The Seriousness of Your Intention

Adapted from A Meeting with John Sherman
Ojai, California – March 9, 2004

I learned of a location where the people are now trying to form a kind of a farmers market of satsang teachings; where they say, "We have decided to put this together, so that we don't have to travel to go see the teacher; so that we don't have to be troubled by the difficulty of going a hundred miles, or five hundred miles, or a thousand miles to find our teacher. We can bring them here, and we can sample them here; we can get what we want from this one, and get what we want from that one, and get what we want from the other one." It is no wonder that by and large, we continue to suffer; really it is no wonder.

I have been with Gangaji for ten years now and there is not a moment of that time, in this meeting with her, that I have not received something new from her. And it is precisely the fact that I was only with Gangaji for these ten years that has produced, in this one, the absolute certain recognition of the eternal and unconditional freedom that is always and everywhere, as yourself. I see it very clearly that it is because of the persistence of the relationship over time that I have received what I have received from her.

Truly, there is no teacher that can give you anything. There is no guru that can transmit to you some instantaneous magic bullet that wipes out the mind and destroys the sense of ego-mind. There is no one that can give that to you. There are those who can, with a look or a touch, produce huge experiences that are true gifts of grace. But these experiences pass, and they leave us longing for the return of some imagined experience in the past.

It is not that the path to yourself is long and arduous; the path to yourself is inexistent. It is not that the path to the realization of the truth is long and arduous and requires struggle and wrestling with a teacher. The path to the truth of your being is inexistent. We are so deeply and fundamentally conditioned to invest importance in the river of thought, which we have believed to be ourself for all of these eons, that it takes a continuing relationship with someone who is willing to wrestle with you, and turn away from you, and pamper you, and do whatever is necessary over time.

I think it was Osho who once compared the shopping-around for teachers with trying to find water by digging a bunch of shallow holes. There is no possibility ever that you will find anywhere some human teacher who will instantaneously destroy all of your conditioning; who will instantaneously do away with all of your inclinations to wallow in the river of thought. There is no teacher that can give you that in any way. The truth is that your realization is absolutely, 100 percent, incontrovertibly on you. It has to do with the absolute seriousness of your intention, and the willingness to stick to it.

In this country, we are so spoiled. We walk into the supermarket and we see aisles and aisles of choices, all of them literally indistinguishable from one another -- and we treat the great gift of the arising of this spiritual possibility with the same spoiled attitude.

You are the truth. No one can give it to you. When we shop around for teachers, this must be driven by some sense that if I just find the right one, I'll be done. You'll be done when you are done, when you are absolutely determined to be finished. So, within the realm of spiritual teachers that roam the planet now, whomever among all of them you can hear, stay there, don't wander! Don't treat this immense gift -- that really is new in our time -- with casualness, with the casualness that you bring to the farmers market. It is the gift of all of your lifetimes. In the end, the point of all this is that it is all on you, and it is all connected with the seriousness with which you bring yourself to satsang; the seriousness with which you are willing to turn your back on everything.

Copyright © 2004 John Sherman All rights reserved