For a long time, I had no idea how to say what was so apparent to me. I had no clear sense of what the purpose or the result of the movement into the vichara actually consisted in. I could make no sense of the current opinion that the goal of all striving is the eradication of the sense of self-awareness, of the feeling of being separate and conscious of my own existence. It seemed to me that it was crazy talk and contradictory, and it made no sense. What I did know was that, as a result of actually trying to do what I could manage to understand about what Ramana was asking me to do — without confusing myself with his opinion about the reasons for doing it, and the results of its being done — the fear left and the reality of the wonder of life, the wonder of vichara gradually revealed itself, and it continues to reveal itself over time. When I started speaking about these matters, which was back in 1999, my expression was encumbered, and weighted down and burdened by the idiom in which I had stumbled upon my actual nature — and in so doing had seen the eradication of the fear. The only things I had to go on, in my effort to say something true and clear and helpful to people about what had occurred in my own life and in my own consciousness, all I could resort to was the idiom in which that had occurred. The tropes, figures of speech, metaphors, analogies, understandings and underlying viewpoints that were available to me at the time. It is the same with me as it was with Ramana. It is the same with me as it has been with anybody else who stumbles upon their actual nature. I tried with all my heart to say something clear and true, but I could not find any way to speak about it except the way that everybody else was speaking about it.
Audio Clip from an Open House with John Sherman broadcast live from Ojai, California on June 10, 2009.
MP3 File
Length: 40 min
File size: 9.6 MB
