Just One Look Forum

Looking inwards has definitely made a huge impact on the way I see the world now. It's been a while since I've posted, mainly because I have been living without the incessant urge to drop in on the forums to try and get some validation for the way I'm supposed to feel. Maybe some of you will relate to this,? I used to come on here daily, sometimes twice a day, desperately wanting someone else to tell me everything is going to be fine. But now I suppose i've realised everything is and always has been perfectly fine. Those old clouds just take some time to blow away.

So for those who are new to this, I can safely say that the looking worked for me, so i don't see why it shouldn't work for you. It's been just over four years since I first started desperately trying to look for what john was pointing too. It really isn't hard to do it, it might seem that way, but all you need is the intent, to see 'yourself' and rid you of the fear.

I remember when I first posted on the forum and everyone that replied to me congratulated me on finding out the looking at such a young age. I was 24 at the time. So I want to do the same for anyone who is looking here for answers. It has really worked for me!. I don't want to describe all the changes but i, can safely say that there really doesn't seem to be any problems in my life. I don't worry about the future, and the hugely dysfunctional social angst that was always with me seems to have gone as well.

Jim

Thank you for that report Jim.

I relate very well to what you say about visiting the forum. I have personally had quite fewer impulses to drop in for some time now. I have been very busy though, with a two months old baby and his 1,5 year old brother at home, but it is also something else that has changed. Over all the forum has also been kind of quiet lately. I have thought a lot on why and what the silence means and expresses. The only possible explanation I can think of is the increasing focus on the importance self-directed attention exercise. What I can recall, this latest silent period in the forum started around the same time that more direct focus was put on the importance of starting to practice the attention exercise. It would give good meaning to put those two events together. And if that is true it would mean that the relative long periods of silence in the forum show an increase of sanity and self reliance rather than an lack of interest in the forum itself.

Having said that I can also say that I at the same time miss the conversations here. They give so much and one can always find new things to discuss and learn. But again, on a deeper level I have felt for some time that I really dont have much to say. I feel silent. I would like to share and work more with the looking though in my own life and in my own local context. But that is not very easy and for me it is kind of a frustration. Combining work life with the just one look method would be a very welcome discussion topic for me and I would be very glad if others would share their thoughts about it.

And to all the newcomers I say the same as Jim...  the looking works!

Niklas

Dear Jim, it's such a delight to read your post! Yes, it does change everything, doesn't it?

You can help us bring this simple solution to young people everywhere.

You can post a link to our website on social networks, for example, accompanied by a brief report of your experience.

You can use this short link: bit.ly/jol2017

You can little cards with our website address and leave them at public places.

www.JustOneLook.org

You can send the links to our podcast and our YouTube Channel to people you know.

Being Human: The John Sherman Podcast:

bit.ly/jol-podcast

Just One Look Channel at YouTube:

bit.ly/jol-youtube

The Natural State: John Sherman's Blog:

bit.ly/jol-blog

You can also adapt the text of this post and add it as your review at GreatNonProfits.org:

bit.ly/jol-gnp

And if you have any more ideas, please post them here in the forum so we all can learn from your experience.

Thank you,

Carla

Yay, Jim! I feel your contentment shining thru. At some point I would be interested in the changes you are experiencing. Four years was about the point I really felt like things had turned a corner. It is hard to quantify the changes......but sometimes it can help to try and it may help others struggling.

Niklas, I too would rather see more posts, but I think your theory makes sense. I agree with you and Jim that there is not as much interest to go on and on about this stuff, I think simply because it works. Going on and on in spiritual forums seems a sign that something is not working and that the voracious seeking mode is engaged. Been there......a conversation about what to do now is a good one and maybe a new thread, with Carla's Post to open it?

Congrats on your growing family!

Hi John and Carla.....just letting you know I replied to your welcome email when I joined last week

Regards..

Yes, we received your message. Thanks you. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.

Carla

Thanks Jack! I think it is a good idea to start a new thread with the topic of what to do now. Although we may not have much to say in some areas we maybe have a lot to say in others. My guess is that such an area would be more outward in direction. There will always be room for questions related to individual recovery. But I also think that a more outward direction would be a good complement. We have section for sharing the looking with friends and family. Maybe we cold have a whole new section in the forum that aims broader than the emidiate friends and family. Something that also covers work life etc.

So could you, John and Carla, as Jack also said, take a look at how such a new conversation could take form.

Ps. But I see now that we have the grassrots section. Is that the place for "what to do now" ?

Niklas

To be honest I don't really care about sharing this with others. I feel very alone with what I have discovered but I discovered it by myself through sheer desperation and curiosity and therefore I feel like that is how everyone should stumble across this. Maybe I just have a long way to go and eventually all the misery of humans will be too much for me and I'll start saying something....

I feel like that too sometimes, but not always.

I've actually given this more thought, Jim and, while I'm not saying you're wrong, I would like to offer an alternative viewpoint. I believe stumbling across who we are has been the conditioned way of spirituality and religion for thousands of years. It has perhaps served those in 'power' or in the know to hold this knowledge back from others. Or, perhaps, they never found a direct way to know experience this and to communicate it, and stumbling upon it was the only way. I am in awe of John's looking method and its stunning simplicity......in fact this morning I had the direct realization that this is what spiritually has been murmuring about and indirectly implying for all these years and the grand tradition, be it Zen, Vendetta, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Islam or whatever is that it has to be stumbled upon.....maybe. But we just stumble, as individuals and as societies.

