Anonymous Feedback

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Date	Message Content	Responses
02/17/2010	Apologies for so rudely interrupting your meeting today. I am still trying to get the hang of the software and hardware and I mis-read the instructions. I managed to catch the last half hour. Will try again
02/18/2010	"John the path maker, Sherman the tank? It makes a nice combination."
02/18/2010	Will John ever come visit us back in Colorado? Unfortunately I had no idea that he was living just miles from me at one time. How nice it would have been to known him then
02/18/2010	.I am concerned that John's statement 'This may be the last chance for humanity' is maybe a bit too strong. It almost made me give up on this but I think I am okay with it now.
02/18/2010	I am still sorting it out. Can upon John just a week or so ago. So far I am fascinated.
02/18/2010	i meant to say i was fascinated the box got away from me
02/20/2010	"i wish you would continue to post the more recent podcasts of live meetings in ojai, santa monica, etc. on your website. john. i find the way you interact directly with people present at those forums (fora?) to be even more helpful than the worldwide online meetings. although those are generally excellent, if not superb. and i love this little feedback box. great idea. i already told you once that besides your brilliant mind, and your singlemindedness about putting an end to the nonsense, your ability to be the student is what makes you for me the best teacher i have ever come across in this realm. because you are not a teacher per se."
02/21/2010	"I think you people are sick. Your ""healings"" are nothing more than pure harassment and abuse."
02/22/2010	"Your explanations are very clear and answer the most central questions for me. Yet, when I had some friends listen to your podcasts, they couldn't relate. Since I have a similar background to you in terms of exposure to various forms of spirituality, I can see how I speak the same language as you. Maybe it would be helpful if you were to imagine explaining this to a child, say, about 10 or 12 years old? How would you change your explanation? Would it be even more devoid of concepts and spiritual terminology? Your metaphors, by the way, are generally excellent."
02/24/2010	"At Santa Monica meetings, We really think you talk too much. Most of time, we fell much more benificial from Q & A between you and the students. We just love that kind of work done by you, rather than hear you say the same long opening remark over & over again. But we love you so much, we come back over and over again."
02/25/2010	"I've been listening for about three years.I don't know if I'm doing the ""looking"" right or not. I don't know if I'm happier or not. I wonder if this is just entertainment for the bored, white middle class. Having said all that,I still listen. I also strongly suspect that what you are pointing to is what I am pointed toward, which is me just as I am."
02/27/2010	i love this site its amazing.
03/05/2010	To be honest i'm not wild about the music you use at the beginning of the podcasts. The music itself is fine it's just that it gives the podcasts a kind of spiritual hue or context and I think they worked better when you just start speaking like in the old days.
03/05/2010	"just wondering why there are two separate sites, the riverganga site and the john sherman site, they pretty much cover the same stuff, would it not save money to combine them?"
03/06/2010	"i am glad to see that you have added direct links to the earlier podcasts as i worked my way backwards thru them i was initially surprised to see how far back they go, after sampling a couple i started from the first one and i am working my way up to the present i am new to John's message and it is interesting and useful to me to see how this work has evolved overtime"
03/06/2010	thank you so much for making the Open House 2/10/2010 available.
03/06/2010	"Hello, John and Carla,I live across the country and get your message via CD's and the free Podcasts. I want to thank you, profusely, for your presence in my life. Your work is invaluable. I hope to join you in your worldwide meeting, one day, but it is complicated (for me)...we shall see. :)"
03/06/2010	"Hello, John and Carla,I live across the country and get your message via CD's and the free Podcasts. I want to thank you, profusely, for your presence in my life. Your work is invaluable. I hope to join you in your worldwide meeting, one day, but it is complicated (for me)...we shall see. :) I really like your most recent expressions of ""discovering oneself"" over ""looking for ones self"". It just makes it a little more clearer. It is a discovery, indeed!:) Also, saying that there is a feeling of ""something is wrong"" rather than there is a ""fear, being at stake"", etc. I often feel that there is ""something wrong"" (although that is growing fainter).I don't always relate to ""fear"" in my daily routine. I'm sure it is there, but it feels more like something is wrong. Oh well, this is just my thoughts. I know you have continually clarified over the years. My husband Roger and I met you way back in 2005. Much has changed in your approach since then! Your relating to us from the ""spiritual"" arena has changed dramatically! Your more practical ""hands on""...of this earth' approach is refreshing...very tangible. I thank you for you! And, thank you Carla, for being the giant motor behind 'the works'. Lol"
03/06/2010	"John I am writing to you from Danmark. My wife and I listen to all your talks, since we first discovered your website last year. I am coming to Calif. in May to Santa Cruz, in the hopes of coming to one of your workshops. If nothing is happening, I would like to sponsor one of your talks in Santa Cruz,if you have time. It is of great help to both me and my wife you consistently pull your listeners to 'look at themselves'. Occasionally doubts arise and other influences distract me. Yet as you consistently pound the same nail again and again..about looking at oneself, there is a faint glimmer I may just be able to over come my distractions and really take notice of what you skillfully point out every month. Thank you and Carla for all that you guys do."
