If you already do that, then I am here to encourage you to continue, because I know from my own experience (and from the experience of people who have been with me for some time and report to me about what happens), that just to look at the reality of yourself, to see directly what it is to be, over time, clears up all the confusion, puts an end to all suffering, and puts an end to all striving and stupidity whatsoever.

There is a word I haven't used for a long time, but I am going to use it here with you guys today. I actually have spent quite a number of years avoiding this word, and just recently I have come to see that it is what we are about here. What I am here for is to bring you to enlightenment; not the ideas about enlightenment that have taken hold of the spiritual community, by which I mean the probably hundreds of millions of people who are seeking enlightenment, seeking some transformation, seeking some transcendence, seeking nirvana, seeking eternal bliss. Here, we are about the reality of enlightenment, which is just to bring the light of reality to bear on all beliefs as to what I am.

It is my experience that what those who have been talking to us about reality over the last 3 or 4,000 years have been telling us is actually the case. It really is true that the only problem that we have is a false belief about what we are. And, in some circles, that is called misidentification; in some other circles, it is called ego identification, and God knows what else it might be called. But, fundamentally, it is a false belief about what I am. If I believe myself to be a pillow on the floor, and I put my whole energy and my life's blood into making sure that that pillow on the floor is the way it ought to be, and it stubbornly refuses to do what I want it to do, then I am going to suffer. And I am going to be filled with frustration, anger and torment, and all the rest of the things that comprise human suffering.  If I believe myself to be a character in a television drama, and I have this deep conviction that that is what I am, and that character refuses steadfastly and stubbornly to do what I want to do, to think what I want to think, to desire what I want to desire, to be what I want to be, then I am going to suffer.  I am not going to like it.  I am going to be really unhappy with the way things are going, because that is me and it is not doing what it ought to do.  It is not being what it ought to be. 

Let me digress a little. I was brought up a Christian. I was born and raised in New Jersey, and I spent most of my formative years with my grandmother, who was a Pentecostal Christian. Pentecostal Christians are an extremely ecstatic form of Christian practice. All of my earlier life was Christian.  The thing that characterizes a certain realm of spiritual teaching and spiritual practice is the seeking after salvation, and redemption from sin. That is true of the Christians, the Muslims, the Jews, and many of the Buddhist sects.  It is true of pretty much any deistic religion. The basic goal of the religious practice is redemption or salvation. It is not transformation, since we are, after all, sinners.  We are born sinners, we remain sinners, and we are only saved by the grace of God.  That is the essential insight of the religious impulse.

Then, when I was 51, I was in prison, and I learned of another realm of spiritual aspiration, the realm of enlightenment, in which what is sought after is enlightenment, transformation and transcendence, rather than salvation and redemption. And what underlies this entire realm is the insight that the cause of our suffering is not our sinful nature, but a mistake in our fundamental understanding of what we are. The insight that underlies the religious realm is the insight that it is our sinful nature that is the cause of our suffering and misery, and therefore we have no hope other than to throw ourselves to the mercy of God. That is completely okay, it is really no problem. Neither is it any problem in the enlightenment realm to seek after transformation and transcendence. But so far as I can see, in the 4,000 years that we have been doing this, it has had little success.

In my view, we really haven't paid attention to what those who have brought us the insights of enlightenment have told us. They have told us: a) our only problem is a false belief about what we are; and b) there is nothing whatsoever we can do about the way our lives unfold. It is all out of our hands, just as the characteristics of that pillow are out of my hands. Anything we do to try to transform ourselves, to try to change ourselves, to try to make ourselves more like what we imagine an enlightened being might be, is a waste of our time. It is really not a problem, anymore than any of the other stupidities we engage in. It is just kind of a waste of our time, and it doesn't help us at all.

