Wow Blazers and Profound Insight All In One Night

Last night was a very interesting evening for me for two very different reasons: one profound and one of little significance unless your interested. I start with the one of little significance to most people. I have to admit to being a big basketball fan. I grew up in the Portland area and have been a Blazer fan most of my life. It was a big night for us Blazers fans. If you know why then I don’t have to say much more. If you don’t, you haven’t missed out on much other then one really tall guy. Yes!!!

Now to the more profound part of my evening, a teacher of deeper wisdom was in town. John Sherman at RiverGanga.org is one of my favorite people to listen to because of how he teaches self-inquiry. His consciousness filled the room and his smile warmed everyone’s heart last night here in Boulder. He talks about how to find out who you are at your essence beyond the personality and life drama. He is very good at taking your deeper in your understanding. After he talked he asked if there are any questions and I raised my hand, came up and sat next to him and asked him some questions I had. There is something so powerful about sitting close to someone who is radiating this glow of self-realization. It was like I was listening to his words but felt like I was getting much more understanding from sitting there next to him. All this grace coming my direction was a wonderful experience to have.

I still feel the vibrations of last night flowing through me now as I write this. Take a moment and allow yourself to tap into this energy as you read along. You are not limited by either time or space limits from doing this. That energy from John through me is already in us at the level of consciousness where you and I are one. I know this may sound a bit out there but the truth of it can be discovered by you if you inquire into who you are.

Let me ask you a few questions and then you explore and let me know. There is in you an awareness/consciousness of you that existed before this birth and will continue after this life, who is that? Who are you that knows yourself beyond all that defines you in this life? Look into the mirror and see deeply into your eyes, who is it that is the sparkle of life and knowing inside? Words may not capture the inquiry very well but there is a part of you that knows beyond words. Can you feel or sense that?

I hope you have a little greater sense of what this self-inquiry is about? Check out John’s site for more at www.riverganga.org. and go Blazers.

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

Comments

[Ruma]

Hi Joe (May I call you that?) . . .

The following comment is an attempt to connect with others who are interested in knowing who they really are through Self-Inquiry.

I looked up John Sherman's web site before writing this, and I agree with Dr. David Hawkins (one of the foremost mystical writers of the late 20th century and still counting) that anyone can reach a state of enlightenment anywhere, any time.

That said, I, too, am doing my own practice involving Self-Inquiry - plus the writings of Dr. Richard Moss, who, just this year, published "The Mandala of Being". In this book, he talks about using Self-Inquiry as a regular practice - not with the intention of getting any sort of concrete answer about a "solid" mental construct of who we think we are, but as a way of loosening our attachment to who we THINK we are. He also deals with the question of negative emotions in a way that I've never come across before.

The "Mandala" he speaks of has to do with a large circle, a smaller circle labeled as "Now" and centered within the larger circle, with a single vertical line that intersects a single horizontal line, the word "Future" at the top of the vertical line, the word "Past" at the bottom of the vertical line, the word "Me" at one end of the horizontal line, and, finally, the word "You" at the other end of the horizontal line.

His idea is that when we "tilt" ourselves out of the Now into our "me" stories, our "you" stories, or our "past" or "future" stories, we leave the Now moment and are not present to what is available to us in the Now moment.

Moreover, to be able to transcend our moments of pain and suffering, we must learn how to consciously hold and embrace our painful emotions and know that they, too, will pass - just as a loving mother would comfort her child and allow that child to feel whatever it was feeling, rather than try to talk or beat them out of their painful feelings. This allows the child to return to its true self, and, more importantly, to honor its True Self. If said child has been prevented from feeling everything it feels, it learns that it cannot develop its real self, and it spends the rest of its life building and maintaining a Persona...unless someone or something intervenes and helps free that individual.

In truth, we ALL build personas just to be able to survive. It's that part of ourselves that is shed - or at least "worn" more lightly - when we become spiritually conscious. Eventually, the Persona is absorbed into the Higher, or Expanded Self (or whatever one chooses to call one's core being).

I have never seen anyone else address the question of how to deal with negative emotions better than Dr. Richard Moss. Having been a spiritual seeker all my life, I would really and truly enjoy meeting up with others who also find his philosophy enlightening.