John Sherman's Podcast

Audio Recordings of Meetings with John Sherman

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Self-inquiry will not make of you anything that you are not already, but it will, over time, destroy the false belief that you are at the mercy of this body, this mind, this story, this life. That false belief is the root cause of all human suffering whatsoever.

John will show you how to apply your own inherent intelligence and innocent curiosity in the radical self-inquiry of Ramana Maharshi to see directly, in this moment, the naked reality of what you are.

The direct url for John's podcast in iTunes is:

http://www.riverganga.org/cgi-bin/Links/pl.cgi?podcast

Subscribe to John Sherman Podcast:

A Worldwide Meeting - October 4, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:33:00 +0000

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 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 this 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.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on October 4, 2008.

Length: 2 hours

File size: 29 Mb

MP3 File

Worldwide Meeting - September 20, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:29:00 +0000

One of the most difficult things about trying to communicate the nature of the vichara and its power, its practicality, and its wonder is that when we hear about it, we receive what is being said through the filters of all of our understandings, all of our defenses, all the ground that we have gained in our life and have held or failed to hold, all of our previous experience, all of the ways in which we have tried to create for ourselves a personal structure that will keep us safe and available and acceptable, just in case the fulfillment of life's promise should unexpectedly appear.

The vichara, which is sometimes called self-inquiry, has nothing to do with any spiritual practice or spiritual understanding. It is not a new version, or a new approach to add to, augment or replace all the other approaches and practices that we have so painstakingly developed and built up over our lifetime to create and maintain this personal structure that we imagine will protect us from what we imagine to be the furious, fierce danger of life.

The vichara is a way of life. The vichara is life itself.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on September 20, 2008.

Length: 1 h 27 min

File size: 21 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - September 6, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:49:00 +0000

The purpose of the vichara is to settle the issue of identity. It is not to find out what you are, but to be finished with the idea that you must find out what we are. You are, after all, identity itself. You are that which bestows identity on everything else. You are the source of identity.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on September 6, 2008.

Length: 1 h 29 min

File size: 22 Mb

MP3 File

You Are As Awake As You Will Ever Be

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:27:00 +0000

let me tell you in a nutshell
what I have to say
about this business of awakening
and enlightenment

you are
right now
in this moment
as awake as you will ever be

Live recording of the opening talk at a Meeting with John Sherman in Ojai, California on December 17, 2005.

Length: 28 min

File Size: 6.89 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - August 16, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:04:00 +0000

You need not devote every waking moment of your life to the vichara. If that were so, the vichara must fail. Only look at yourself from time to time, when it occurs to you. You will be shocked to see what comes of that.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on August 16, 2008.

Length: 2 h 03 min

File size: 30 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - August 2, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:05:00 +0000

To look at yourself, to look at yourself just once, and then again, and then again, is to move from the endless work of self-definition to the endless adventure of self-discovery. Which is the vichara.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on August 2, 2008.

Length: 1 h 28 min.

File size: 21.15 MB

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - July 19, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:47:00 +0000

The seeing of what I want to communicate is very clear. The effort resides in trying to convey it in words.

This is a two-way relationship. As I hear from you, my capacity of communicating this that I see evolves and improves.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on July 19, 2008.

Length: 1 h 39 min.

File size: 23.81 MB

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - July 5, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:09:00 +0000

The end of the effort to settle the issue of identity is the realization that your life, just as it is, as it is unfolding, as it is displaying itself, is precisely your realization. Your life is yourself made real. Not real in the philosophical sense, but real in the sense of a manifested object.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on July 5, 2008.

Length: 1 h 39 min. File size: 23.8 MB

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - June 21, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:47:00 +0000

This work is entirely about identity. There is nothing else that is of any use for us in fulfilling the natural desire to be alive, and free, and in love with life. There is nothing else that matters apart from identity. There is nothing else that gets in the way; there is no other problem, no other cause of suffering than the issue of identity. When the issue of identity is settled, all else follows.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on June 21, 2008.

Length: 1 h 35 min.

File size: 22.8 MB

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - June 7, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:35:00 +0000

Seek the sense of self. That is what the self-inquiry of Ramana Maharshi is. "Self-inquiry" is really not a good translation for what he advises. There is no inquiry to it. There is no question to it; there is no answer to it. "Who am I?" is not a question, it is a quest. It is an exploration, an adventure, it is an investigation into the bedrock reality of identity. It is the movement that will resolve the issue of identity once and for all. It is the action that will remove from you the fearfulness and anxiety that arise solely because there is operating within you the unseen, unseeable, inferential conviction that there is nothing to you but this life.

Complete, live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on June 7, 2008.

Length: 1h 33 min. File size: 22.39 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - May 24, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:38:00 +0000

How are metaphysical and philosophical questions of any use to you? How does understanding or not understanding the spiritual assertions that "you are inexistent," "there is nobody home," or "there is just being" help you bring an end to the undercurrent of fearfulness and anxiety that arises from the conviction that you are at stake in this life?

