Just One Look Forum Archives

Robert Andersson and I have been having a local meeting in the spirit of Just One Look. And we wanted to share with you a short summary of our experiences of that meeting. We had been talking over the phone, and we spoke a couple of times, which was also a very nice experience. One day we were talking about the tendency to speculate more than to take actual action in trying to spread this method, and why that was so. That phone call actually ended with us taking action where we decided to meet to bring this new impulse into life and to discuss things we have had on our minds for some time.

We decided to meet in my home in Denmark where Robert would stay until the next day. Both Robert and I are from Sweden so we had no language barriers to handle. And although we had never met, it actually felt very natural and uncomplicated after we had decided to meet. Personally we both connected very easily and it was great for both of us to be able to meet someone in real life that had been in recovery for some time. It was very confirmatory and useful to spend some time together.

Our meeting had two purposes. Firstly, we just wanted to meet. And secondly, we wanted to talk about working with this method on a global scale but also on a more local scale. Here are some of the topics and questions that we discussed:

Is this work to be addressed globally, locally, or both? Are social and cultural differences a factor when presenting this work? And if social and cultural differences do not play a part in the actual receiving of the message to look at yourself, does it play a part in how to work with this method in one's own context? Is it useful, for example, in Sweden, to adapt the work to the "Swedish ear" to eliminate misunderstandings and confusion? And would it be a good idea to have a kind of local working groups that worked in their known environments, to both find ways to spread this method and to find ways to finance the work in an overall perspective? We discussed, so to speak, how this work is best supported by its supporters and in what possible ways that could be done.

So the meeting resulted of course in more questions than answers, but nevertheless the questions feel important for us to work more with. And what the meeting also undoubtedly gave us was the experience of taking action and a feeling of a more "real" connection to the work. And that counted for both the more personal level regarding our recoveries, but also regarding the work in the big picture. So we have decided to meet regularly and see what comes out of it. And if more people in our area are interested, we would really like to invite you to join us. If you are interested, please let us know through the forum chat. And we also recommend that others who wish to take another step in this process, but are in other parts of the world, do the same. To meet in real life is really a powerful and interesting thing to do and has good effects on many levels.

We will keep you updated on further developments.

Niklas and Robert

We took a picture together with Lucy who is located in the "stairs of evolution" at the pre-History museum at Moesgaard museum in Aarhus, Denmark. She is the newest reconstruction of one of the oldest members of the human family. We thought it was a great place to visit and talk about the next crucial step in human evolution.

Hey Niklas, that's great to hear. You're right, it really is powerful to meet in real life for many reasons. To me, nothing is more powerful than word of mouth as far as spreading a teaching like this. In fact, I find this true in a number of areas in life in general. I make my living off of word of mouth. My father has as well for over 40 years in his business. Because I've been using these teachings for less than 8 weeks, I haven't been talking about this as much as someone who has been working with this teaching longer and seen results in their practical lives. But, because of the experiences I have had using the SDA practice, and my years in spiritual healing and studying and practicing various forms of meditation, I have shared this teaching with a fair amount of people including one small group. I am involved in a new project which will involve myself and colleagues speaking to large groups of people starting in the fall. Because of copyright issues that haven't been established yet, I was told not to share specifics of this venture yet. That being said, one part of my presentation will be on meditation and what some people might think of as 'spiritual concepts'. So, if I see practical results in my daily life using John's teachings, I feel this teaching would be absolutely ideal--especially because I wouldn't have to use any 'spiritual terms' that may oppose another's belief paradigm. I feel the way John and Carla are presenting this teaching can appeal to many different types of people from all different cultures and belief systems who are experiencing a lot of suffering.

