Just One Look Forum Archives

I read John's blog about getting involved with the grassroots movement with interest and have a response. I am relatively new to the looking, 2 years into it, and have experienced an incredible change in my outlook on life. I have a strong desire to spread this message and have told many people about it. I am sure that at least 6 or 7 of my friends tried the looking and probably many more tried it that I don't know about. I have personally witnessed an incredible transformation in a friend who did the looking, got out of an abusive relationship and radically changed her life. I also work with kids and encourage them to look at themselves. I also put Johns message, website, etc. out there on a spiritual discussion group where I post on almost daily and am sure some have responded to it, perhaps many more have that I don't know about.

However, I have no interest in joining the grassroots discussion. Don't know why, it's just not my thing. I think it's a mistake to assume that just because we aren't part of the grassroots, we are not spreading the word and are simply looking at our own individual recovery at the expense of others. I know I am spreading the word and I sincerely hope many more are. I hope we all keep up the good work, connected to the grassroots effort or not, we are still connected.

Hello Jackx,

Well, it seems that I wasn't as clear with what I wanted to say in the blog posting as I thought I was. But that's not so unusual, so let me try again.

We have come to see that the idea of an organized and directed campaign to spread news of this work was a misunderstanding on our part, and we have abandoned it. But we have never doubted that people who have seen the results in their own lives will naturally and spontaneously pass it on to their family and friends. In the first place, we cannot believe that someone who has actually begun to see the results for themselves would not want to give it to friends and family. And we have seen for ourselves the growth in interest in this work that can only be accounted for by this kind of sharing.

There are nevertheless many who do see liberation to be a solitary matter, and my remarks about that were meant to call that inclination to the attention of those who are new here and hopefully nip it in the bud. It was not meant to be a blanket accusation. Please forgive me if it seemed to be that.

What we want is exactly what you are doing in your relationships with friends and family, AND what you have done here now. In bringing your experience to the community, you enrich the ongoing conversation as to the nature of the looking and its effects and, most importantly, you allow all to see the ways and means with which folks like you are naturally offering it to those around them. My main purpose with that posting was to shake the bushes in the hope of bringing reports like yours to the attention of the community, and perhaps to give you the opportunity to see something of the current state of our understanding as a community.

I encourage all who read this to honor what has been given freely by contributing to the ongoing development of our collective understanding, an understanding which is the product of the work, over many years, of many people in conversation with us and each other, seeking to get the heart of the matter.

Please let us all know what you are doing and what works - just as Jackx has done here - and maybe even avail yourself of the continuing work that is taking place here to further the understanding of what we are doing, and why, and how.

I read John's blog and I experienced a lot of sensations so here goes. A fear of the stern critical father loving one minute then critical the next which has pretty much crippled my relationships with men my whole life. To speak of this now another fear arises of appearing powerless and stupid. (this would seem to be what John was pointing to about deconnection)

I allowed all these feelings to move through. moving my attention when I could to my breath.Today I listened to a podcast and of course only heard his loving tone and helpful intelligent discourse and recognize my projections and still here I am.

Recently I've been doing work with craniosacral biodynamics which targets healing the birth trauma , the physical end emotional pain which is associated with it. I was ejected with forceps and still have chronic shoulder pain from this torture on the body.This is the truth of my process unfolding with the looking so this is what I share with this group of people. I move my attention to the feeling of me which creates a space for the body to relax and release this pain.I can only share what is my own experience. These techniques are very gentle and effective when presented in conjunction with the looking. Marketing on a larger scale may be possible as this basic fear is released. Let's stay tuned..

Thanks everyone for being here. This community has been so supportive.

Maureen

I am new to the looking. It has been one month since I started it. For me it is key to find my own words, my own language when speaking with other people about it. I think I now found an entry point that feels natural. Looking at me feels like recognition of me. Recognition is immediate and cannot last. I recognize the unchanged me, and I immediately realize that all atempts to escape, all fears of aging, loosing identity or value, or dying, are ridiculous.

This is very easy to explain as everybody knows how recognition works. It also helps to minimize the automatic defences that arise in other people when thay suspect being talked into something, or converted to something.

Grassroots blog

Thank-you, John.

Thank you for this Cytex.

Although I agree completely that you must find your own way of speaking about this, there are a couple of problems with what you are suggesting here.

The problem we seek to solve is not a matter of conscious understanding, such as the conscious understanding that looking feels like recognition. The looking actually feels like nothing but you. Further development of the experience as recognition is a movement in the psychological apparatus to take ownership of the act and put it in a category that will not threaten the defensive organization of the mind.

Now, to be clear, if you have accomplished the simple act of looking directly at yourself this misdirection will not stop the regeneration of the mind from unfolding, although it might prolong its duration. But if you suggest this to others as a method to accomplish that act you will lead them astray.

It's not that recognition per se is wrong or unwelcome, it is only that searching for recognition will find the experience of recognition long before the faint feel of you, that which you would call me.

I know that recognition is extremely satisfying, and can give rise to well-expressed thought forms masquerading as proof of success, but it is actually not the sweetness of recognition that we seek — it is the snuffing out of the unseen context in which all ideas of recognition and understanding form and fall ill.

And it is precisely this unseen belief that what is needed is a correction to a misunderstanding of our 'true nature' that has caused us to fail again and again over the thousands of years we have been trying to solve the problem of being human.

Please take this as part of an ongoing conversation between us all here to find ways of speaking usefully about this great gift we have been given. I mean no disrespect. You are to be commended for working with people you know and reporting it here. Your report and the conversations it triggers are the key to finding a way to reliably communicate this work to the world.

Thank you for your participation here.

John

Interesting, thank you for writing this, John. It is true, I am good at finding strong images that can resonate with others. And then I try to realize these visions, and convince others of them. Likely, this is motivated by the fear of life. So, I can understand it is not helpful to project the feeling or sensation of me into an image that emerged from the defence system, which itself evolved from the fear of life.

It is not easy to spread the looking. If I simply propose the act of looking people get curious. So I need words to explain. Otherwise they move on. If I then say, "it eliminates the fear of life", people instinctively recede in face of such a big claim! And they want to know more. And then I get kind of lost, even with my sister, or a close friend of mine.

So I keep experimenting. How are you talking about the looking?

Cheers, Bruno

Well now I'm lost. Didn't you write in the "Look at yourself", a book that this is all about identity?

Hi John, Even though I've heard you say something to the effect that you are still working on your communications (I ramble, or something like that), your response here, and others like it, are what keep bringing me back. There is such a clarity to your mind that can tease apart fine and important distinctions that someone with less understanding would have a hard time seeing or putting into words. Here, I just wish to express my appreciation of how nicely you do this. With regards to you and Carla and appreciation, as well, of your unwavering commitment to this.

Marlowe