03/23/2010	"Hi John and Carla, Thank you again for such a nice meeting on Sunday in Ojai."
03/24/2010	"Thank you, John and Carla, for a wonderful meeting this past Sunday. Let's stay in touch about a possible future meeting in Hollywood"
03/25/2010	"Typo under: Volunteer Opportunities under Community: I think you meant ""in"" instead of ""and"""" ""If you are interested and contributing your expertise and your time in any of these fields, please contact Carla at (805) 649-1600 or email volunteers@riverganga.org"""
03/25/2010	nice box ;-) It just calls oneself to write something into it ... :-))
03/26/2010	how to be involved in any task completely
03/28/2010	Thank you for posting the videos of the 2007 retreat. they have been so helpful for me!
03/30/2010	Is there a location on the website where all the podcasts are located? I want to start at the earliest and work my way forward
03/31/2010	new music is...interesting
04/02/2010	hi john i listen to your podcast egularly but not for a while because i dont have a connection for now. so i just listen to old open house that i used to record. i think that we should be able to record OH meetings because those are what helped me the most. and let those who want privacy use another nickname. i realy think that freedom of use with no frontier of any kind is the way of reality the way of trhe truth. reality has no limitation.
04/02/2010	"John and Carla, just checking in and letting you know that I have been busy with patients on online meeting days, but I am listening to the podcasts and staying up to date. Life is very interesting and many changes are in motion. Looking forward to further conversations and meeting at some point."
04/03/2010	I found your site by sheer accident
04/03/2010	"whatever i read here is not helping me looking at me more than just looking at me. other people experience distract me or bore me to death(at times). its all commentary. how does it feel to know im here. look at the certainty that i exist. what gives rise to this knowing. who is looking trough those eyes, mind, body. and then the ""i am always here cause oherwise how could i be counsciouss of this moment"" a very strong knowing which pass. the shit still is here, but not always so the only thing that is constant is me, the one who is looking, unchanged, untouched."
04/04/2010	"your messsage is GOOD and only hope it would be easier to eliminate fear, that all pervading reality of life Ithank you for your effort"
04/05/2010	"Just left webnar testing. Very good quality. I am excited about the fact that many people have indicated interest after being invited by me to attend the online meetings, but were not comfortable in using the software etc. I am particularly excited that someone can just use their phone to get on the meeting. This means no need for a computer and that I can be on the meetings anywhere. If we get the word out I predict that the number of people at the meetings will jump dramatically, and maybe John it will cause enough buzz to get you on Ophra!!! Love to you both. David"
04/07/2010	"John, I wanted to Thank You for taking the time in your life and explaining what happened to you. The idea of letting go of all the spiritiual ideas and to look ""at"" the I has helped me immensely. The message you give about realizing that you no longer have the anxiety or the ground of suffering anymore and that it dawned on you suddenly is just what I needed to hear. My ego would have me believe I had to levitate before I was ok. Keep your message simple and know that people like me are listening."
04/08/2010	My heartfelt Appreciation to you John and your unique expression :)
04/08/2010	How can anyone be free?