The only thing that is of any value whatsoever is to rid ourselves of the burden of this false belief that we are our lives. And this is such a radical suggestion, that we hear it and it kind of goes right by us. I hear, “The problem is a false belief that I am my life,” and I think, Wow, if that is a false belief, it is a powerful one, for sure. What else can I be, if I am not my life? What else is of any consequence or importance, if it is not the things that come and go in my life as my life? What else can there be that is the problem, other than the thoughts that I think, the desires that I follow, the opinions that I hold? That is all there is of me: this life. And if I think bad thoughts, then I ought to try and do something about that, because that is all I can do. I ought to try to do something about the negative thoughts I have, by looking at them, meeting them, embracing them, resisting them. There are lots of different techniques. And I ought to do something about the bad desires that I have, such as the desire for money, or fame, or any of those things that we all know are sinful. If I can purify my thoughts and my desires, I will be Buddha-like, and all that will remain will be clarity, open-heartedness and empty consciousness. If I can stop resisting, if I can accept everything that comes, if I can learn to do that, then I will be Buddha-like. All things flow through me. All things are welcome. Nothing is resisted.  Nothing needs to be gotten rid of.  On the other hand, if I fail to do that, this life just is what it is: unsatisfactory, frustrating, full of torment and suffering.

Things such as the rising of interest in esoteric, spiritual thought and enlightenment teachings, rather than redemption teachings, have cycles to them. They come and they go. Back in the 1920's, when Krishnamurti was brought over here from India, the Theosophical Society was big, and everybody was all pumped up about enlightenment. There was this huge wave of interest in enlightenment ideas, and enlightenment practices, which then kind of ebbed. And the energy drained out of it when people discovered that, no matter how hard they worked on these practices of doing something to make themselves more accepting, open, and empty, they remained filled with bad thoughts, and with the deep desire to rid themselves of these thoughts. So, the energy and interest in enlightenment teachings kind of ebbed. The same happens in the religious realm. There are times when there is a great revival, and a great interest uprising in the teachings of redemption, and then things keep on still going the way they go.  We still remain the sinners that we are, doomed to eternal damnation, and the interest in those things ebbs and goes away.

Now, we are in another period of the rising tide of enlightenment ideas, teachings and practices. And it is as if we have never heard these things before. It is as if they were brand new, just dropped from the sky. We latch onto them, and we fall in love with them, and we practice the practices of mindfulness, watching the breath, witnessing, detachment, acceptance, and surrender. And we do all of those things, seeking to transform our lives, our minds, our thoughts, our prayers, and our ideas into something that is acceptable to God. I guess, in the end, it always comes back to that.

When I was a child, then a young man, and for most of my adult years, throughout all of my adventures, it was really obvious to me that everybody in the world was real, except me.  There was a great secret afoot in the world that everybody knew, except me. That was obvious to me. Everybody was kind of living their lives, right? They were in their lives; they were a part of their lives. They might be happy or unhappy, angry or sad, but they were embodied.  Everybody was real, but me.

Then, I heard about the enlightenment teachings, and I read everything there was. I read everything I could get my hands on: the sutras, the Upanishads, the shastras, and the hymns. As I read those texts, it was obvious to me that everything that they were saying by way of description of reality was what I had always known to be the case. It was really clear, from the first time the Buddhists came into the prison where I was and started going through the teachings. At that time, they were going through the teachings of the Twelve Steps of Conditioned Arising, and I could recognize that everything that was said was an accurate description of reality, and it absolutely conformed to my way of seeing things. And I knew them to be true. But I knew too, just like before, that there must be a secret in this, and I was the only one that wasn't told. Because everybody knew that to be true; I knew that to be true, and it didn't help. I was still the same miserable being, now wanting enlightenment above all things else, and not getting it. But now, I was filled with a fiery furnace of wanting. I already knew it all; so, I must be missing something. We wouldn't be talking about this for 4,000 years if this wasn't a secret, right?

Well, here is the secret: none of the descriptions of reality are of any use to us, except for entertainment. None of the ideas about how the enlightened being should be are of any use to us, except as entertainment—and a kind of whip to make us suffer even more. Here is the real secret, the only secret there is (it has been called the "open secret"): We are not what we think we are. We are not our lives alone. But there is no way on earth that you can be persuaded that you are not your life alone. Even if I were a great preacher, filled with the power of spirit, nothing I say could possibly persuade you that you are not your life alone. Nothing that you read could possibly persuade you that you are not your life.  You might be able to accept it as an intellectual point, but nothing that can be said, read, written or announced can rid you of the underlying belief that all you are is your life.

There is no way that something that occurs within your life (some complex of thoughts or emotional experiences) can rid you of the idea that you are your life alone. If that is true, the only thing that can possibly destroy that belief is the truth, the reality of what you are. No matter how you may despise or love your life, nothing can rid you of the idea that it is you, except the reality of what you are. Not a description of what you are, because the descriptions of what you are, well, they are part of your mind. They are part of what forms the shape of you, as a mind. Not a definition of what you are, for the same reason. But the direct, unmediated, immediate seeing of yourself, face to face. 

