Just One Look Forum Archives

We are at a loss to understand why we have so much trouble raising money to support our work.

We are neither newcomers to the problems that afflict human life, nor to the solutions that have so far failed to bring peace and satisfaction with human life except for a lucky few, if any.

We are in a very difficult situation right now that could actually lead to the collapse of the work that we have dedicated ourselves to for almost twenty years.

What we have done so far

After almost two decades working with people all over the world seeking a clear understanding of our own liberation, we have cracked the code, so to speak, of Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry.

We have uncovered its ordinariness, which is the missing link that makes it work for everyone, no matter what they may have tried in the past to ease the confusion and pain of human life, whether they have followed a spiritual, sexual, monetary, psychological, or any other of the paths that beckon us from the fog of fear.

We have developed a method that we call Just One Look and it has been proven over and over: it works for anyone! You can read dozens of reports attesting to that on our website.

Any person who does the act of looking at their self in the manner we advise, and then commits to a practice of self-directed attention for a while, will see the results begin to appear very quickly. The result of this work cannot be imagined; it is much less (and so much more) than what has been called enlightenment, self-realization, etc.

Our work with people from all walks of life"”in meetings, in email conversations, and in the Just One Look Forums"”has clarified and simplified our message to the bare bones.

This is the big door prize for us all, and it is freely available to all, no money needed and no strings attached.

Please read at least some of the testimonials available on our website that we have receive from people all over the world. They fill us with joy, enthusiasm, and hope for humanity.

What we want to do

We need to expand our reach and offer The Just One Look Method to more people everywhere, including those who are not connected to the Internet.

In the first ten years of our work we traveled far and wide; we drove hundreds of thousands of miles crisscrossing the country to meet with folks willing to work with us to find the understanding we needed to make sense of the discontent that afflicts human beings and to develop a cure.

Now that we have it, we want to start travelling again to bring people the good news that they can be done with their mental misery and stop the endlessly futile search for realization and fulfillment.

Our work place

We are a very small non-profit foundation, with just two employees, John and Carla, but we have a complex, multi-layered operation that requires constant attention. We serve hundreds of people every day, as you can see on the world map that tracks the traffic to our website and is available at the bottom of every page.

In the last few years our reach has expanded considerably and we are now functioning well beyond our means. We simply don't know for how long we will be able to continue without your help now.

We rely on donations

From the beginning, we have always relied on spontaneous donations from our community to sustain this work. Lately, however, most likely because of the current state of the world, the donations we receive have not covered the expenses of the foundation, including the foundation's share of the rent, and wages for us, that we depend on for our personal needs and our share of the rent.

We understand that in times of uncertainty it is harder to part with your hard-earned money. But as one of our donors put it recently,

The Just One Look Method supported by The River Ganga Foundation goes to the root of the human problem and heals it for good. My donation therefore goes to support that no new suffering is created, rather than trying to fix everything that our collective craziness has created. And I see it as a privilege to be able to be helpful in this way. To see the true nature of human suffering and also get the chance to do something about it that actually works.

So, if you too can see the potential of this work to help thousands of people in a relatively short time, please set up a monthly contribution for one year. If just 350 people were to donate $15 a month, all our current expenses will be covered for a year and we'll have enough breathing space to work on finding steady funding by submitting grant proposals and developing crowd-funding campaigns.

Your donation now would also help us finish the two books we have been working on but have not found the time to finish because of our chronic lack of money.

But we will not be able to do that if we don't even have enough to pay the rent on the house that we, John and Carla, and our cat Switters share with The River Ganga Foundation offices.

So, please, make a donation or set up a monthly donation today to support The River Ganga Foundation and the Just One Look. You will be glad you did it and we, our landlords, our worldwide community, and Switters the cat will be grateful beyond words.

Thank you.

John & Carla Sherman

I'm just a newcomer here so I don't have too much to say. I've only been doing the SDA practice for a little over 3 weeks (but doing it a lot everyday and, recently, experiencing some very good results - at least at certain times). I also have a lot of experience in the areas of spiritual healing, and advaita vedanta and neo-advaita. If I think this practice has the possibilities that it feels like it does, then I don't think there will be anything to stop it. Even if this website shuts down. The simple instructions can be posted for free on Facebook. Of course, ideally, it would be great if John and Carla could have all the abundance they need to promote this, because, then, this teaching could spread even more quickly. I was just recently reading a post where people were talking about how the SDA practice was enabling them to do things in their lives in a much better way. I can't imagine, as I continue to practice the SDA, that I won't have a greater ability to generate more $$ when I have less and less fear thoughts. So I will be able to donate more money to this cause. And I think this would be the case for many people practicing this teaching.