04/08/2010	THANK YOU so much!!! Seeing the Open Meeting in Santa Monica posted really makes my day! I am so happy and I am so looking forward to listening :)
04/12/2010	"I woke today with a pervasive sense of yeuch! - a sense of something wrong - something unaligned - discordant. I didn't trust the thoughts and sense of self that associated with it as a basis to act from, so I rested from acting and abide as willingness for discovery or revelation of 'Life' before thought; for an appreciation and recognition that gracefully is found whenever I rest the mind. My partner and lover in life and in Spirit loves - and the loving is an undefendedness - a receptivity that embraces in freedom. Such a love reflected the place that my own sense of yeuch had 'covered over' and allowed the light to rise that doesn't really come or go - but which my habits of thought and desire obscure from time to time. What is the nature of the light? Let it speak its own to its own - but in this little box I will type 'conscious gratitude'. How deep is gratitude? - why it has no bottom. I cannot speak of the heart of God but that the head trips into itself. But in gratitude I can write as the flow discovers - and trust that between the lines is the space that vibrates Alive. I am glad for your company - grateful for your company. All of the teachings are nonsense - but in the love that keeps nothing for itself all is aligned to unified purpose - that truth knows Itself. In such a light, is nowhere a thought of I - or other - identified In exclusion or guilt. Yes the thinking mind seems to 'try' to get back in - but that is residual desire for experience on terms of me being special; to possess or create my experience. So as I notice the discord, or the desire to be special or the symptoms of conflictedness - I stop to discover the original awareness in unconflicted inclusive experience that is being all that is - right where I thought I was as I thought I was. Do I want to let truth be All That Is - as it is? Well in truth - yes, this is the desire of the heart - and the only peace to be truly shared. The voice of thinking suggests all sorts of variations upon a theme that in one way of another get me to think some more - if I listen and validate them. This would be ok except the habit runs deep in me to identify with discord as self or other guilt, rather than as an alarm that reminds me unreality is in play. The grace of noticing is a 'rising' of truth from beneath the attention that expresses a sense of I. I love you. Even in the realms of I and you. Such is the confession that rises and overflows in the expression of truth. If I still have to think - then let thought serve the heart. If I still have to think apart - let the noticing serve the heart. The welcome we give ourselves undoes the rejection we believed active and effective in our experience. The aligned self, expressing unified being, extends welcome to its own. Thankyou John Sherman, for your welcome. In Love's blessing .."
04/13/2010	"John, I am translating transcriptions of your meetings in alive and online talks just to everybody I can. Vichara seem to be working just for everybody as it is for me (I am a very hard case, but even for such as me it does miraclously somehow which is just astonishing). That is so cool, to receive this reports of how it helps and to see its universality. I also made some translations into Russian text (which I intended to do back in 2007 when I first stubled upon you, and now, three years later, after a great struggle mostly because of my own spiritual understanding, well, some translations are done and hopefully more are coming). I intend to send them to Carla when some more are done, and translate some of the 2007 retreat videos into Russian, and just go on with everything I can do (I'm still in a kind of a significant struggle sometimes, lessening but yet feeling shaky) to spread your message. You may be sure that I'm really keeping your line in this work and filtering out all spirituality from it, maybe even too fierce, since I was/still am kinda quite a victim of it - 7 times of being treated in mental illness hospitals seem to be a proof of this, generally I just really try to do a word-to-word translations. I am andlessly grateful that you appeared in my life and spreading your work as wide as I can and in any way that I can seem to be the most exciting thing for me to do. Don't think I'd still be alive if I wouldn't meet you. And now, when things are somehow turning out right little by little, following my perception of things and... well, I don't know what but I definetly like it a lot. Much love to you and Carla,"
04/13/2010	Thank you for your work.
04/13/2010	Love you guys...
04/14/2010	"i am so grateful for your willingness to speak, to help this river of seekers! Thank you!"
04/14/2010	thank you John for your generosity. I am looking forward to the PDF book.
04/15/2010	"Another way to say it is, ""Be Consciousness aware of Itself."""
04/15/2010	"An email to a friend. :) ""I woke up the other morning with a familiar feeling of angst. It rises up out of 'nowhere'. I call it melancholia cuz my dad suffered from that...figure it was inherited. Anywho...I 'looked' at it, square on, not trying to get rid of it, but kept looking at it (with my mind's eye). I had to be 'steady on' because 'it' didn't want to be looked at! How odd. But then, 'in time', it dissolved! Poof! I think that 'your teacher' he is trying to describe a secret space/place that is 'holy' inside of each of us. It can have no labels because it is simply a place/space that can never be touched or named, and is not affected by our outer or inner chaos. It is SUCH a quite, ordinary, almost boring, unnoticeable, knowing, place/space. It's our 'spark/source' to life. Visiting 'there', periodically, even when one is not in pain, marks the 'spot', so to speak. It is such a nebulous, but always with us, 'feeling' and we rarely 'go there'. Maybe, fleetingly, at times! Because this space is soooo empty, it seems worthless, so we turn, once again, to the objectified, much more exciting stimulus world of 'things'... looking to fill the void. Not that this is 'bad' not at all! We just need to honor our innocence...that