That is Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry. Ramana had no interest in matters spiritual either, although he was happy to talk to people about them, up to the point when he asked, For whom is all of this relevant? Ramana had no interest in spiritual descriptions. He had interest in only one thing: persuading you to find out what you are. Now, there is a whole ocean of ideas about enlightenment and what it entails, what happens, and what it means, and what the event is—as if it were an event.

Enlightenment is not an event. Enlightenment is much simpler than that, and it is just shining light, so as to reveal what is real. It is just the revealing of what is real. It is nothing other than that. The enlightenment that is the outcome of self-enquiry is gradual. It is like the sun that does away with the fog in the morning. It can be a very gradual process from deep fog to clear skies, in such a way that you really don't know at what point there is no fog left. This is the enlightenment that is the outcome of self-enquiry. It is the gradual eroding away of the deeply-held, unseen, unconscious belief that you are your life alone.

The outcome of this in your life is that the deeply-held, unconscious conviction that you are at stake in what happens in your life vanishes over time, like the fog in the sun, but not in a way that can be understood, tracked or explained. And, in the absence of the belief that you are at stake in your life, what is revealed is that your life is sweet and easy, just as it is.  And then, you see how useless your efforts to seek happiness and to do something about your life have been. And then, you see how useless it is the misery that you have suffered as a result of seeing that you are not what you should be in your life. And this isn't like a dramatic reversal, in which one moment you are caught in this contraction, and the next moment, "Oh my God! I see everything is okay." But I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that if you will, whenever it occurs to you to do so, look with all of your heart to see directly the reality of what you are, the fog of the belief that you are what you are not will vanish, over time. I promise you.
 
There is nothing that needs to be done about any of it. No one is harmed by your negative thoughts or your stupidity. No one is harmed by your desiring that which you should not desire. No one is helped by your positive thoughts. No one is helped by your lack of resistance and your acceptance of what comes. No one is helped by any of the good practices that you might undertake in order to make yourself a better person. It doesn't mean that you should give up those practices, either the good ones or the bad ones, quite the contrary. It means that they are irrelevant and they have no effect whatsoever on you.

The only thing about your life that is of any importance is that, as your life, you are the eyes and ears of consciousness. You are the way in which consciousness sees itself, in all of its glory—negative thoughts, positive thoughts, stupidity, brilliance, selfishness, selflessness, compassion, hatred.

There is nothing particularly difficult in finding yourself. How could there be? You are here. You are never absent. Thoughts are here today and gone tomorrow. Today you want one thing, and the next day you want the opposite thing. These things are fickle; they come and go. Even individual consciousness comes and goes. Here you are, in the waking state, and later on tonight, you will be in the dream state, and some other time you will be sound asleep with no noticeable states at all. But the reality of you is never absent. So how hard can it be to see that?

This is one of the great teachings of the Buddha. We hear a lot about what the Buddha said, but this is what he said that is of the greatest practical importance: "Turn your mind from things that are not permanent." This is another way of saying, "Turn your mind to what is permanent." In those moments when you are seeking to get a look at yourself, look for nothing other than what is permanent. You don't have to do this all the time. You can rest your mind on impermanence as much as you want, but in those moments when you turn to see what you are, look for what is permanent.

It is really that simple. You are permanent. You have always been here. You cannot deny that. No power on earth can persuade you that you are not here. What is the source of that certainty? That is what you look for. But, mostly, if you just see that all you are looking for is you, that will take you there. You will go off on all kinds of side trips but, in the end, if you stick to the determination to see yourself, it will take you there. Do that again, and again, and again. Do that as often as you can.

