River Ganga Foundation
You Don’t Need to Stop Anything

Adapted from a Meeting with John Sherman
Ojai, California - October 7, 2006

It is very hard to abandon the idea that my spiritual work will fix me, make me better, smarter, clearer, calmer, more loving and compassionate.   It is very hard to swallow the view that my deepest purpose in life is to know consciously the truth of my nature, and that none of the work I do to make myself better is relevant to that deep purpose.

Perhaps because of this, many who speak about spiritual matters claim that one must first stop trying to fix the story before any progress can be made in the more profound and important spiritual work.

The self-inquiry of Ramana Maharshi is a lot simpler than that.   It really does not matter whether you stop trying to fix your story or not.   You are welcome to continue trying to work your story all you want, just as you are welcome to continue trying to get high, or to get enlightened all you want.   These activities have not worked in the past, they are not going to work in the present, and they are certainly not going to work in the future.   They cannot give you what you are really looking for, but neither can they prevent you from knowing the truth.  They can neither help you nor harm you in any way.

All that the self-inquiry of Ramana Maharshi suggests is that it is possible — here and now, in this moment — to know what you are.  In fact, it is impossible not to know what you are.  It is possible to deny that you know what you are, but it is impossible not to know. 

All that self-inquiry suggests is that all you really want is to know that knowing consciously.  Everything else you do is okay.  You can lie, you can cheat, and you can do anything you want, for as long as you want to do those things and, ultimately, they will not do you any harm.  You can try to fix yourself, you can try to be better, you can try to have what you need, and you can try to understand things.  You can do all of that and none of it will harm you or help you.  None of it will have any influence on the effectiveness of the self-inquiry, and none of it will in any way lessen the power of the direct investigation into reality. 

© 2007 John Sherman. All rights reserved.
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The only thing that is certain is you, but nothing can be said that is at all helpful in describing you or explaining you, or even pointing to you. You are here. The only certainty there is, is that of your presence. I am not speaking of the sense of self, although the focusing of attention on the sense of self, or the I am, or beingness, or by whatever name it may be called, will in fact result in the vanishing of the sensational experience that is the sense of self. In the moment of its vanishing, what remains is you. That's the incredible value and utility of Ramana's suggestion that we look at ego and grab it by the throat. In so doing, that experience vanishes and what remains is you. You, face to face with you.
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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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