part of us that will eternally be untouched. Eternally ours and with no duration...the seemingly moving 'now'! I think our greatest mis-take is that when we go inside and find nothing, but a blank feeling of, well, nothing, we leave the space OR we EXPECT something!!! Our attention is diverted and sometimes, we even beat up on ourselves for not getting it...other folks seemed to!! Those fleeting micro seconds are like 'diamond dust' and will leave a trail that marks the 'spot' to peace/joy! The more we visit, the more we drop a little more dust and familiarity/recognition 'marks the spot'. Another analogy of a subtle, and somewhat complicated, subject! While watching a movie, we watch it in 'real time' but the movie may cover fifty years of a character's lifetime. We, in the audience, are TOTALLY unaffected, but quite mesmerized, by the 'story'. We often react with tears, anger, fear, the whole gamut of emotions, but we are there, in our chair, UNTOUCHED. We may walk over to the next theater and watch another movie...different story, but completely 'lose ourselves', once again, in another plot! Why do we do this? For entertainment!! We find the good and evil alike, entertaining! What a trip!!!! If we continue going from movie to movie and never stop to say, hey, I am here, I am real. ..not a movie character, we continue in the trance. Ultimately, I am not touched by what is being played out on the screen. Gosh, I 'lost' myself in the, oh, so believable, in living color, movie!! I am not that character, at all, I am here now...just like I was when I was FIVE YEARS OLD, just me! I can drop all the stories and just continue to be 'me'. Many of us have lived lives that have left us with an 'angry knot' in our hearts/stomachs and we asked the big question, ""Why?! At death, memories fade...so much film falls to the floor, and we 'see' that none of it mattered cuz we are here, now, like always. True, dying, but here, here, here, always here! Fire up the projector! I have left only a light trail of diamond dust, but am realizing that the objectified world, as mesmerizing (good & evil) as it is, can be a real distraction from, well, me, here! Thank you, John, for being 'out there.' xo's I will buy your book! :)"
04/17/2010	I like the new bluesy slide guitar intro music for the podcasts! Much better than the new agey guitar stuff. Love to you both! OM
04/17/2010	Is it possible for me to respond to this letter of the month from B.?
04/17/2010	"Dear John and Carla, Thank you so much for the valuable experience of the 5-Day Intensive this week. I think what I was experiencing on the final day was what John had spoken about on day 2, the fear that accompanies the dropping of defense mechanisms and old conditioning. But when I looked at who it was that was feeling the frustration and negativity it became very obvious that it was not me. I was surprised at how clear this was to see. Please forgive me, Carla, if I embarrassed you or put you on the spot by asking you what I did. We all admire you and are curious about your meeting with John."
04/17/2010	"I enjoy listening to the recrded podcasts, but now I'd like to participate live but can't find the link to the software you refer to that I need to download. Thanks for your efforts."
04/17/2010	"human experience: instant, anonymous, no hassle."
04/17/2010	"Dear John Yes it works and you will never tell us enough the ""damage"" "" the painful detour"" done by religion, spiritual gurus, chanellers, mystics etc that all want to ""sell"" their understanding or beliefs and they all start with ""there is nothing to do"" and many books, workshops, exercises later they have developped this brain washing hypnose that finishes to convince us that ""something"" needs to be changed because ""something"" is very wrong with us.One exemple that really did it with my too long lasting crouch was the day I heard him (E Tolle) comment about the way to drink a glass of water! to gulp it down was not being in the moment, present!!!...wow! and no TV or news before going to bed etc etc etc wow!And to not think, not to beat yourself about it but...thinking made such a gilty occupation! How refreshing, quenching is your message and you are the only one who is so true to it that you work on donation! I am for ever grateful to my brother to have ""discovered"" you and shared this absolutely non-spiritual truth about our human nature and the mistake that creeps in our minds about our nature and that all these ""spiritual"" people are so happy to tap in."
04/19/2010	"Got the new book...thanks, it is very clear and simple, and profound!"
04/20/2010	"I have another little item to add and then I""ll end - promise! I am in advanced years i.e. I'm old. Hence my relatives are departing this life at regular intervals. When this happens they seem to be in the habit of visiting me and having a last say. I'm not a spiritualist and I don't go around conjuring up the departed. But it happens. I only hear voices. My oldest sister has been a regular and tends to introduce other relatives such as a younger sister, a brother, one aunt , my very reluctant father and my mother. They all sound enormously happy and no older than 30, though some died in their 90""s."
04/20/2010	"I accidentally sent the message before I'd finished. Sorry. This habit of having brief chats with the departed doesn't sit happily with your remarks about all things spiritual. I don't deliberately invite my visitors"" voices, but they speak\whether I like it or not. Recently an old friend's voice thanked me for time we had spent together. I promptly phoned the lady's daughter and learned this friend had been buried three days ago. I didn't even know she was ailing. How does all this fit in with the Vichara?"
04/20/2010	"I began looking at me and expecting huge returns. But that didn't happen, so I strayed to other ways. Nothing happened there either. So I returned to the Vichara and have stayed. It is simple but (to me) not easy. However, I look and look and look and later become aware I see things differently. Sometimes I think I've gone crazy, but it's not an unpleasant feeling. I don't stop looking at me. Some day the penny is going to drop. You guarantee it and I believe you."