Lately, I have taken to calling self-inquiry medicine. I really like that metaphor, because the truth of self-inquiry is that it is not spiritual. I can teach you how to practice mindfulness. I can teach you how to watch your breath. I can teach you how to watch your thoughts. I can teach you to turn around your negative thoughts and see what they are. I can teach you how to do pranayama and attain cessation of breath. I can teach you how to practice meditation techniques that empty the mind and rid you of thought. Those are all spiritual practices, and they are okay. They are not going to do you any good, but they are okay; they cannot hurt you, either. 
Self-inquiry is not a spiritual practice. It is much more like medicine. We suffer from this disease, which is the belief that we are our lives. That is the claim, and the diagnosis. You can argue with that, you can agree with that, you can do whatever you want with that, but that is the diagnosis.  We suffer from the disease that is the belief that we are our lives, and the cure is the medicine of truth—which is self-inquiry. The medicine is like an antibiotic that you take in order to rid yourself of infection. You don't know what is happening when you take an antibiotic. You don't know what is going on in the body, which eventually results in the eradication of the infection. If you do know, you don't pay attention to it. When you are taking the antibiotics, you just take the pill. You just take it again, and again, and over the course of the prescription, the fever lessens, the infection begins to disappear, and finally, at some point (you can never say exactly when it happened), the infection is gone and you are restored to health.

The same happens with self-inquiry.  It is a medicine whose purpose is to rid you of the belief that you are your life. If you take this medicine, I promise you from my heart, that belief will be destroyed.  Not today, maybe not tomorrow. God knows how long it will take, but it will be destroyed. And if you take the medicine, it doesn't matter that even within a moment of taking it, you are off thinking about how stupid this is, or how you really are your life, or what does this mean, or it doesn't make any sense. None of that matters. If you take the medicine, it will do its job. Just as if you take antibiotics, it doesn't matter whether you say this is stupid or this thing can't do anything. If you take the medicine, the belief that you are your life will vanish, over time.

This is all there is to enlightenment: the eradication of that false belief. And that is why I am here. That is the only reason I go anywhere. I know in some venues it is said that the awakened being really doesn't have any interest in whether you are awake or not. I mean, you are awake. What does suffering matter? Why should I care?  But it is my experience that we are all in this together. There is truly not two. And as long as this false belief persists anywhere in this reality, it persists for all of us. As long as anyone believes themselves to be bound, no one is truly free. So here I am. I have one desire in this life, and that is to persuade you to take this medicine: to look to see what you are, as often as you can, as often as it occurs to you to do so. And when it occurs to you to do so, do it. Whether it is for a 10th of a second, or 10 minutes, or 10 years, do it with your whole heart. Look for nothing else but the reality of what you are.

If you want to talk about this with me, just let me know and you can come up here.

Hey, John.

Hi.

I do self-inquiry just as you are describing it, and I guess you are using different words for it such as "tasting yourself," "seeing yourself directly."  I set aside time to do it, and I guess it is different from meditation practices, where one would follow the breath or do different concentrative practices. I want to get a little clarification.

That's good.  I did it as a practice, when I finally abandoned my allegiance to these neo-advaita ideas about effortlessness, and not doing a practice, and so forth.

It's just a little confusing. I guess it's mainly because of the challenges inherent in talking about it. You say things such as "a practice can't help and it can't hurt."

When I talk about the practices that can't help and can't hurt, I mean the practices that try to change your mind, the practices that seek to change the way in which this life unfolds.

But you also included the practice of witnessing, which to me seems very close to this that you describe.

It seems close, but it really isn't. From what I understand about witnessing, it is the practice of taking on the point of view of the non-involved, detached witness. But the enactment of that practice is witnessed by you. The only way it is possible to report on that is because you see it.  So, the trying to adopt this viewpoint of the witness is still turning around this central idea that I am this life and this mind, and what is required here is for me to become the detached, dispassionate witness only.  It is okay. However, this practice will not bring you to a direct meeting with yourself. You are the one who is seeing all of this witnessing that is going on. You are the awareness of the witnessing. You are the source of that. You are the source of the impulse to do this practice.  You are not a witness that is here today and gone tomorrow. You are here always. So, the practice of self-inquiry is, in all cases whatsoever, to look for the subject: Okay, here I am, in the state of witnessing. Who sees that?

It is a little bit confusing to me, but it just seems similar, and I never saw it as a "state of witnessing." Right now, I am noticing what is happening, and I am tasting myself. I am now engaged in the practice of witnessing.

But that is exactly my point. Right now, you observe what is happening. In fact, what is happening happens only as a result of your observation.  The practice of self-inquiry is intended to bring you face to face directly with yourself, maybe just for a second. It is not in order to produce a new understanding, but just to bring you face to face with yourself.  That is why I say, See yourself, Taste yourself, and all of that.  It is impossible to really say what it is I am trying to point you to. But you are here, right?

Would "you exist" be saying the same thing?

