RiverGanga Foundation

Letters of Confirmation

We receive letters from people all over the world, telling us about their experience with the vichara. We are always moved and encouraged to see the actual results of this simple method and the way in which people really benefit from this practice.

Here a few of these letters that speak directly to the effect of the practice on people's lives. 

 

2010

I have been trying your vichara...

I've been listening to you...

Now I am back from India...

It's been a few months now...

Thank you for your simple but powerful pointer....

I have a feeling that the question I asked you...

I feel the vichara growing...

Thanks for answering my email in your last podcast.

I just finished listening...

Some days ago two little dogs...

2009

Thank you Carla and John

Firstly, a big thank you...

I want to acknowledge to you this...

I may have finally found something...

I am almost a new person today...

It has been a while since I wrote to you...

Still this goes on...

When is your book coming out?

I came to you across the Internet.

Wanted to say hello and thank you.

You began yesterday by saying...

I am returning my name back to my birth name...

A metaphor for my spiritual search...

The moments with vichara

It's all coming to be — as promised.

On CD#2 of the March 22 Ojai workshop...

I wanted to report to you...

I called in to you on the show yesterday.

Recently I listened...

When I was in my teens I resolved...

I saw your name mentioned...

Thank you for dedicating your lives...

I have had some ongoing illness...

Something you said

I find myself "looking" intermittently...

I reckon I'm borrowing my body and this life.

I was really bamboozled by your latest podcast...

 

 

2008

 

I want to thank you for the online intensive last week.

I met you last year at Carefree...

I am practicing the vichara...

I find it hard to express how much the enquiry has changed my life.

As always, many thanks for the online meeting...

I had to laugh...

I am a bit overwhelmed ...

In an interview you said...

I am listening to a podcast of yours...

Thank you so much for your lectures...

Something has happened I'm compelled to share.

I'm writing this after the world wide meeting...

Seeing through the trick

It is with a recognition of peace in me...

It has been so wonderful...

I just wanted to share with you...

I just read only one article of yours...

Thank you so much for your effort

 

2007

 

I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed ...

Thank you for your meeting.

I have to tell you how wonderful ...

I had to take antibiotics...

Your sharing the experience of being John Sherman...

First of all I must say...

Long time listener, first time writer.

I cannot thank you very much...

Six months ago, like so many others worldwide...

Oh John, great and growing gratitude here

I just wanted to express my gratitude for your teaching.

Thank you so much for speaking it like it is without the spiritual overtones.

I know you are busy these days...

I'm so grateful to have come across you...

I really appreciate the clarity and simplicity with which you communicate.

I have been on the spiritual path for about two and a half years now.

Hello from Russia.

I just wanted to let you know how very grateful I am...

For several years now, I have been busy with Advaita...

I just wanted to thank you both...

Just to say that it was lovely to speak to you

Just a report...

I would like to thank you for making these recordings available...

I hope you will receive this mail...

I want to thank you for making it all so clear to me...

I am forever grateful to you...

I want to express my heartfelt thanks...

I just want to say thank you.

Hello.

Thanks again.

Your words have given me absolutely nothing...

Your podcasts have been tremendously helpful to me...

Bypassing the apparatus.

I had the pleasure of meeting you at the Gangaji Tahoe 2001 retreat...

I was at the online meeting today...

I'd like to THANK YOU so much, John.

I am very excited about the online satsangs!

I write these lines to you who are my true self...

I really want to thank you for last Sunday (Feb. 11) online meeting.

My dear brother John...

Today I realized what you have been trying to convey.

2006

 

I have been blessed with a life...

Just stumbled upon a picture of you on the internet...

Thank you so very, very much for "The Story of How I Met Gangaji, Became Spiritual and So Forth".

I had the pleasure of meeting you...

This magnificent retreat has come to an end...

I just feel like writing you an email...

Thanks for making your meetings available on podcast...

"I'd like to espress my gratitude" sounds a bit formal...

I am sitting here at my glass desk in my apartment in Helsinki, Finland...

On the internet I found your podcast feed ...

I obtained a copy of the book Conversations with Ramana Maharshi...

How can I ever, ever thank you...

I have often started writing to you...

I just spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday with you.

I just listened to your most recent podcast...

You're really paring down your instruction!

Yesterday's phone conversation was something I needed...

I don't have the words...

Simple, ordinary happiness for no reason...

2005

 

There is nothing like the experience of extreme pain...

It is so interesting to notice...

Wow, John. Huge gratitude...

This last week I have been extremely busy...

2003

 

A thousand thank you's for this wonderful retreat!

I want to express my thanks...

 

How to donate


$

Security Verified Seal

Shopping through iGive can provide us with financial support at no cost to you.

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.

next event
Worldwide Online Meeting

Saturday, March 13 at 1 pm PT (GMT/UTC -8)

People all over the world gather together online 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 the vichara.

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.

Download our 2010 Schedule of Events:

All our events are always free of charge.

All are welcome, with no regard for religious and spiritual beliefs and practices.

Spontaneous donations for the support of our work are always welcome and gratefully accepted.

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 Meeting with John Sherman - February 13, 2010

"Self-reliance is not easy. Self-reliance is full of mistakes, stumbling blocks, false trails and premature conclusions. Self-reliance isn't pretty. Self-reliance is hard, it is not easy. It is easy to abandon self-reliance and try to find answers in other people's understandings and experiences. That's easy. Trying to manifest experiences that we have come to believe to be what we need to be in order to be free and happy and satisfied and fulfilled, that's easy. But it is not self-reliance."  John Sherman

Complete, live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman broadcast live from Ojai, California on February 13, 2010.

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.

RiverGanga Toolbar
The toolbar gives you instant access to our podcast, videos, transcriptions, artices, excerpts, and more. You can also use it to follow us on Twitter.
Rides Needed & Rides Offered
Accommodations Needed & Offered
Use our BULLETIN BOARD to request and/or offer rides and accommodations for events with John Sherman.
donations

Our work is to bring the vichara 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.

newsletters
RiverGanga News is a free email newsletter bringing current information about John Sherman and the RiverGanga Foundation.
volunteering
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
contact us

RiverGanga Foundation
PO Box 1566
Ojai, California 93024-1566
Phone: (805) 649-1600
Email: info@riverganga.org

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