04/20/2010	I like the simplicity of the Vichara. All the difficulties come from me. Here is a thought I have to disentangle or maybe I've already done that. When I look at me I AM. When I turn away I'M NOT. So what am i - a temporary illusion? Yet to know I'M NOT there must be an 'I' who knows. Hence I am always here and never not. This is why I can look at me without worrying whether I am doing it properly or not. Capito?
04/20/2010	Thank you again. And again. And again.
04/22/2010	"it's weird, john, because i can't follow at all what you're saying, but i just go into bliss listening to you"
04/22/2010	"OK, I am suddenly feeling like I have a million things to tell you. I sometimes worry that I AM BROKEN. That my mind and parts and pieces, especially the parts that are responsible for talking to people, for relating to people, for making eye contact, for communicating in any way, fore relating even fictitiously, in one's own mind, in one's own thoughts, the parts that have to do with being in the basic presence and under the basic effect of other people, etc etc etc ARE COMPLETELY BROKEN. AND that I have before and continue now to use various ways of avoiding this fact or ignoring it, and I have recruited vichara into this not very useful effort. I don't know man. It's all clearly getting worse instead of better. Over a period of years now. There was some kind of honeymoon or period of commitment to vichara for a while, a few months, but I don't know quite what happened, just as vichara snowballed, as I did it more and more, to the point that it was in the forefront of everything, it unravelled, as unraveled as I did it less and less to the background, to a fading memory, to a reluctance and a resistance to bother with it, to a sense that I had forgotten what it actually was and how to actually do it (despite clearly remembering and periodically revisiting your exquisitely sharp pointers). And then one or two resurgent bursts of re-commitment...it's like all this is cyclical, and I don't know that on the whole it's going anywhere. Anyway, I am about three years into this, it feels like a huge mess, so does my attempt at life and this person, it's all manifesting on different levels, including physically, everything is in semi-permanent half-crisis, I feel insanely isolated by all this, even though I can agree with you that at the core of all this is a problem that is fundamentally a human problem and not an idiosyncratic thing...Doubt and depression is rampant and distracting. And these moments are so subtle and weirdly, subtly upending...momentarily... I will try to do this a lot, try to remember and do this a lot, for a long time. I hope it will work. This box is brilliant. Thank you."
04/22/2010	"Lately, the thought ""I don't want to live anymore"" has reminded me to look at myself. Then, after, I am not quite sure where that complex of self-pity and resistance went. I am not quite sure if I want to figure it out. I am not quite sure if the burning issue at hand is to figure out whether I do or don't want to live, what to do about it, how to want to live, etc."
04/22/2010	"NO WHISTLE AND BELLS, NO DRAMA, TAKES GUTS TO SEE THE PLAIN TRUTH. THANKS"
04/28/2010	"So it seems the problem most spiritual teachings speak off is the false sense of self we are identified with, which in turn results in suffering. But then if this is true why is suicide not the solution?"
04/28/2010	I love you
04/29/2010	"The fear went about a month ago, on a Thursday, Thanks Frank"
05/01/2010	"I am very happy to be here. I read some posts and all this do my self recognize something that I don't know what it is.. I am going to continue to search ""where"" is it? and ""what"" is it perceive everything? Thank you. Blessings …"
05/01/2010	"Just want to say THANKS to you, John, and all those who may be supporting you to do this work... deep gratitude x"
05/03/2010	"continued: ""there it is, always humming along in the background."" You might have used this metaphor also. That's what it sometimes seem to feel like, like a quiet, un-obtrusive constant humming in the background."
05/03/2010	"I heard someone else speak about this as ""Awareness,"" as in, ""we don't notice it except when we do, and when we do, there it"
05/03/2010	"I love the title of the book and the cover design. I love seeing it periodically. It is like a physical, three-dimensional reminder."