John's method is breathtaking in its simplicity and directness. We experience who we are.....not just talking about it endlessly, and that short touching upon ourselves radically shapes and transforms our lives. The spiritual folks say that it can't be that simple......because they have been conditioned by the stumbling to believe it is sheer dumb luck and they are probably looking for the wrong outcome all along. Same with the religion, psychology and philosophy.

So, where does that leave us? Well, in my limited experience of trying to tell others about this, the conditioning is strong. The spiritual folks truly believe it can't be this simple and throw up all kinds of amazing, complex reasons why they must continue to grope in the dark. The non-spiritual folk I've talked to about the looking also can't believe the answer to their dissatisfaction with life can be this simple and throw up all kinds of defenses as to why it can't possibly work. I believe my wife, for example, considers me a simpleton, and idiot child for believing fairy tales and magical thinking. So, in a way you're right, I think. The defenses against this are so strong it does take a stumbling upon, because any effort to communicate the looking is met with strong resistance.

In social work and psychology, my background, there is a construct called 'crisis theory'. It basically says that people will only be open to and motivated to change when their life is in crisis or they are going through a crisis. A crisis lowers their usual defenses and they can then be open to new ideas or ways of being. A paradigm shift. Think an alcoholic hitting rock bottom.....I believe I have been most successful in communicating the looking to friends who have been in crisis. This is a good place to start, I think, otherwise complacency and conditioning will block the whole premise from the beginning, like swatting away a fly.

This is a very useful post, Jackx, and your insights on 'crisis theory' have shown us something about the problem of bringing this to the world.

But, since the act itself is unaffected by the swamp of fear-driven misery, what we must do is find a way to present the act to a large enough audience to insure that those who are actually in crisis will hear of it.

It is also an assumption in the work of spreading messages far and wide that, if ten percent of any population hear a message, it quickly spreads through that entire population by word of mouth.

For us, this means that our focus must include some sort of mass appeal if we are to have any hope of reversing the effects of the fear throughout the species.

And truth be told, humanity seems to be well on the road to catastrophe. Perhaps that will trigger the widespread understanding that the entire human species is in the most dangerous crisis we have ever known.

So, in a way you're right, I think. The defenses against this are so strong it does take a stumbling upon, because any effort to communicate the looking is met with strong resistance.

And this is why I don't like to talk about this to most people. I am not closed to telling people about the looking and what it can do to the individual. however I see that if I am wanting someone to know about the looking - and this person is resistant and manages life OK with the fear going on - then there is a conflict because I am desiring that person to be different. Is that ethical?

I can also feel pretty nihilistic about the whole human endeavour.... why save us? I am going to die and then that's it. I have no time for talk of eternal life and the tao or whatever. We truly have no idea why we are on this earth in the first place, you can say we are here to make it peaceful and beautiful but that is just an opinion and our illusion. I know it sounds totally selfish what I am saying but I'm being very honest and open.

I have thought about getting into some kind of social care work or mental health work (contradiction) as I think that would be a good way of helping those in 'the crisis'. But I have to ask myself, is that what I really want to do? Who made me a saviour of mankind? Life is right here for me to enjoy and be lived so do I want to spend the rest of my time here trying to change the world for the better, knowing I won't be here to see it?

Jim

I advise you to begin a serious effort to gain control over your attention before worrying about the how to bring our work to anyone.

I promise that nothing you have seen can prepare you for the drop-dead simplicity of this work other than gaining agency over your own attention. But you must do this for yourself. No one can give it to you, and the fear-driven mind will fight against it tooth and nail.

If you are serious about being finished with fear and confusion in your life, please go to www.justonelook.org/jolmethod.php, and start with Step One.

When you have been working with this for a couple of weeks, move to Step Two. And when you are satisfied with your command over your attention study the section titled "Using Self-Directed Using Self-Directed Attention in Daily Life".

If you are willing to do that, I am more than willing to help you with it, and if you would like to talk with me, email me and I will set up a private session. There will be no charge for this call.

All I want for you is that you be free of all ideas about what you should do or what you should be in your life.

John

On reflection, it's sad to think that I would easily of fitted into this 'crisis theory' for most the years of my life, something felt broken and wrong. BOOHOO haha. So maybe I was lucky, but I also think it's such a shame I didn't find the looking when I was around 15 years old, I think I would have been very open to the looking back then too.

Also, I have been watching a youtube channel called 'ordinary conversations' featuring people who have been engaged and are now trying disengaging with spirituality it seems, but they are quite clearly people who have become free of 'the fear of life'...seems that way to me anyway. So, I'm thinking, why not set up a youtube channel for people who have done the looking? The internet is always a good way to promote things and I think what would appeal to anyone viewing these types of discussion is that we all have the looking in common. So maybe three or four people, who have turned out sane, can sit and chat about the looking and it's benefits in a skype meeting, then post it onto youtube so people can watch?????? maybe it's a bad idea.... :D

I know that this could also be good for those who are still in recovery, to be able to discuss their troubles with people in the same position as them, over a skype meeting. I would be willing to give it a try if anyone wanted to get the ball rolling....

Jim