This is a link to a video with a guy called John Sherman:
video.google.com/videoplay
I think that most people here who are interested in Stevens books and talks will find it interesting.
video.google.com/videoplay
I think that most people here who are interested in Stevens books and talks will find it interesting.
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Re: might be interesting
Tue, March 11, 2008 - 1:14 PMThanks for your reference to John Sherman in an earlier post. I went to his site, viewed the videos and really enjoyed them. I really appreciate how accessible he is. Apparently, that accessibility is not without some cost to him.
I was thinking on looking into the teachings of Ramana. Have you?
Karin
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Re: might be interesting
Tue, March 11, 2008 - 4:18 PM"Apparently, that accessibility is not without some cost to him."
I don't know what that means, I know the words but i still don't understand. English is not my first language. Can you write it in some other way?
I haven't looked into the teachings of Ramana, i only know what John Sherman said about it. If it is no more than "look to see" i don't need to hear it again. But it might be interesting too... It probably is.
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Re: might be interesting
Wed, March 12, 2008 - 1:27 PMSri Ramana Maharshi was an amazing person who advocated the Advaita Vedanta approach of persistently investigating the nature of the self through questioning "Who am I?". It is a very direct, very simple, yet very demanding approach.
Here are a few worthwhile resources if you're interested:
Ramana - www.arunachala-ramana.org/ ; www.realization.org/page/nam...ses_0.htm -
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Re: might be interesting
Sat, March 15, 2008 - 2:02 PMThanks for the link. After my crazy workweek, I just got time to revisit this forum; in the meanwhile, I picked up the book "Talks with Ramana Maharishi." I like his simple approach, although I could complicate anything. :) -
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Re: might be interesting
Wed, April 2, 2008 - 3:31 AMThis one is also good, about self inquiry. Reminds me of Steven when he talks about holding life as a question.
video.google.com/videoplay -
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Re: might be interesting
Wed, April 2, 2008 - 8:11 PMThanks, ylle. I watched the three parts of his satsang.
Seems boring, doesn't it? Asking the question, "Who am I?" and getting nothing, really. Doing nothing.
Over the last few months, I've had the opportunity to work as a caregiver. I take care of a woman who is in her nineties and approaching death. She's very tired and in bed all the time, although she is still aware of what's going on. She is amazing - doesn't really complain, and sometimes smiles. I just sit there with her. That seems like it would be boring (her daughter wonders why I don't turn on the TV), and I suppose it is. Yet it's very quiet and peaceful. Sacred, in a way. -
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Re: might be interesting
Thu, April 3, 2008 - 6:43 AMI don't know, I think just following thougts and spending time to make it pass can be boring in a much worse way. But I get what you mean anyway, and if I am really restless it seems like a meaningless joke to question and getting nothing. But the restlessness probably comes from the spending time to make it pass-mode, wanting badly to get out from whatever. I think it is funny (irritating) that when I am restless I don't feel like doing anything. I get very irritated with "good" advice on what to do because I don't want to do anything, I want to get out. I can do something and still be as restless because it is not about what I do, it is about if I have enough peace to stand being where I am. And the peace is to be found where I am. It is very irritating. -
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Re: might be interesting
Thu, April 3, 2008 - 7:34 PMYes, there are those times when you want to get out. I'm that way when I think I've lost something, like my car keys. I can be that way if something bad happens, like getting a pulled over by a policeman. Getting caught in a lie or deception. Ouch.
Then there are those times when something good happens, and I don't want the fun to end, but eventually it does. The last day or days of a vacation I'm thinking that it's going to end and that I have to go back to work. Being in a good mood - eventually that ends and I wonder I can't feel that way all the time.
That practice, asking "Who am I?" is the thing I have been running from all my life. I'm reminded of when I was a kid, saying, "But mom, I don't have anything to do." Except now it's "But God, I don't have anything to do. What am I supposed to do?" -
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Re: might be interesting
Fri, April 4, 2008 - 3:58 AMSomehow that possibility to look inwardly and look for myself never occurd to me on my own, not consiously anyway. Strange, because I think it is the only place that makes sence to look now that I've heard John Sherman talk about it and it occurd to me trough him. I can't ask for anyone with a more clear message about this, I think it deserves a try, what he is saying, just to look for what it is that the thoughts are refering to when they say "me".
I always thought that something needed to happen first, that I needed some understanding or clarity first. Or that I needed to be stuck in the web, pulling in different directions, and then give up, open my eyes and begin to see (as Steven puts it, but he puts it more poetically. I think Steven has a talent for writing, so he does it poetically, he plays with words, and that confuses me beacuse I read it like a manual...) I don't think you need to give up the search anymore, I don't think there is any requirements what so ever. I am just as capable to inquier as anyone else, and so are you. We can both give it a try. -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: might be interesting
Fri, April 4, 2008 - 8:56 PMYes, it'll be interesting to try out this inquiry. Actually, I've already started that, and I've made a few observations.
I had to go back to work because I ran out of money trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. So, quite by accident (if there is such a thing as an accident), I've been working as a caregiver. It's been a learning experience, to be with people who have lost everything that seems of value in this world. Some of them are very old, and the world seems to be going on without them. Their families are busy raising children and/or working. Some of the people I care for have lost their mental capabilities. So what's left? Perhaps what we're looking at: our existence, bare, unencumbered.
Someone who is suffering amnesia, and who has lost the ability of short term memory, confabulates. What that means is their mind just makes things up. They might say "I just came back from the store," even though they haven't gone anywhere all day. You might say that they are lying, but they don't know that they are making things up.
After spending time with someone like this, I started to wonder about the so called normal mind. Considering the nature of my own thoughts, am I so different from this person?What if we are all confabulating? Sure enough, that is what we do, based upon the research of neuroscientists - www.newscientist.com/channel...es.html. This article even questions how we make our decisions, posing the idea that free will may be an illusion.
Blows my mind. :)
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Re: might be interesting
Fri, April 4, 2008 - 9:21 PM“It is an unsettling thought that perhaps all our conscious mind ever does is dream up stories in an attempt to make sense of our world”
the universe isn't just weirder than we think, it's weirder than we *can* think.
wheels within wheels within wheels.....
everything you think is wrong.
ultimately, not being able to entertain any assumptions has its up side.
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