05/03/2010	"i dont see the value in putting down spiritual teachings, if you knew about Ananda it would simply contradict what you say about how nothing works except this...looking. why try to sell it like that, i mean, it does come off like that sometimes, when you go on and on as if you've tried everything, but then mostly mention buddhism and non dual understanding, forgetting about Kriya Yoga, yes there are lots of ""kriya yoga"" but im specifically talking about kriya yoga from paramhansa yogananda's lineage. this simple message is beautiful...just let it speak for itself. it sometimes makes me question you, but w/e your message is great, just cant stand how you put down other ways/ esp on the back of your book, when you say ""enlightenmetn ensued"" when ones interpretation of that word could simply mean coming to know thyself. that whole paragraph seemed childish, and i dont relate to it at all, and most everyone from Ananda and Self-Realization Fellowship wouldnt relate, communities that have been thriving for the past 60yrs and are leading examples of how a so called ""older tradtion"" can still work and get the job done. if your going to continue to tell us that nothing else works then please ATLEAST go to www.ananda.com, visit them, or talk to someone about it. I really do feel its VERY important you learn about Ananda, and Paramhansa Yogananda ESP for the future, it could very well be a future confrontation when this grows... as they aren't just an ""older tradtion"" but one that has been rediscovered so to speak within the last 100yrs or so. I swear man, i really feel this is important, i pray you listen to this. om god bless you, i love you your teaching is awesome, but eventually your gunna have to put your food where your mouth is. there is going to be some need for a connection bewteen you and ananda, between Ramana Maharshi and Paramhansa Yogananda. They allowed them selves to be photographed side by side, and i dont think for accident."
05/03/2010	"looking at the space between the breaths, the pauses inbetween the breaths, helps me to get back in touch with myself...maybe this would be helpful for some? thank you"
05/03/2010	"What you are looking for, is what is looking.....St. Francis of Assisi"
05/03/2010	Hi John Carla. Is the new book on Amazon UK? I've looked but haven't found it yet? I see it on the usa amazon buts it's just easier from the uk branch... Much love to both Hope all is well Know it is. OM
05/03/2010	hello there :)
05/04/2010	"You once said, ""Everything I could do to try and postpone and sabotage anything happening in this life, I did."" That might be from your book. I feel like that is what I have been doing for several years. But it still worked for you in the end, so maybe me too. I'll keep at it."
05/05/2010	"you are being ignored"""
05/07/2010	how to tell a secret?
05/08/2010	"What I'd really like to see from you is short clips, aphorisms...stuff for people with short attention spans and Advaita junkies who have read and read adnauseam."
05/08/2010	"Dear John, I always had a kind of feeling for the infinite, and the sense of 'there is nothing that 'I' do. Life just happening. For about 1,5 years ago I've red 'The power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle. Since then I've seen and written a lot of this silence and gentle man. I've also practiced a lot in the feeling 'I am' of simply being present. Mooji, another great teacher, showed the same thing: just be who you are, feel the sense 'I am' - and the rest is mind stuff. Don't bother. Today I visited your beautiful website, and after seeing the retreat movie 'Look at yourself' I was deeply touched. All seemed to come together. Although I know the simple feeling of 'I am' a long time and experienced the feeling for almost all of the day, and even don't bothered emotional turbulence or thoughts anymore and although at peace, there was still a feeling of 'Is this it?' With what you said in the movie (the simple self-inquiry) it all became clear! Monitoring my progress was still an escape of life. And a few ours at seeing the movie, suddenly a grace came over me. A kind of feeling of just being. I had to lay down and my body was warm. Tears came and an serene stillness took over. It didn't feel as an experience, it was deeper then that. Something hit me with a hammer. And now, just peace, including so now and then, thoughts. No effort, just being and a kind of trust without knowing (words are just words). I didn't expect it. And then again, nothing seemed to be really changed, but with a stillness in the background. Strange enough, when people talk, it seems that wherefore I first was focused on the words, the words are kind of blur. I hear the words, but in a kind of total way. It's more like sensing or something. I thank you for your love and simple wisdom of truth. Whenever I see or listen Eckhart Tolle, the energy of pure stillness emerge in me. As he always says: 'It's deeper then the words.' Simply feel the awareness, is his teaching. I feel the same energy and love from watching you. Thank you for your wonderful gift!"
05/09/2010	"We may think ourselves familiar in this day and age / with the notion that whores of every description / can very easily achieve fame and fortune. / But towards the end of the 19th century in what came to be known in France as the belle époque, / a select group of courtesans became, for a short period, / the most celebrated and powerful women in the long history of prostitution. / There was Émilienne D'Alençon, who fancied herself as an actress, / but was better known as the woman / who'd all but bankrupted King Leopold II of Belgium. / There was Liane de Pougy, / who, when shown a million and a half francs worth of jewels / by her lover of the moment / became paralyzed with indecision. / Thus, obliging him to buy her the entire display. / She later became a nun. / There was La Belle Otero, / Spanish dancer, provoker of suicides / and lover of at least six crowned European monarchs, / whose breasts served as models / for the cupolas on the new Carlton Hotel at Cannes. / And there was Lea de Lonval."
05/09/2010	How would you address those with a very short attention span. People who have read much to much Advaita stuff. Maybe short clips on Vichara.
05/10/2010	"I find Johns message very to the point, simple, down to earth, and worthwile to listen to."
