Maturity and Discernment

Adapted from A Meeting with John Sherman
Carlsbad, California - November 1, 2003

Gangaji has said, more than once, that the only prerequisite to really being finished is maturity. And maturity being such a heavily ladened word in our culture, it carries a lot of the sense of judgment and value; and therefore "immaturity" is an insult.

Maturity is a mark of wisdom, of age and so forth. But really the word maturity (in the sense that Gangaji uses it) only points to its other meaning, which is ripeness, readiness. So far as I can tell, the only aspect of maturity that indicates ripeness is that we have concluded that the problem of our lives is a spiritual problem rather than a material problem. That is all, nothing else is required.

This is a state, or a stage, or a realization that is present in certainly almost everyone I have ever met. There is a sense that the problem of life is not to be resolved in the material world, that it is metaphysical, existential, that it is a spiritual problem. And that, of course, is what sets us off on the spiritual path, where we receive all these ideas from those who have seen with utter simplicity that the problem is not, period.

So, we take in all these teachings, all these beautiful expressions, the poetry and the songs, the shastras and the sutras, the mantras and so forth, and we pay attention to them as if they were the thing. As if the ideas and the spiritual concepts were the thing, thinking that, if only we could integrate them into our own understanding, then we too would be enlightened and realized. We would be "Buddha mind". We would be finished with suffering.

The strange thing about this is that, during the part of the life when we are convinced that the problem is material, and it can be solved by the acquisition of money, fame, wealth or relationship, or whatever can be attained in the material world; when our teachers tell us what to do in order to get rich, in order to get a better education, in order to get a better relationship, or in order to find fame; we really listen to what they say. We really pay attention to what they say -- not the idea of it, the feel of it, but the actuality of it. How can I learn how to do the steps that are required in order that I can obtain success in the world? What is this person really saying? How can I enact this, and make this part of my understanding of the world, so that it will give me what I am here to get -- money, fame, wealth, sex, whatever?

But the moment that we shift into the realm of the ripeness, in order to be finished with all of that, we leave behind all of the powers of discernment that are part of the human mindset. We just take in these ideas and we go into some kind of la-la land: "emptiness", "limitless consciousness", "here and now", "you are what you seek".

We just had a five-day retreat in Ojai not long ago, and somebody at that retreat pointed out a quote from somebody else, who made this obvious observation, "Well, if you are going to have a spiritual teacher, then you ought to do what they say." That is pretty simple, right?

If you are going to have a spiritual teaching, then you ought to do what it says. You ought to say, "Okay, what are they saying here? What does this mean to me? How is it real to me?" It is not the ability to rhapsodize about oceanic consciousness that you are looking for. What you are looking for is what this teaching is pointing to. What is it saying? What reality is it pointing to?

We receive all of these teachings, these sutras, shastras and mantras, all of the poetry and the songs and so forth, and instead of zoning out, it seems we might exercise the intellectual discernment that is our birthright, to try to understand what is being offered. When the teaching says that "you are what you seek", you might -- just for an experiment -- stop seeking elsewhere. When the teaching says that "all is perfect here and now, and nothing needs to be fixed or changed whatsoever"; when the teaching says that "everything that is done to fix and change things is basically what makes us miserable and dissatisfied with our lives", you might just consider the possibility that there is something practical contained in these expressions, in these beautiful arisings of the radiance of your own heart.

So, if you are swept away by the grandeur and the glory and the beauty of the spiritual teachings in this world, if you are seduced by them, if you are in love with them, just as an experiment, find out for yourself whether there is any truth to them. Really hear what it is they are pointing to and be finished with postponement. Find out for yourself if there is any truth to it. Now, only now. This can never be then. Truly, it must be now.

Copyright © 2004 John Sherman. All rights reserved.