Adapted from A Meeting with John Sherman
Ashland, Oregon  May 19, 2006

I don't have much interest in spiritual experiences. I have no desire to transmit to you any experience of awakening, or peace, or bliss, or eternal love, or anything of the sort. I don't have any interest in the metaphysical understanding of the way the cosmos manifests. In fact, my interest in spiritual things is pretty narrow and simple. So far as I can see, from my own personal experience as well as my experience with the people I have been meeting with over the last seven years or so, we all have wandered far from the simplicity of the truth that has been announced to us and offered to us, time and time again, since the beginning of humanity.

It seems to be the nature of the human mind to go far afield from the simplicity of what is real. We really like our thoughts; we really like the feel of ourselves in our minds. We really like seeking after pleasure and avoiding pain. Even in the spiritual arena, we spend most of our time seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. There comes a time in our lives when we are taken by spiritual aspiration, which replaces the worldly aspirations that have done us no good until then -- the aspirations for comfort and pleasure, relationship, love, power, fame, and so forth. There comes a time in our lives, when we see that these things have been useless to us -- really, fundamentally useless. I mean, it is useful enough to have a nice place to live and good things, good friends, good relationships, and so forth, but these things really don't cut it; they are not enough.

Still, we are unsatisfied. We suffer or impose suffering on others to the extent that we are convinced that our satisfaction and dissatisfaction arise from what others do, from what we can get, and from what we can't get. Even if we are not so crazy as to blame the world for our misery, we remain miserable in a nest of affluence. So, we become spiritual aspirants and what we receive, for the most part, are all of the reactions, responses, explanations, and interpretations that have arisen from the really simple, radical, naked suggestion that comes from those who have seen the truth. What we hear is all the commentary on that -- all the wondrous experiences that have come to people, as a result of being in the company of these awakened ones; all their explanations and interpretations of how enlightenment came to pass, and what we can do to get the same thing for ourselves. That is mostly what we receive when we first come to the spiritual arena.

Unfortunately, the truth is that all these teachings that we hear, and all of the good experiences that we get, are really just more of the same thing that we have been doing all our life: seeking pleasure; avoiding pain; wanting to find something that will heal us, that will close the wound of lack and neediness that is in our hearts. As we have always done, we are willing to take what we can get. So we go to spiritual meetings, and we receive energetic transmissions of peace, love, bliss, and harmony, and we are satisfied with these, as we have in the past been satisfied with a better paycheck or a better partner.

Of course, since there was a time when these gifts of grace that come to us were not here, we can be certain that there will be a time when they will not be here again. Still, we chase after them. We get some satisfaction with a good, well-expounded explanation for reality, a metaphysical understanding, something about the way consciousness manifests in the world -- but the satisfaction doesn't last. We are grazing about in the weeds that have grown from the clear, simple and radical suggestion that has been made to us by those who have seen the truth. We have satisfied ourselves with the flowers, the scents, and the weeds that have grown around these awakened beings.

So far as I can see, all spiritual expression has at its core the same insight. Whether we are looking at the advanced versions or the not so advanced ones, it is difficult to see the flame that is at their heart, because we are distracted by the show -- the sense, the sounds, the feelings, the aversion, and the desire. All spiritual expressions have the same insight at their heart, which is that there are not two of anything, anywhere to be found. This is referred to, most often, with the expression "all is one," but the truth really is that there are not two anywhere to be found. There is no separate entity to be found anywhere, in any realm.

This is a sweet insight that feels good when we get the gist of it -- not two; all is one; there is no separation. We would like for it to be so, but our actual experience in the world belies that. Our experience tells us that there is nothing but separation; that all things are separate; that the world consists of a menagerie of conflicting entities and conflicting needs, which have to be negotiated or snuffed out. While we like the feeling of the insight that all is one -- and we are certainly willing to proclaim this -- the lack, the neediness, the aggression, and the self-betrayal do not end. The insight of oneness becomes just one more thing that we can try to hold onto and suck dry.