I wanted to offer a term I like to call 'tactical optimism' (be careful, user Seppo may take credit for that phrase;-) When something is as good as I think this teaching could be, then I really don't think it can be stopped. People are hungry to stop suffering! And they almost always have like a 'magnet' that draws them to something really true and good. I have seen it time and time again. And for things that I don't even feel are as effective as this teaching. So, to conclude, let's try to give John and Carla all the financial support as we possibly can, but also remember that, no matter what, this teaching exists now - and there is nothing that will stop it from spreading! All the very best, Lex

Well Lex, there is actually something that can stop this method from spreading and that is the lack of money. This work is not supported by any spiritual forces that take care of things for us. The task of passing this work to others is ours and ours alone. And I am also certain that it is more crucial than ever to have the Foundation running. It is the center of this work and it is by finding a sustainable support for the Foundation that the next step for the Just One Look Project becomes possible. Of course the work will in some way stay alive in the people who have done the looking regardless of the outcome for the Foundation. But it will be much less effective and a lot of people would risk never hearing of this method.

Niklas

Sure, there aren't any spiritual forces that will take care of things for us. But what about the idea of that if you support Life, Life will tend to support you? This does seem to be true from my past observations - at least to a certain extent. Besides what I already mentioned in my last post, I think the most powerful and effective means of spreading this teaching is by word of mouth. People tend to trust this the most. There is also another interesting phenomenon occurring in this day and age with the interview style podcast. In another post, I mentioned Marc Maron's WTF podcast. I think you are not in North America but, here, he is a very famous comedian who has a podcast and tv show. He has a wide gamut of people on - including the last president of the USA. He's a recovering addict and in a 12 step program and some of the discussions get pretty deep into more spiritual topics. I don't know him personally, but I like his shows a lot and emailed him about John. I don't know if he checks every email - but I think it would be great if John could get on something like this. Because this type of podcast is really almost like word of mouth to me.

I can also tell you that, if this teaching works for me like the way I feel it will, there will be no stopping me personally from spreading it - and I have a good amount of connections in the spiritual healing world here in NYC. I used to facilitate a healing group in NYC - it is also run on a donation basis.. Medical Doctors from all over the world come and give lectures flying in on their own dime and time. We would sometimes drive up and down the east coast with these doctors giving medical lectures on spiritual healing. The energy was very pure because there was no $$ involved - donations covered some expenses, but a lot was out of pocket. I met a few amazing people who had such a capacity for love and spreading healing and ending suffering..it was very inspiring.

So, with more and more people being led to this teaching, having more success with it, able to generate more $$ and donate more - I can see a lot of good things happening here. All the very best, Lex

I have to agree with what Lex said: "But what about the idea of that if you support Life, Life will tend to support you?" I've had many proofs that when we trust the essential goodness of Life and the universe and do our best not to be afraid, that it sets things in motion, and often avenues open up that we hadn't previously considered. So I do believe it's more that just rolling up our sleeves and having a go at it. The whole issue of supply goes deeper than that.

This project is like nothing ever attempted before by humankind. Simple as that.

We may or may not get support from outside our community, either way we cannot rely on it.

We can't rely on anything other than what we have right here, right now. That is us, you, reading in here.

Our disposable means are not the goodness of a stranger, nor the goodness of the universe or faith. That is fact.

Those who are serious about succeeding will have to put in the hard work, the real work.

Talk about looking at me, develop sane relationships, help with bills.

Whatever it is. Probably different for you and me. But to act is the key.

Humanity is running out of time as we are tyrannized by fear. It is global now.

But as a world we have plenty going for us. The earth provides richness for all if we manage it fairly.

If we do survive another century of insanity everyone is going to suffer, sane and insane alike, side by side.

The problem and solution are no big thing.

Right now money that can pay invoices is the main concern.

It is easy to fix this.

This many sane people has never come together before, ever.