All that is ever really needed is to taste this sense of self, the feeling of being me whenever it occurs to you to do so. See if you can feel what it feels like to be here, to be you. Feel what self feels like.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on May 24, 2008.

Length: 1 h 57 min. File size: 28.13 MB

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - May 3, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:09:00 +0000

Spiritual ideas such as "resist nothing," "stop," or "call off the search" and the like are not instructions, they are simply attempts to speak of the outcome of our seeking.

What we seek is the direct taste of the sense of self, and this brings us, again and again, face-to-face with the light of reality. It is that light that does all the work.

It is that light that snuffs out the deep, unseen conviction that we are these lives, these minds, these bodies and nothing more, and that we are at stake in these lives. Then we see what is meant by all spiritual ideas.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on May 3, 2008.

Length: 2 h 8 min. File size: 30.76 MB

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - April 5, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:22:00 +0000

Once you embark upon the real effort to rid yourself of all beliefs about what you are, that effort makes the mind transparent to reality.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on April 5, 2008.

Length: 1 h 33 min. File size: 23 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - March 15, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:10:00 +0000

One of the things I want to talk about today is the role of words, of understanding and speech in the consideration of reality. I want to speak about the role of words, ideas and understanding in the arena that we call self-realization.

I remember that, when I first heard the term self-realization, I thought that was a lot better than enlightenment. It seemed to have a more esoteric and highfalutin sound to it, there seemed to be an aura of special knowledge to it. So, I invested that word with a magical component, which is what we do with words anyway. We have this inclination to think of words as the gateway to understanding, and clarity and, in the spiritual arena, as the gateway to self-realization--a state that we imagine to be outside of, apart from normal experience.

That love affair with the idea of realization did me no good. If it had any effect at all, it was to delay the day when I was done with suffering and misery once and for all.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on March 15, 2008.

Length: 1 h 27 min. File size: 20.96 MB

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - March 1, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:32:00 +0000

The idea that there is only one question is a kind of a cliche in the spiritual community. It started out as an articulation of a momentary insight that was clear, startling, and useful to people. But my sense of it is more that there are many, many questions.

There are infinite questions, but really there is only one answer. And that is the truth of it. So, for the one who is harboring a burning question about reality, or the relationship to it, or what can be done to realize freedom, and so forth, that question is unique and particular to the experience of the person who is uttering it. It is not the same question. But it is going to be the same answer.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on March 1, 2008.

Length: 1 h 11 min. File size: 17 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - February 16, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:36:00 +0000

When I say "you," I am talking to you. And you know who you are. You know what you are. I am not speaking to "ego," and I am not speaking to the "true self." I am speaking to you, to this reality of presence that hears my words; this reality of presence that is the source and the destination of all things whatsoever -- thoughts, confusions, ideas, understandings, and everything. I am speaking to you. And it is on you to know what you are.

I can't tell you what you are. It is of no use for me to tell you that there are two you's, a little you and a big you, one of which has to go, and the other of which has to be woken up. That doesn't help you at all. That is just an interpretation of the reality of which all are already constantly aware; just an interpretation of the reality that is endlessly giving rise to its own interpretations, and its own versions of a narrative about itself. That's what this whole universe is: the arising of reality's attempt to say something about itself, to see itself, to explore the infinite range of expression that is its story about itself.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on February 16, 2008.

Length: 1 h 25 min. File size: 20.3 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - February 10, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:37:00 +0000

I am reminded often, in my own mind, of the story of how Nisargadatta found his teacher, the guy said to him something to the effect of, "Just stay with the feeling 'I am' and it will take you home," then he promptly dropped dead, without providing Nisargadatta with any follow-up instruction, correction, discussion or anything else.

I don't say it quite as poetically, but I don't have not much more to say than that. What I have to say in this realm is, Look at yourself. Look at yourself as often as it occurs to you to do so. As often as you can, look at yourself. So far, I haven't dropped dead on you and left you hanging, wondering what in the world can I possibly be talking about with this look at yourself business, but really, that is all there is to what I have to offer. All the rest of it is discussion, and elaboration, and explanation, and perhaps some guidance and encouragement and reassurance... The truth is that, if you take just this one thing that I say and try with all your heart to see what it is that I am talking about, it is enough. Look at yourself as often as you can, because it is the seeing that does all the work.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on February 10, 2008.

Length: 1 h 36 min. File size: 22.9 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - January 19, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:10:00 +0000

Ramana Maharshi gave no one any encouragement to follow him in any way whatsoever. He only instructed us, consistently, and again and again, to find out for ourselves what is real, what is here, what we are. He did encourage us, and the encouragement he provided was by his own example, and by his own experience that the effort to find out for ourselves what is real would give us everything we have ever wanted. So far as I know, in all of the time that I spent reading Ramana and thinking about Ramana, he never told anybody to go out and teach in his name or in the name of his teaching either. Nor did he ever suggest that he was part of or the beginning of any lineage.

The whole essence of Ramana's offering is that there is only one thing worth doing in life, only one thing that has to be done in order that life can be seen as the wonder and the gift that it is. And that is to cut through all of the conditioning, the mental chatter and the mind's insanity and look with all your heart, trying only to see yourself.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on January 19, 2008.