05/11/2010	"This is all just getting better and better. My favorite technical features of your work are this anonymous box (perhaps more significant than anyone realizes), hipchat, twitter, and gotomeeting as new online venue, in roughly that order."
05/11/2010	I need to get more
05/12/2010	"careful folks, maybe we all need to do a reality check, John you think your message is infalible? really? how so?"
05/12/2010	"careful folks, maybe we all need to do a reality check, John you think your message is infallible? really? how so? how is that ""anxiety guy"" doing? are you basing your assumptions on the emotional ups and downs of a mentally shaky person? somebody speak up here and talk me through this..."
05/12/2010	"Hi John, I heard you mention recently that to ""look at you"" was just a matter of turning ones attention to ""you"" the same as turning ones attention to a particular tree or activity etc. My question is,How does one turn their attention to something they don't know? It seems like if I were to say to someone ""turn your attention to a orange(but they had never seen a orange) they would have no way of turning their attention to that. I appreciate you & your teaching(sharing) I would Greatly appreciate it if you could shed some light on this. Thank You soooo much."
05/13/2010	"so after billions of souls searching for the answer, YOU John and only You have stumbled onto the answer? everyone before was has barking up the wrong tree? you got it it? all where wrong before you? You are in fallible? where have I heard this before? is you last gasp message doing psychological harm to those at the end of their rope? please answer John"
05/14/2010	"John and Carla, I just received the 2008 retreat DVD set for my birthday. It is so helpful and powerful. Thank you both for the hard work that you do to make this teaching so easily and readily available."
05/14/2010	"Reality check. At some point we are walking meat. We get up make sounds (Talk, walk, fall down and die) other meat walkers make speeches about us and then they too die and we all become forgotten. You tell us we are more than just walking meat but when the the meat falls down what happens to us! When the meat falls down do we stop too? What happens next? Is is just a hallucination? Is the meat the only real part? Did you study Eastern religions only to find dead ends and is your 'looking' another false hope? Are the winners in life those who take that they can till there is nothing more to take? We life the ultimate cosmic joke? NO MORE JUST Looking, John, give us us SOMETHING CONCRETE TO GO ON! I want to believe you are sincere but the the events of the last few weeks have left me shaken. The closure I was seeking in Florida backfired on me and your 'looking' concept has left me feeling like the Who said 'I DID FOOL MYSELF AGAIN'. Anyone got a gun so I can end my personal misery? I have sensed in some of your podcast and letters that there are others that feel the same as I do. Are you just offering us a 21st century version of cool-aid? JOHN ANSWER ME ME! SAYING THAT I STILL BELIEVE THE LIE IS NOT ENOUGH! You spent decades in jail, you discovered The Buddhist among other things, including the love a woman. You where rejected but found a life so strong that you now are happy in a happy life in beautiful California. A life most of us would kill for. What is there not to like? Walk a mile in life of misery."
05/14/2010	it is you I understand!
05/14/2010	You speak the words I hear inside!
05/14/2010	"Thank you for your eyes, nose, mouth.."
05/15/2010	"REALITY CHECK...I believe you mean well. However having spend decades in jail have you lost your mind? You were in love and then went though a year of hell. Is your 'looking' a product of a desperate mind? You studied countless spiritually teachings in the event to escape the horrors of prison. What effect could that have had on you? All of this is not so harmful except for for one thing. Many of your fan letters have the same theme. They all have the same sense of desperation and have the same sense of hopeless as mine. They are at their last gasp. They plead to you for a final hope. As if they have a gun pointed to their heads ready to to pull the trigger. Are you not the new ""COOL AID KING"" for us?. REALITY CHECK JOHN. Are you another version of Reverend Jones? Stop now before disaster takes place. PLEASE do a reality check before this goes any further."
05/16/2010	I am so happy to read of people whose friends are able to hear about the vichara and get fired up by it. Your sdpeaking John has ended the separation for me and life is fillled with ease. ANd the one thing I want to do is to tell others but everyone I know already has their own way of looking at life and nods and clearly does not hear how amazing this looking at yourself really is. keep up the good work everyone love
05/17/2010	"The bulk of the work seems to be to recognize something that is here, to override the instinct to overlook this and look elsewhere, at the next thing to be concerned about...at what this or that event means about me...what this or that exchange implies...the bulk of the work is to for a split second convince yourself that it really is THIS SIMPLE, that THIS is what you are pointing to, this is what John is emphasizing, this is what John is suggesting I ""emphasize"" with my attention...THIS...and it is such a backwards thing for the mind to do...it is so strange how simultaneously simple and how difficult this is...This is the strangest effort."
05/17/2010	"Dear John and Carla thank you so much, lot of love."
