RiverGanga Foundation

Je Hoeft Nergens Mee te Stoppen

Uittreksel van een bijeenkomst met John Sherman in Ojai, Californië op 7 oktober 2006.


 
Het is moeilijk om het idee los te laten dat je door spiritueel bezig te zijn, beter zou kunnen worden of slimmer, helderder, kalmer, liefdevoller of meelevender. Het is erg moeilijk te geloven dat het voornaamste doel in het leven neerkomt op het bewust kennen van de waarheid over je aard, terwijl geen enkele activiteit die je onderneemt om jezelf te verbeteren, verband houdt met dat diepere doel.

Misschien is dat wel de reden dat velen, die zich bezighouden met spirituele zaken, van mening zijn, dat iemand eerst moet stoppen met trachten zijn verhaal op orde te brengen, voordat enige vooruitgang kan worden geboekt met dieper en belangrijker spiritueel werk. 

Het zelfonderzoek van Ramana Maharshi is wat dat betreft veel eenvoudiger. Het maakt  werkelijk niets uit of je al of niet stopt met het uitwerken van je eigen verhaal. Je mag er net zo lang mee doorgaan als je zelf wilt, je mag doorgaan met telkens high te worden en het is prima net zoveel verlichting te zoeken als je wilt, het maakt allemaal niets uit. Al die activiteiten hebben bewezen dat ze in het verleden niet hielpen en ze zullen dat in het heden ook niet doen, laat staan dat ze in de toekomst soelaas zullen bieden. Ze kunnen je niet geven waarnaar je zo naarstig op zoek bent, noch kunnen ze je afhouden van de ontdekking van die waarheid. Ze helpen je echt niet, maar doen ook geen enkel kwaad.
 
Het enige dat het zelfonderzoek van Ramana Maharshi je in overweging geeft, is dat het mogelijk is — in het hier en nu, op dit moment — te weten wat je bent. In feite is het onmogelijk om niet te weten wat je bent. Het is mogelijk te ontkennen dat je weet wat je bent, maar niet weten wat je bent is niet mogelijk
 
Het enige dat zelfonderzoek van je vraagt is dat je dat bewust echt wilt weten. Alles wat je daarnaast blijft doen, is ook goed. Je mag blijven liegen en bedriegen, je mag alles doen wat en zolang je wilt, wat dat kan allemaal geen kwaad. Je mag blijven proberen jezelf te verbeteren, je mag doorgaan met trachten alles te krijgen wat je verlangt en je mag je blijven proberen alles te snappen, te begrijpen en te doorgronden. Je mag er gewoon mee doorgaan en het zal je geen kwaad doen, maar helpen doet het je evenmin. Niets ervan zal enige invloed hebben op de werkzaamheid van het zelfonderzoek. Niets ervan zal de kracht van zon directe manier van onderzoek naar de werkelijkheid op enigerlei wijze verminderen.

 

Vertaling uit het Amerikaans door Jan P. Smith, Zoetermeer, Nederland.

 

© 2008 John Sherman. Enkele rechten voorbehouden.

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2010 Fundraising Progress

Your single donations and monthly pledges make up 91% of all income to the foundation. We need to raise $56,500 to finance and sustain our work over the next twelve months. 

2010 Fundraising Progress Bar

As of July 21:

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    Worldwide Online Meeting

    Saturday, September 11 at 4 pm PDT (UTC/GMT -7)

    People all over the world gather together with John for a couple of hours. John is available to listen to your questions, and to help you sort out any difficulties you might experience in your own practice of looking at yourself.

    This is very much like a call-in radio show. If you simply want to listen to the meetings, all you need to do is to install the software and have speakers attached to your computer. If you wish to speak with John, then you will need a headset with microphone. You can also use earbuds and a microphone.

    All our events are always free of charge. Spontaneous donations for the support of our work are always welcome and gratefully accepted.

    All are welcome, with no regard for religious and spiritual beliefs and practices.

     

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    A Worldwide Meeting - July 10, 2010

    My role in this adventure of trying to bring the simplicity of this work to every human being is not to concoct teachings, ways of looking at things, instructions and practices that are my creation, and then pass them on to you for you to receive gratefully, and try to make sense of. My role here is actually to distill and articulate the product of an ongoing conversation among all of us, over a period of more than ten years now, about the discovery that bringing an end to misery in a human life is actually not only possible but easy and simple, and can be done by anyone. It requires nothing at all to accomplish this except the determination to do one simple, solitary, radical act, and that is to turn the beam of your attention onto the feeling of being you. That's it. In the end, and against all odds and all expectation, this repeated act will bring sanity into your life. It will eliminate the underlying sense that life is treacherous and not to be trusted, and that something desperately needs to be done about it.

    Complete, live recording of a Worldwide Online Meeting with John Sherman broadcast live from Ojai, California on July 10, 2010.

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    Our Work

    First, last, and always, my advice is only to look at the feeling of being you, without the mediation of understanding, the need to resolve paradox, or the requirement that this looking lead to any conclusion. Simply make every effort just to look, and persist in that effort as often as you can. In this effort, understanding is irrelevant, belief is irrelevant, even duration is irrelevant — the briefest look, repeated over time, does all the work.

    A Message from John Sherman, videotaped in Ojai, California on May 15, 2009.

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    Our work is to bring the practice of looking at oneself to all who are interested.

    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.

    Although our meetings are free of charge, they are certainly not free of cost. The money needed for this work must come entirely from the generosity and compassion of those who, like us, have seen for themselves the immense worth of spreading this good news to all humanity.

    Please help provide financial support for the work of making this method more widely available in the world by making a donation or a monthly pledge in any amount now.

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    RiverGanga Foundation
    PO Box 1566
    Ojai, California 93024-1566
    Phone: (805) 649-1600
    Email: info@riverganga.org

    RiverGanga Foundation is a not-for-profit, 509(a)(2) public charitable organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code.

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