Length: 1 h 31 min. File size: 21.8 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - January 5, 2008

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:21:00 +0000

Determination is a good thing. What is really required is intention. Not so much determination, but the intention, when you turn your attention looking for this ever-present reality, that it is your intention to see reality. That's all. In other words, it is not something that comes to you as a side effect of some other thing that you are doing or not doing. It is your intention in that moment, even if that moment is vanishingly small, and even if those moments are few in number over time. What is required is that, in those moments when it occurs to you to look at yourself, that you see that that is what you are doing: you are, with full intention, trying to see the reality of what you are.

Complete recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on January 5, 2008

Length: 64 min. File size: 15.3 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - December 22, 2007

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:20:00 +0000

This activity that we call self-inquiry should be so easy to speak about, and so easy to offer clearly and understandably, that just having heard it once should produce in the mind that hears it at least a curiosity about whether there is any possibility that something so simple, so easy, so direct and uncomplicated could have such profound effects on the life. It should be simple. I should be able to say something that, when you hear it, you will say, Oh right, "I want to try that. I want to see whether there is anything to this." Without it triggering in you spiritual associations, and religious understandings, and all of that. Those things are all fine, but they are 100% beside the point in self-inquiry.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on December 22, 2007.

Length: 67 min. File size: 16.8 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - December 1, 2007

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:19:00 +0000

It seems to me that one of the great problems with this practice that we got from Ramana Maharshi is its simplicity. And I mean simple, not easy. By "simple" I mean stripped of all the adornments, decorations, explanations, rationalizations, and understandings that normally come part and parcel with a spiritual practice.

Usually we engage in a spiritual practice not for the sake of the practice itself, but in order that we can transform or transcend our lives, or think more clearly, or think less, or have a better idea of what we want or what we want to be, or how we want to get there, or have a better idea that we are nothing, or feel better, have a deeper understanding, have more clarity about the world, and my life and the things around me.

Most of us, for the most part, when we engage in a spiritual practice, we do so from the stand point of a life that has absolutely revealed itself to be wholly unsatisfactory, and from the experience of which we desperately want to escape. So, when are engaging in these practices, what we are looking for is some change in our lives.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on December 1, 2007.

Length: 58 min. File size: 14 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - October 27, 2007

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:18:00 +0000

I am here to get you to stop for one moment and look at what you are. I am here to to convince you to engage yourself in a devoted investigation of what you are. The point of looking at yourself is not to learn or understand what you are, or to confirm that you are eternal love. The point is only to see the truth of what you are and, eventually, all false belief about what you are will be destroyed.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on October 27, 2007.

Length: 1 h 26 min. File size: 20 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - September 29, 2007

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:18:00 +0000

Here I am again, seeking to find some way to communicate not just to you, but to the world, how easy it is to be finished with misery and suffering in this life, right now. And, in the finishing of misery and suffering, how all the problems of the human race disappear -- really.

My goal is not to find a way to impress upon you how wonderful life is (or how sweet it is, or beautiful or how loving it is). Because that is easy. There are poets who have done that; there are musicians, and singers and songwriters that have done that; there are preachers that have done that -- and done it well. There are sutras, and shastras, and Upanishads, all kinds of spiritual utterances that have been devoted to persuading us, or describing to us, how wonderful life is; how wonderful existence is; how ubiquitous and universal is the bliss of being.

So, I don't even bother with that too much. I guess sometimes I slip into it, but that is not my purpose; that is not my work here. My purpose, and my work, is to find a way to communicate to you (and to everybody who can hear) how easy it is to be finished with the experience of misery and suffering that is really the only thing that prevents us from seeing for ourselves what a wonder existence is. And it is the easiness of it that is so difficult to convey.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on September 29, 2007.

Length: 1 h 25 min. File size: 20 Mb

MP3 File

A Worldwide Meeting - September 15, 2007

johnsherman@riverganga.org (John) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:17:00 +0000

In actual fact, it matters not whether I am effective or ineffective in communicating to you, as this mind, as this thinking entity, the essence and the purpose of self-inquiry. This is the good news. It is perfectly possible for the mind to continue in its confusion and its misunderstanding of the purpose of self-inquiry. It has no effect if the mind continues to believe that there must be something done about the life; that there must be something done about the nature of the cravings and the aversions that come and go within it. That doesn't matter. It is not true, but it doesn't matter if the mind continue to believe it is true. Because the ultimate practicality resides in the fact that all that is required is that you look at yourself, as often as you can. No matter what you think you are doing; no matter what you think you should be doing.

All that is required is that you taste the actual presence of this presence as often as you can. And it is the looking, the tasting that does the work and not anything having to do with the understanding or the confusion of the mind about why it is working, or why it is not working, or why you are doing it, or what you should be doing, or how you should be fixing yourself, or anything else. It is the looking that does the job; nothing needs to be done about the mind.

Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on September 15, 2007.

Length: 1 h 42 min. File size: 24.4 Mb

MP3 File