05/19/2010	"From Look at Yourself: ""When you are by yourself, especially in the beginning of the inquiry, especially in the first year or so of the inquiry, it is really easy to fall back into the habit of taking seriously all the thoughts, and all the ideas, and all the falseness, and to feel as if you are trapped, even though the truth is that if you continue the inquiry, all of that will go away. Very very true and I think not only in the first year."""
05/20/2010	Didn't you appear on a bridging heaven & earth show. Can't seem to find it on your site? Found it on youtube.
05/20/2010	impact of just looking without finding anything. The wonderful thing that there is no way to describe or find anything is true freedom. I cannot make it into a way to behave and so the ease is deeply restful and opening all by itself. So John you keep on speaking even if we take ages to get it and so can I keep trying to tell others. much appreciation for your persistance love
05/20/2010	After I said that I did not seem able to convey the message to my friends I realised that it took me a long time of listening to realise just what profound
05/20/2010	"The human mind is like a cat. It is a creature of habit and a connoisseur of comfort. It changes, but its change is patterned. I have watched a number of cats get into a set routine, a preferred napping spot, etc. Then someone forgets to leave a door open etc, and they do something else. This something else naturally becomes their new routine."
05/24/2010	Hi just found you today via gangaji on you tube. Scared that you are more of the same 'false promises' and yet with my marx notion of nothing left to lose I am willing to explore . I am going to a meeting with Gangaji in London UK next week it will be my first...i hope this is not another here we go round the mulberry bush...
05/27/2010	There is not an underlying fear of life; there is an attentiveness to survival-nothing more.
05/27/2010	The vichara causes a neurological event which in turn creates a new delusional reality: Fact
05/29/2010	I was release from a NJ prison in January and would like to attend the next open meeting with John Sherman in Ojai. I can now drive to Ojai. If there is one scheduled now that doesn't appear on the calendar please let me know.	Thank you for your message. All the meetings that we have scheduled so far are on our online schedule: The next event here in Ojai will be an all-afternoon event on July 18: http://www.riverganga.org/events/07-10-afternoon.shtml
05/29/2010	I find your message extreemley type of frustrating and annoyong
05/29/2010	you cant follow what is he is saying to you but you go into bliss listening to him?
06/02/2010	The Vichara Poem by V. is a beautiful poem.
06/03/2010	Your new book is amazing!
06/03/2010	"I wish...I could read more anonymous feedback since April 26... This is an interesting appendage to the ""vichara conversation""...us getting to post and also read each others comments about all this… "	Here you are, wish come true. The only thing that makes these updates take so long to appear is the time it takes to extract the new messages from the emails, and then edit the webpage you are reading now to include them. (To say nothing of writing responses, which is a new thing I've started, hoping to be helpful.
06/03/2010	"Sometimes, in the quiet interlude that either is or that is the effect of this looking, a bizarre physiological/energetic process from, I think, years ago tries for the 999th time to complete, and I am distracted, first from the looking, and then from this odd process, and everything is covered over again in a kind of dynamic ""equilibrium,"" a kind of subtly aching, sore, never quite healed scar tissue - simply put, the average, ""abnormal"" (as in unhealthy and unnecessary) but by now expected state of diffused tension. My misery seems directly correlated with this near-permanent tensile state, evenly diffused throughout my muscular and nervous system (except in the pauses, when it tries to explode, abortively). I am not quite sure what my point is (in the sense of this being relevant to vichara or your work), which is one of the reasons I am sending this anonymously. It is just a fact here, and it feels supremely, intimately relevant... And I guess it is this feeling of relevancy, portent, at stakeness which you would say is the REAL misery, and it is this and only this that is the problem and the suffering, and it is this and only this that the looking will do away with, eventually - or something like that anyway. I hope so."
06/03/2010	I missed seeing that the open house meeting had changed times so I missed today but I am so thrilled that you have made this change so I now can tune in here in western Australia see you in two weeks.
06/06/2010	I LOVE YOU !!!!! ALL!!!
06/09/2010	"I have an outdated, apparently, mac computer (after less than five years!). I can no longer join in WWMeetings; but I still listen to the podcasts. I'm wondering if the open house meetings--which I find also unavailable on my computer--or some of them, might be made available for listening on the website or podcast."	We're looking into this. We have always promised people that recordings of Open House meetings will not end up on the web in order to promote a meeting place where people can feel free to speak their minds. We have put recordings of one or two Open House meetings on the web because one or more of the participants felt it the meeting could be of value to have it available widely, and only after getting permission from all the the participants. It is true that these meetings often produce good results, and that many might benefit from their availability, but we are reluctant to begin. We'll see.