However, there is another insight that is at the core of all spiritual expressions. The cause of all of our suffering and our misery, all aggression, hatred, murderous intent, confusion, all neediness whatsoever, is this: We are not who we think we are. We are ruled by a false belief about our nature, and this belief is so deeply embedded in our consciousness that it actually is the engine of human individual consciousness and human behavior. The belief that we know what we are, and that what we are is this story line that has been running for as long as we can remember.

The story consists of memory, history, what we did, who our parents were, what they thought about things; what church we belong to, what political ideas we have, what is right, what is wrong, what thoughts of ours are useful, what thoughts are harmful; the understanding of what is negative, the understanding of what is positive, the understanding of what is peaceful, the understanding of what is hurtful. And all of these things constitute the story of me that creates the firm belief in a me.

There is nothing whatsoever in any spiritual practice that I have seen, be it meditation, affirmation, mantra, therapeutic practices, that can rid us of this fundamental mistake, which is the belief that we are the story of me.  All the practices just become part of the story of me.   All our attainments become part of the story of me.  All our failures become part of the story of me -- what we need to change, what we need to keep, what we need to make sweeter, what we need to get rid of, what we need to affirm, what we need to deny, what we need to do to quiet our mind, to shut down this story.

For most of us, this is as far as we get. What can we do to shut up this incessant racket? So, we find ways of stopping. And that is not as hard as we make it out to be in our advanced spiritual understandings. The truth is that the story, and the racket itself, starts and stops endlessly, but we do find ways to make it stop at our will. We find meditation practices; we find teachers and teachings that can transmit to us some quiet mind.  But this quiet mind doesn't last, of course. Mind is quiet now; there is no thought present now. But I know -- which itself is a thought -- that in the next moment, the whole river of thought will come rushing back. I know, because that's my experience, not because somebody told me that.   I have had lengthy intervals of absolute quiet mind, but they don't last. Next thing I know, I turn around and here I am again. What am I going to do now? What should I do? What does this mean, the fact that mind is quiet? How can I make this a part of my awakening? How can I make this permanent?

The aspiration to silence the mind once and for all is perhaps the most common aspiration, once a certain level of understanding is reached. We know that there are ways and practices by which ego can be eradicated and, of course, that's what we want. We want ego to go away, because ego is all these thoughts, this fussing, this nonsense, this wanting, all this getting and not keeping. So we want ego to go away; we want thought to go away. We find all kinds of practices and teachings and transmissions that promise to give us this quietness, this silence; they promise to end the conflict that is the essential nature of what I am.   I know that what I am is this endless conflict, this endless river of thought, while I am waiting for the grave. Well, I also know that if I want to kill ego, that's just me wanting to kill ego. If I want mind to be quiet, that's just me wanting mind to be quiet.

What is not questioned is this me that wants ego dead, that wants mind quieted, that wants peace; this me that wants the sweetness of spiritual experience. I know what I want and I know what I want to get rid of. But I don't have a clue of what I am. Well, actually, if I am really spiritual, I probably have lots of ideas about what I am -- I am infinite consciousness; I am eternal love; I am emptiness; I am Buddha-mind; I am nothing.

All of my problems, all of my desires to have the mind quiet when it is not quiet, all of my desires for silence, love, open-heartedness and empty mind, all of it is predicated on a false belief about what I am. Just as all of my efforts to find happiness in the world of material things have been predicated on a false belief about what I am. It is absolutely for certain that if what I want has anything whatsoever to do with the nature of my behavior, with the nature of my thoughts, with the nature of my experiences, with the nature of my aspirations -- anything whatsoever to do with me -- the result is suffering, misery and self-hatred.

We are told that we are happiness itself. We are told that we are consciousness itself. We are told that we are eternal and permanent, the shining face of awareness that never changes, never moves, never suffers, and never inflicts suffering. And we try to become that. We are told that all of our problems stem from a false belief about what we are, so we try to become something different. We try to adopt some new belief about what we are.