To continue with the word of mouth idea and meeting together: For several years I was part of a worldwide healing group and facilitated 1 of 3 groups in NYC. We would meet every three weeks and there were usually 20-40 people in attendance. There are three groups in NYC in different locations of the city as well as groups in the surrounding areas of NYC. I think the meetings really were good for a variety of reasons, but, especially, because of the personal connections that would be made, as well as that energy of excitement some people would have about the teachings, especially after hearing other people's successes with it. It's a shame I didn't know about the SDA practice when I was involved in that group because I consider the SDA practice to be an evolution of the main practice of the group! Anyway, this group started in the 1970's and has always been by donation only - just like John and Carla do it. It started in a lady's living room in Germany with only several people and, simply by word-of-mouth, it has become one of the biggest spiritual healing groups in the world. Obviously, as numbers increased, they were able to collect more donation $$, which led to being able to rent spaces for doctors to come and talk to people and funded movies about these teachings which are shown in places rented from donation $$. A large portion of these movies, and the whole teaching, consisted of people's testimonials to how the teaching benefitted them. I would think there is nothing more powerful to spread a teaching than a word of mouth testimonial about how a person benefitted positively in their practical lives from following a teaching. So I feel it's great that John and Carla are collecting and posting the testimonials of people and their successful results. The guy who taught and demonstrated the teaching I have been referring to emphasized the great importance of testimonials and always tried to get people to write down their experiences, as well as getting medical doctor's verifications whenever possible, and this continues to this day. (BTW - this guy was big on self-reliance and that all the power and answers are within us, just as John talks about).

All this to show the powerful energy that can be generated when people get together to discuss ideas/teachings out of just a pure motivation to help one another. To have a teaching that just wants to help people - that is non-profit, and doesn't try to foist a belief system onto a person, is very rare I find in the world. It creates a very pure energy and, in my experience, these types of teachings far exceed others in power and effectiveness as compared to teachings where there are other 'side/main motivations' involved not directly related to alleviating a person's suffering.

Love this! I might jump on a plane and join the next meeting.

You are very welcome to do that Jack!

Hello everybody, Niklas and I met up again in December. We had been speaking on the phone every now and then since our first meeting and we both felt like it was time to catch up IRL. This ended up with me going to Denmark once more, where I was greeted warmly as ever by Niklas' family and himself. I stayed for a few days and tried to join in the daily routine of life in their household as best I could, and every once in a while we had some time for ourselves where it was possible to go a little further into particular subjects. But a lot also happened spontaneously in reaction to what arose in the moment. Having little kids around offer many such opportunities -- if you didn't know! And just like last time I had a totally wonderful stay. During these days I felt very much in balance, in tune and had a lot of fun.

Many of our conversations were naturally about Just One Look and our common vision to one day be able to give full attention to this work. How can it can be done realistically? This is a question that keeps coming back. It is a tricky situation for both of us, probably for others here too, that we are in the midst of our lives so to speak and need income to sustain ourselves. On the one hand it is in the nature of this work to be freely available for everybody but on the other hand there are costs associated with providing it. We talked about how it is to live in relative freedom in relation to a fear driven society, what some of the challenges and opportunities are. For example, we are both Swedish and therefore have the good fortune of having access to universities for free. How to best take advantage of the situation, how can we use this resource for the good of our cause? Hanging out in this way and speaking our mind was similar to how Niklas described it after our last meeting - quite powerful - both for the specific areas we worked on, but I think just as importantly it was a very reassuring and constructive experience in a more general sense. It feels good to meet other people who are going through the same sort of things.

I'd like to mention one more thing, a kind of conclusion which felt particularly insightful at the time. The insight was that perhaps this entire process of planning and working to get Just One Look to humanity can be seen as an aspect of our own personal recoveries. Why else are we so intent to do it - and is it not a more direct and practical point of view anyway? It seemed quite real in that moment and thinking like that left me feeling like I better understand what the circumstances of doing this are. Ultimately speaking me is you and all that, but that's not what was meant. Rather that it is an unfolding of our own lives that is going on and that seeing it that way instead of trying to save the world all at once may empower us to find more appropriate activities to focus on. After all it is our lives we are living and it is the only thing we can do anything about. Have you ever had the experience that you see something clearly and then when it's articulated it sounds so... redundant? Oh well.

The meeting really sparked the imagination and got the 'ol cogs turning good, and like last time I think we ended up with more questions than answers. Nothing wrong with that, on the contrary! We are still quite eager to grow our group, if just to see what might happen! So send us a chat message if you'd like to hear from us next time we're planning a meeting, we would be happy to welcome anyone to join in. Thanks for now, stay tuned!

I just made a post, but I have to edit it. I will post it soon...

This thread is inspiring and we are heading into the summer of 2020 at a time when many of us are coming out of isolation.