I don't see that there is any such thing as "spiritual." The practices that we undertake to get rich, or to get famous, or to get love, or to get rid of what I don't like about me, and hold on to what I do like about me, or get experiences of spiritual ecstasy, or get enlightened, or quiet the mind, or sweeten the body, all of those things are in the same kind of boat. They are all things that I do to try to make myself acceptable to myself. They are okay, there isn't anything wrong with any of them. There is nothing wrong with spiritual meditative practices, there is nothing wrong with yoga, there is nothing wrong with trying to get rich, there is nothing wrong with any of it. It just doesn't solve the only real problem.

Because there really is a problem, a shortcoming, a sense of a false promise that afflicts us as human beings, and no matter what practices we engage in, this sense of life as a false promise, of things falling short, remains in the background. Sometimes it is very big, and I am filled with longing, and yearning, heartache, and heartbreak for the horror of being born human and not being able to break free of human limitation. Sometimes it is quiet, and just a little nagging hum in the background. But it is always here, and we know by now -- we have been trying this for thousand of years -- that nothing that we do to try to fix our lives has any effect whatsoever on that underlying problem.

Live recording of a Meeting with John Sherman in Boulder, Colorado on June 28, 2007.

Length: 89 min. File size: 21.38 Mb





MP3 File