RiverGanga Foundation
Just to say that it was lovely to speak to you...

Hi John,

Just to say that it was lovely to speak to you, even though in the fluster to get the microphone going and actually being heard worldwide I forgot most everything I was going to say, still nevermind it really doesn't matter!

What I actually wanted to say was that through the continual turning inwards to look at who and what I am I have been freed, and realise that I trully am no longer at stake in my life, as I feel an indescribable sense of fulfillment and freedom, regardless of what is going on in my life.

When I look inside now I feel peace like I have never known, and as you said on Saturday, the underlying tow of fear and anxiety has disappeared. This has enabled me to live my life fully, completely and wholeheartedly — what a gift!

What I have realised now was that the big experience of reality I had was still an experience, however amazing and a true glimpse of reality, but it is the enduring effect it has had on my daily life that has been so profound.

It is the much more regular turning inwards that has really solidified the original experience for me and I am finding it a wonderful way to enjoy the housework (of which I do a lot with two small children) and other chores I previously thought as mundane!

Even when I am not looking directly at what I am, the awareness of me not being my life is still there — yay!!

I now see that we trully are all one and I can't quite believe that I managed to miss it before! It was the sense of separation that was driving me onwards, as that was what I was desperate to get rid of, and now it is gone.

The self inquiry has made it all so simple because you really do not have to do anything except look in. This is in stark contrast to the amount of effort I had been putting in to maintaining the small existence of me. It is so simple in fact that no wonder it is so easily overlooked.

The awareness found through self inquiry is something I realise I have always known as that part of me that has remained the same during the other very changeable elements of my personality over the years. It is trully profound in its ordinariness and so exquisite once discovered! This still really doesn't even come close to what I am trying to say, I suppose that thank you would cover it!!!

Lots of love,

S.

Titirangi, New Zealand   
August 27, 2007

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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.

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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.

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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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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.

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RiverGanga Foundation
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