Nor has anybody had a clue about the possibility of universal sanity before either.

This is our shot.

I'm trying to say that you are needed here.

Lex and jazzrascal.

But why then, hasn't this work been properly supported by "Life"? The whole issue here is that John and Carla tells us that "We are in a very difficult situation right now that could actually lead to the collapse of the work that we have dedicated ourselves to for almost twenty years" and that they "are at a loss to understand why we have so much trouble raising money to support our work". I have never came a cross a work that is as life supporting as this work, yet they spend almost all their time on trying to get the support needed to get this work sustainable. Why isn't "Life" and the "Universe" more supporting towards a work that has such obvious short and long time effects for everything in this life?

I tell you my answer to those questions. It is precisely those spiritual ideas that stand in the way of viewing this work in a clear light. The hard to die spiritual views of this work (not the work itself) are according to me the greatest obstacle to the support this work. The spiritual mind will always go deeper, and never really value the sane practical nature of ordinary life. The spiritual mind is always assuming that nothing really matters and that no effort is needed. When you hold those views it is rational to assume that nothing really has to be done. All will be taken care of by some higher power. But that is never going to happen. It is up to us. And until we decide as a community to try to view this work in its true nature, we are never going to make it. The spiritual and magical thinking is useless and makes no sense in this context. To roll up our sleeves is actually exactly what we have to do.

Hi Niklas, I agree that the spiritual approaches are an impediment. When I mentioned Life (for lack of a better word), I wasn't thinking of it in the old spiritual way. Maybe a better, more scientific phrase might be the "structure of things," or something like that, meaning that that life, the universe, etc. aren't simply random and chaotic...there is an order governing everything. In any case, this isn't something I'm making up...I've experienced it time after time in my own life when I get fear out of the way. Also, it doesn't mean we don't DO anything...when we get the fear out of the way, we start to see what we must/can do. My question for you is: How do we get people to roll up their sleeves, since there seems to be so much resistance to doing just that?

Hey Niklas, I have suggested a couple of ideas in other posts of how this work could even be more supported by Life. I've also expressed my belief that, as I continue to gain wisdom, peace, and happiness from this teaching, I believe I will become more effective in all my endeavors and I can personally support the work even more. This was talked about by some people on another recent thread. But the fact that John and Carla are devoting their whole lives to spreading this message seems to me like the most important variable in the work being supported. It's actually the reason I mentioned other ideas I had to bring more support to this work - because I can see the passion they have and the purity of the energy. In my experience in the 'spiritual healing world' this is rare. And I believe that's why very powerful and helpful things, like this teaching, have always been very rare in the world.

The problem, as I currently see it, may just be with the word 'spiritual'. The way one person defines 'spiritual' can be very different than another. A perfect example is this: you and I have very different ideas of what the word 'spiritual' means! And, the more I think about it, the more I realize that it is really wise of John not to let this work get pigeon-holed and to avoid a word like spiritual.

So, to me, the spiritual mind is the mind that assumes that ending suffering, developing one's own sense of love, compassion, kindness, spreading this love, and A LOT of work is needed. Believe me, I know that I am that 'Higher Power' I used to seek. So, again, to the way I currently perceive things, the term 'magical thinking' and 'spiritual' are very much opposed. I also usually feel the term 'spiritual' and 'religious' are usually quite opposite each other. But I also realize there are plenty of people who perceive the term 'spiritual' the way you do. I am a jazz musician by trade and I was just talking recently with friends in a group that is planning to do college jazz clinics around North America. I was speaking specifically of this teaching - the term 'spiritual' didn't need to come up. I feel I can speak of a teaching like this to a group of musicians/artists without venturing into any spiritual/metaphysical ideas. Just as a way to improve their craft - by improving their lives.

It's just like roed writes above. He has his ideas about how this work is to be supported. I wouldn't put all the ideas he expressed the way he did but, yet, I agree with the intention behind what he is saying - I think all of us on this forum want the same thing and probably understand things in similar ways - but we have different words and concepts that mean different things to us.

Just the fact that we are having a conversation about this I think is great - because it can clarify things and help us support this work even more.

Yes! Let's not get caught up in semantics. When I said that spiritual approaches are an impediment, I was referring to "spiritual" in the way Niklas was using it. Hear hear for the thought that we all have the same intention...to help Carla and John.