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| I was at the online meeting today... |
Hi John! I was at the online meeting today, and I just wanted to join the chorus of people who have been saying that this is a wonderful idea. I live out in Pennsylvania, so I don't have much of a chance of going to your meetings in person... So, it doesn't get much better than this! I stumbled across your videos on YouTube a couple months ago, and have been listening to your podcasts and reading your blog since then. What you've said has been so helpful to me; I'm not a "spiritually advanced" person but I was well on my way towards believing that I need to become one, so at first I had a hard time buying your message that none of that is really relevant (What? You mean it's really that simple?), but now it makes so much sense to me and it's a great relief. The core of your teaching, which at first had seemed to me too absurdly simple to be true, now seems too clear and even self-evident *not* to be true. What I've found especially helpful is the way you address frustration as it might come up in the process of self-inquiry; with other spiritual methods, meditation or conscious breathing or whatever else, failure or difficulty was always distressing to me because I thought that had a lot to say about what I am — I am the one who is lousy at meditation, etc. I love that when someone comes to you with frustrations or distress about self-inquiry (like today), you advise us to find out for whom that's a problem. When I do this, I don't ever come up with an answer that I could put into words, or at least I never come up with a person that I can point to as an answer to the question "for whom." For me, the answer sounds more along the lines of "It doesn't matter. It's actually all ok." And, sometimes, it makes me want to laugh a little. And even if I continue to feel stressed out or frustrated or whatever, I also know that actually it's ok, and even though it may not sound like that makes any difference I find that it does, more and more. So, thank you again for online meeting and everything else you do. I'm so glad to hear that you plan to continue with this in spite of the technical glitches that will need to be ironed out. It's more than worth it, really. I look forward to the next one! Many, many thanks. I've been meaning to drop you a line for a while, and it's nice to finally do it! All the best, Y. Manlius, NY
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Your single donations and monthly pledges make up 91% of all income to the foundation. We need to raise $56,500 to finance and sustain our work over the next twelve months. |
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As of July 21: |
| Worldwide Online Meeting | Saturday, September 11 at 4 pm PDT (UTC/GMT -7) People all over the world gather together with John for a couple of hours. John is available to listen to your questions, and to help you sort out any difficulties you might experience in your own practice of looking at yourself. This is very much like a call-in radio show. If you simply want to listen to the meetings, all you need to do is to install the software and have speakers attached to your computer. If you wish to speak with John, then you will need a headset with microphone. You can also use earbuds and a microphone. |
| More information. | |
All our events are always free of charge. Spontaneous donations for the support of our work are always welcome and gratefully accepted. All are welcome, with no regard for religious and spiritual beliefs and practices.
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| Download our 2010 Schedule of Events: | |
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| Brief report on what was accomplished in 2009. | |
| If you shop online, shopping through iGive.com can provide us with financial support at no cost to you. Use this customized link to register with iGive and we'll get $5 when you sign up and make a purchase online within 45 days of registration. | |
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| More information. | |
| Look At Yourself and Meeting Ramana Maharshi by John Sherman are available as free ebook downloads. | |
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| Featured Letter of the Month | |
| We receive many, many beautiful and useful letters. Every month we try to feature one here that seems especially valuable and instructive for one reason or another. | |
| Podcast | |
A Worldwide Meeting - July 10, 2010 My role in this adventure of trying to bring the simplicity of this work to every human being is not to concoct teachings, ways of looking at things, instructions and practices that are my creation, and then pass them on to you for you to receive gratefully, and try to make sense of. My role here is actually to distill and articulate the product of an ongoing conversation among all of us, over a period of more than ten years now, about the discovery that bringing an end to misery in a human life is actually not only possible but easy and simple, and can be done by anyone. It requires nothing at all to accomplish this except the determination to do one simple, solitary, radical act, and that is to turn the beam of your attention onto the feeling of being you. That's it. In the end, and against all odds and all expectation, this repeated act will bring sanity into your life. It will eliminate the underlying sense that life is treacherous and not to be trusted, and that something desperately needs to be done about it. Complete, live recording of a Worldwide Online Meeting with John Sherman broadcast live from Ojai, California on July 10, 2010. |
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| Podcast | |
| Video Blog | |
Our Work First, last, and always, my advice is only to look at the feeling of being you, without the mediation of understanding, the need to resolve paradox, or the requirement that this looking lead to any conclusion. Simply make every effort just to look, and persist in that effort as often as you can. In this effort, understanding is irrelevant, belief is irrelevant, even duration is irrelevant — the briefest look, repeated over time, does all the work. A Message from John Sherman, videotaped in Ojai, California on May 15, 2009. |
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| Rides Needed & Rides Offered Accommodations Needed & Offered |
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| Use our BULLETIN BOARD to request and/or offer rides and accommodations for events with John Sherman. | |
| Bulletin Board | |
Our work is to bring the practice of looking at oneself to all who are interested. The only problem anywhere to be found is the false belief that you are at the mercy of your life, and the only solution is the truth, which is everywhere and always present and self-evident. Ridding oneself of the false is as easy as repeatedly tasting the truth of being here, unmovingly, unchangingly here. This repeated looking directly at oneself is the infallible method of the vichara. Although our meetings are free of charge, they are certainly not free of cost. The money needed for this work must come entirely from the generosity and compassion of those who, like us, have seen for themselves the immense worth of spreading this good news to all humanity. Please help provide financial support for the work of making this method more widely available in the world by making a donation or a monthly pledge in any amount now. All gifts to the RiverGanga Foundation are fully tax-deductible as charitable donations. |
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| Read a brief report on the work accomplished in 2008. |
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| We need volunteer help in many areas. If you have any talent, skill or calling you'd like to give to this work, please contact us. You can call us at (805) 649-1600 or email us: volunteers@riverganga.org | |
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RiverGanga Foundation RiverGanga Foundation is a not-for-profit, 509(a)(2) public charitable organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. Our Internal Revenue Service Employer ID Number is 77-0561647. All donations are tax deductible for US residents as charitable contributions. Click to view our letter of determination from the IRS. IRS Tips for Year-End Donations
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| More about the RiverGanga Foundation. | |
All text, audio and video content offered free of charge on this website, unless otherwise indicated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Updated daily since July 12, 2009 Click here to see the archived map showing where more than 43,000 visitors came from last year. © 2001-2010 RiverGanga Foundation.All rights reserved. |
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