Yes. You are certain of your existence. What I want you to do is to see this certainty itself. What I want you to do is to see yourself, not to become a witness, and understand yourself as the witness, but to see yourself.  There have been those who call the experience of yourself the experience of "I am," right?  That is okay, too. I am reluctant to do that, because we all have an idea of what that means.

When you say, "I want you to see what you are," there is a perceptual change where there is like a slowing down, and it feels like some qualitative change takes place.

Yes, there is. That is recognizable. You may not be able to describe it, and you certainly won't be able to recall it in the way that you recall a disassociated state, or a dispassionate state. You notice it immediately. You know it immediately.

You say, "Look for what is permanent," but if there is a qualitative difference or something that I can describe later...

The qualitative difference is that direct, unmediated consciousness of what is always here.  That is what is qualitatively different. That is what changes, what comes and goes.

But it's always here, even though I might not be conscious of it.

That's right. And it is always true, even though you are not always conscious of it. The only way to determine that is to check and see. For instance, when you are in a state of extreme happiness, clarity and calmness, look and see what you are. Don't look for the calmness and the peace. Look to what you are, and see if it is any different. And when you are in a state of agitation and confusion, it will occur to you to just stop for a second, and see if it is not true that you are still here, and you are still the same.  That is how you tell if it is permanent, because you are the same, no matter what states are passing through you, or arising within you, and that is part of the efficacy of self-inquiry. It is good to set aside some time for self-inquiry but, as the practice proceeds, it will happen on its own, when you are walking on the street…

It is spreading into the rest of the time when I am not setting aside some time.

Yes, that's right. And that is to be expected. As you hinted a minute ago, it is because it is always that way. The truth is that you are always present, and you are always aware of yourself. There has never been a moment, in the entire history of your life, when you have not been aware of yourself. When you move attention into that which is impermanent, that is like magpies chasing after bright, shiny objects. This movement distracts us, and makes us forget about the reality that we are always aware of. And what happens in the practice of self-inquiry is that, over time, you are not so much distracted from this oceanic background of being.

Is it bad to have as a goal to not be distracted? The reason I set aside time to do it, is to be less distracted. Maybe I want to take more medicine, and be less distracted from that quicker.

It really doesn't matter. If you want to take more medicine, take more medicine.

Won't that result in the quicker alleviation of suffering?

Find out who suffers, before you worry about alleviating the suffering. We talk about alleviating suffering because we think that suffering is the problem. Suffering is not the problem. What is suffering, exactly? What is it that is referred to as "suffering”? Is it a pain in the body? Is it a psychological pain? Is it a resistance, confusion? What is it really? And if all of those things (physical pain, psychological pain, confusion and so forth) were going on in a character you were watching in a movie, would they cause you distress?  Would they affect you?

No. I am starting to see that. But when I set aside some time for the inquiry, the suffering dissipates.
Yes, that's right.

But why should it? I have heard you say that it wouldn't really matter, anyway.

It doesn't.

But it does dissipate.

It does. It is a mystery. What can I say? It is a mystery. The goal of the inquiry is not the alleviation of suffering. The goal of the inquiry is the eradication of the belief that you are a suffering individual, that you are your life.

That is confusing for me, because I get tied to the alleviation part. 

Of course, you do. And that is okay. That is the thing about self-inquiry being like medicine. We have been talking for a number of months now, and I remember when you first came to Santa Monica.  This is the beauty of this practice as medicine: it is okay. When you think you are taking it for the right reason, the reason you think you are taking it for has nothing to with why you are really taking it. Whether you think you are taking it for the right reason, or taking it for the wrong reason, in both cases, what you are doing is thinking that thought has anything to do with what you are doing. Do you follow me? And that is okay. Just take medicine. Just continue with what you are doing. The effect it is having is obvious.

Yes, definitely.

And you can expect that you will get caught up with being concerned with the shape of thoughts. Just take medicine. You can try to make your thoughts better, or you can stop trying to make your thoughts better. It really doesn't matter.

It was really helpful when you said before that the most important thing is the intention to see the truth, and you told us to not stress so much about the rest.

Don't stress about anything.

Okay.  Thanks, John.

You are very welcome. I'm really happy to see you.

***

I want to thank you very much for your understanding of things. I heard you on a podcast for the first time about a month or so ago, and it was like a lightning bolt. It was amazing. Ever since then, everything has been shit.

Now, there is a real recommendation for anybody listening. That is an endorsement, right?