This is the remarkable thing about the appearance of Ramana Maharshi in this time in our lives, and in this period of the history of humanity. Ramana Maharshi had no interest whatsoever in anything people were doing.  He had no desire whatsoever to change people's practices.  He never told Papaji to stop getting up at 2:00 in the morning to do japa for Krishna; he never told Papaji that these practices were a waste of time and really didn't offer much besides keeping Papaji busy and sleepless. He never told those who came to him with the practice of pranayama or mantra that their practice was wrong.  If he could help somebody, he did.  If he could help people with their pranayama practice he did, but he really wasn't interested in any of it. He was interested in only one thing, so far as I can see. He wanted to urge us to just stop for one second and find out what we are.

What Ramana saw is that the only solution to the false belief about what I am is the truth of what I am. There is no other solution to the problem of human existence apart from the truth of what I am. Everything else is just waiting for the grave. Everything else is making the nest a little better, and that's okay, there is no problem with that. You don't need to do away with that; you don't need to fix that. It is really not wrong. It just won't give you what you think it will.  None of our spiritual aspirations will give us what we think they will. Only the truth will give us what we want. Nothing else.

The simple, naked, radical truth of what I am eradicates the false belief.   It doesn't necessarily fix the story; it doesn't make the story go away and it doesn't transform mind, which itself is nothing but thought.   It does nothing whatsoever about my history. But it eradicates the false belief that is the basis, the source, and the endless engine of my conviction that I need something that I don't have. It doesn't give you enlightenment. It doesn't give you self-realization. All that is at stake here is the truth of what I am, the reality of it, the actual nature of it.

We have heard a lot of things about what our actual nature is. "We are consciousness; we are love; we are happiness; we are peace; we are freedom." But none of these are true. These are all words, thoughts, and they are all part of the story of me. None of it is true. Nothing whatsoever that has ever been said about what you are is true. It might be useful. It might even be effective in fanning the flame of desire to know the truth. But it is not true.

Knowing what you are is easy. Easy is actually too heavy a word. Knowing what you are is what you are. You are here. I will bet anything that there is no one who can, by any mental, philosophical or metaphysical gymnastics, deny that they are here. No human on the face of the planet can possible say, "I am not." I can say, "Well, I am emptiness," or "I am nothing." But "I am not" is beyond my capacity. I can say, "You are not," and that's actually relatively easy and a big part of the spiritual arena. "You are not." After all, if you are, then there is this big separation that has to be explained. But "you are not," well, I can deal with that. "You are phantasms that appear in my consciousness." "There is nothing there." But I am. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I am.   And there is no human being on the face of the planet that cannot consciously, deliberately taste this reality of being.

First of all, see that to be true. You can absolutely, in this moment, taste what it is to be.   You can't say anything about it, but you can taste it. What is it that makes you so certain that you are here? What is the present experience that makes it impossible for you to deny your existence? That's you. So, it's easy. Every human being can taste this, and this is what  the self-inquiry of Ramana Maharshi is all about. It is that momentary, repeated movement of conscious attention to this naked, radical, indefinable reality that I am.

This is all it takes. This is al it takes, but not in the way we have become accustomed to hearing this statement. We have a lust for a final solution. We have great lust that things be dealt with, once and for all, and we enter the spiritual arena with that same lust. We have heard it said somewhere that it is possible to just wake up and then, everything is over with. All the wanting, the neediness, the aggression, all the stupidity is over with. We have heard it said somewhere that either by diligent, dedicated effort to some meditative or physical practice, by the energetic transmission from some guru entity, or by a bolt of lightning coming from the sky, it is possible for there to be one instant when all that we know to be false is either eradicated or clarified. And we desperately want this to be true, despite our lifelong experience that tells us this wish is infantile. This expactation is foolish.

The reason we want this instant awakening to be true is because of our powerful belief that what we are is the story of me. If I am the storyline of "the one who has striven and failed, aspired and not gotten," then the only way that the spiritual aspiration can be of any use whatsoever has to be by fixing this stinking story. But there is something else that is at the heart of all spiritual traditions and that is that you already are, exactly just as you are, everything you want. You already are truth. You already are happiness, permanence, and love without condition -- without regard to anything having to do with the story.

© 2006 John Sherman. All rights reserved.