides details of overseas seminars, which are held principally in European and Australian cities.

Meetings
John de Ruiter’s public meetings follow the format of one-on-one question and answer with individuals from the audience, covering all facets of human existence. He rarely addresses the whole group. Meetings often include periods of silence.

De Ruiter practices and recommends inner quiet and integrity on all levels of life, from the profound to the superficial. Meetings have a quality of profound stillness and fullness, and during periods of silence, De Ruiter often appears to be in a deep state of Samadhi.(26)(27) He barely moves during these meetings and demonstrates the same unforced physical stillness that many observed in spiritual teacher Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh).(28)(29)

Teachings
In his book, Unveiling Reality, John de Ruiter describes his teaching as “the living way of truth,” with honesty its fundamental tenet. “Honesty is the knife of reality that cuts through everything that is untrue...Honesty, followed by a clear surrender to what one actually really knows is true.”(30)(31)

“Okayness” is central to De Ruiter’s philosophy. It is best understood as “loving acceptance” and can exist even “in moments of intense sorrow or immense physical pain.”(32) In his book, he writes “Awakening is only for the unconditionally okay. If you let yourself be unconditionally okay, no matter what kind of ‘not okayness’ you are in, then awakening will happen. And if you remain in that kind of clean, clear, honest, true space of being; okay under every imaginable or unimaginable pressure, then enlightenment will begin to happen. Enlightenment only happens inside of great darkness where there is profound ‘okayness.’ It is not about getting the light, it is about ‘okayness’ in the dark.”(33)

Another central theme to De Ruiter’s teaching is existing in tender openness.(34) He states in Unveiling Reality that “openness and softness of consciousness within is the true way of being that everyone actually knows about. It requires honesty of consciousness to see it. And it requires a love of true seeing to let yourself surrender to it.”(35)

Reception
Doctor Carl Mindell, former Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York’s Albany Medical College, refers to de Ruiter as “the most powerful spiritual teacher I’ve ever seen — and I’ve seen a goodly number of them.(36)(37) John’s teaching is single-mindedly from the absolute, and as such, carries an extraordinary powerfulness and draw.”(38)

A website listing spiritual teachers describes De Ruiter as the most profound and powerful, living and transcendental force of pure truth.(40) American contemporary spiritual teacher and author, Ram Dass (Richard Albert), called de Ruiter “the real thing”.(41)

Known as an accessible teacher, De Ruiter has been called a modern day Socrates seeking out the ultimate knowledge of the deepest self.(42)(43) Further parallels have been made between de Ruiter’s philosophy and Buddhism, where detachment and release are also key principles.(44)

De Ruiter’s teaching style involves extended periods of silence and eye contact.(45) Often he answers questioners “after long pauses or sometimes not at all.”(46) Some commentators interpret these periods of silence as an opportunity for audience members to “project onto John what they know and what they need. Silence is the perfect vehicle for that projection.”(47)

Another commentatorsharing some tenets in common with a centuries old oral-based teaching of Tibetan Buddhism, where, “the training advocated does not consist in teaching certain things to the pupil, but rather in showing him the means to learn them and discover them for himself”

De Ruiter states, "the supreme authority is only what you as consciousness absolutely know. Anything that you honestly, absolutely do not know, you do not have authority to speak. When I am speaking of what I know, the authority and what I am are inseparable. So then the words and the energy are authority. Because I am not speaking of what I think, or what somebody told me, or what I have learned, then I am speaking of what I absolutely know, of what I am. So there is a direct transmission."(48)

Quotes
“We have the capacity to use our faculties to convince ourselves of something being true, because we need for that to be true. So, there’s a hanging on within the heart supported by an intellectual framework that enables that to happen. But, beyond all of that, we know something quieter, and it is that we don’t actually need what we say we need. But to agree with something we know on a level like that, requires a letting go of that which we’re tightly hanging on to, and convincing ourselves that we can’t live without.”(49)

“True peace is when you allow the moment to honestly be what it is, then you’re home. Going home is just simply responding to any moment where there is a newness of opportunity, in which there is a tiny tiny little pull to just surrender to what you know is true. And what is really wonderful is that within each moment, it’s your choice.”(50)

"A pure heart isn't unattainable or difficult; it's only difficult if you have value of something that isn't true. If you hang on to that value, such as mental or emotional patterns used for coping and controlling, then it's really difficult to have a pure heart, and the only reason it's difficult is because you don't want one. When there's purity of heart, it is incredibly clear because you're just simply, totally surrendering to what you actually know is true."(51)