Absolutely, it is.  First I went through several weeks of so much anger, that I just was exploding all of the time, and I was swearing in my sleep. Everything was so angry. I was just pissed about everything. That has passed, and now I am into sadness and apathy. And there is this part of me that is wondering, Am I doing this right? Is this what is supposed to be happening, or is this just my experience? Is it going to go away? Because I feel right now that I don't care about anything, I don't care to be anything or to do anything, or to say anything, or to go anywhere. I mean, everything is just fine. But then, there are these waves of sadness. I think maybe it was my belief that I was going to be different, that I was going to see life, and everything was just going to clear up and I was just going to be in a state...

Despite the fact that all the great beings have always told us that nothing really changes.

Nothing has changed, and everything has changed.

I can try to explain something, although my explanations are, of course, entirely absurd. Believe me, I am very familiar with the craziness that can ensue, seemingly as a result of self-inquiry. All of your life, you have been gripped by the conviction that you are your life, your thoughts, your emotions, and your desires. And all of this lifetime, you have acquired an enormous body of understanding about what thoughts are good, and what thoughts are bad; what desires are good and what desires are bad; what feelings are good and what feelings are bad. And it appears that you have acquired great skill at clinging to the good and resisting the bad. 

Most of our resistance takes the form of denial, of turning away from. And, of course, all of this is your opinion of what is good and what is bad. What you think people should think, and what you think you should think. Most of your time in this life has been spent clinging to what you think is good about you, and resisting what you think is bad about you. In these lives, these are the only two things that we can do: we can cling and we can resist. "I want this and I don't want that." And you have seen your life through the lens of this mechanism of clinging and resisting. You are willing to see the good things, and you are unwilling to see the bad things, and what you see in this life is seen through this distorted lens of clinging and resisting, which results from the conviction that you are this life. Self-inquiry begins to destroy that conviction immediately. It doesn't finish it immediately, but it begins to destroy it immediately and, as that conviction begins to be destroyed, the skill with which you have ground the lens of seeing this life, so that you see what you think is good, and don't see what you think is bad, also begins to be destroyed.

Now, you have no control over the things you have seen which seem to be the worst. Of course, you never had any control, except for the choice not to look at them. But you have no control over seeing them, and here they are, in your face. And the things that you think were so good, when you see them as they are, maybe they aren’t so good, after all. And this is why these stories are woven about demons and stuff like that. There is some usefulness to these stories. You should be warned that when you practice self-inquiry, the demons will come, and the demons are your growing inability to filter what you see in this life, and how you believe this life should be.

You talk about apathy. Apathy is an opinion that you hold about something that you think is happening in this life. The truth is that you don't care at all what thoughts come and go. You don't care at all what desires come and go and, in the absence of that caring, all of the steam is taken away from you. And just as it has always been the case, one moment you think this, the next moment you think that. One moment you want this, and the next moment you want that. What vanishes is the idea, "Right, that's what I should want,” and “No, I'm not going to want that." That's what vanishes. Then, it is a mystery that somehow, in the absence of your interference, the life kind of eases off.

One of the things that is big in spiritual circles is the talk of unconditional love. And, of course, since we believe ourselves to be these lives, the only love we know is this selfish, lustful, grasping, greedy wanting and neediness, no matter how we pretty it up. That is the only love we know. But you are love without condition, which means that you don't care about anything. And that means that you really don't care about anything that comes and goes within you. You seek to destroy nothing, and you seek to hold on to nothing. That isn't something for you to become. That is what you have always been and that is what self-inquiry reveals. So, don't be surprised about anything that you begin to see about this life that you have managed to snuff in the past. Don't be surprised about anything that you may see in this life, of all the things that you thought were really good about you. Just see what you are.

That is actually the first thing that happened. That just felt like such a relief, when you said there is nothing at stake. 

That's great. I am really happy to hear that.

The attachment to being right is just gone. 

That's great news.

Thank you.

Okay. I think we are probably going to take a lunch break now. When we come back, I am going to talk less, if we are at all lucky. What I really want is to hear from you. I want to hear your reports. I also want to hear your arguments, your confusion, and your disbelief. I really want to hear that, more than your endorsements, although I am always happy to hear endorsements.

As always, I am your servant, and I am really happy to be so. I am your servant. I love you all. Thank you for this meeting.

© 2007 John Sherman. All rights reserved.

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