Author: John Richards

This is the Tuesday Talk held February 24, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk February 24, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. With limited Edits

Q: I found a good thing this week on YouTube. We got French translation right now. Our meeting we do every Tuesday. And we get it in French. There's a bottom and you got all the script in French. A lot of language. Different language. It's very good. It's helpful.

John: Good, good. Sounds good. Yes, we got a couple of emails about the transcripts that I'm now putting on the website. So now you can go through and read and then take that and translate that as well.

Q: So, yeah.

Q: It’s most all the time the same conversation, but you have to be hammering and hammering. And gradually I just start to feel it sometime. It's natural. It's come. Okay, I'm not that. And it's not something I think about it. It's come natural. This is it. This is it.
And that's really, I enjoy it. I feel the difference between the first talk we had and where I am right now. I say, okay, it's melting. Gradually all the old resistance or old conditioning is going away. Do you see?

Q: Gradually I see, like I've said before, everything John says ends up being, I can totally see the truth in it or whatever.

John: This is the reality. That's the thing. It's not like we're trying to sell anything or say this “could be” if you remain with yourself. The reality comes about because that's the reality. The illusion is very hard to hold. Actually, you have to really be identified with the body form as yourself. Then you have to go with the flow of thoughts because of identification with the body that these things are happening to me, or I must do this, or this could happen to this, or I have fear of this. I want this, this desire. But when you begin to know yourself in a real sense, illusion can't. It can't stick. There's no kind of building blocks to make it stick. Nothing.

It's just freedom because the freedom was there all along. It was the illusion that you were not free that has now been dispelled because there's no longer an anchor for that illusion. Even as you say, gradually, it's falling away. It's because that anchor of illusion, it can't hold up. It's illusory. It's like if you went to the magic show and you saw the magic show.

If you went night after night after night after night, eventually, you're going to see. It's not true. At first, I was really impressed when he sawed the lady in half. But now, after the fifth time of seeing it, okay, there's little boxes and there's this and that. The same with illusion. Hey, you know what? For a time, I really identified with this body. And because that was so impressed from such a young growing of this body that I was impressed that I was the body. I am this person. Because the person is just the flow of thoughts with identification with the body impressed as I am this. I am someone. And because it's not true, it can be easily seen through.

It's like you pull the chair out from underneath the person and they fall. And it's a free fall because there's no support anymore. I am not body. I was not body. I'm not going to remain the body. At first. These are words. Then they start to become an experience. Then that experience deepens into an understanding. And then it's just known. Oh, that's the knowledge. I am not body. Because body form was available, there was a sense of existence that livingness, this. So, to speak, I am alive. I exist.

And because the body form was available, I'm this body. But the space in the room didn't know it was the space in the room. And suddenly an object within the space is available. And there's a knowingness and aliveness in that body form. And you say, I'm alive. But the space in the room is not really alive or not alive because it's outside that whole.

Even when you remain with your Selfless Self, you're outside of consciousness because that I exist is now your first seeing. Oh, the sense of Presence. The sense of Presence appears in consciousness. And the one that's observing this is outside of consciousness because the consciousness is the sense. I am. I exist. And the entire world is taking place inside this consciousness. As is the body that you used to believe yourself to be. And then it gets confusing of universal consciousness or individual consciousness, but both are the one consciousness.

It's just identification or no identification. And then at the most subtle level, the world is consciousness. And that all appears on your spontaneous Presence. And because you know the sense of existence, you're prior to the sense of existence. So, you're prior to world, consciousness, body, because all this has appeared to you that you are. Take all that away.
And what's left? Only you without any shape or form.

Q: Yeah. I've said sometimes it's a concept, but sometimes I think, well, I'm doing this to myself. In a way, but then now I'm starting to see, well, there really is no self to even be doing it to myself.

John: Correct. Even the practice. When people kept asking Maharaj, how long do I do the practice? Well, you do the practice until there's no practicer. There is no more. When you see there's no practicer because you've dissolved this concept. Practicer is within the bubble of illusion. You're outside the bubble of illusion because this sense of Presence is the first thing that created this concept of duality. And you're out of that.

So now what's left and that what's left is that black hole. There's nothing literally just nothing. You can't hold a thought or a concept. There's no thought to think about because there's no place to rest that thought. There's just nothing. And now with this understanding, go about, do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities. Scenes will appear and disappear, and you behave in the moment. Spontaneously. You're no longer looking for outcomes because you're no longer holding on to a limited identification in a world, thinking you are that or thinking that you can even cause anything to happen because you are formless. The only way you cause anything to happen is just like you cause something to happen inside your dream. It's meaningless. As long as you're holding the body form, take care of the body. Doctor says, take these medicines, take this medicine, need a job to feed yourself. Have a job. Do your job. Do your duties. Have a family. Have friends.

No problem. As Maharaj says, it's practical spirituality and it's in no way hindering your day-to-day activities. The two are totally separate because one is absolutely illusion and one is the reality. And you understand this. So, therefore, just like in a play or in a drama where you've been assigned a role, do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities while the body form is available. That's that.

You can enjoy. You can still have preferences of food or water or, you know, oh, I don't like orange juice so much. I prefer apple juice. Okay. And not sitting there and saying, oh, well, if I prefer this, does that mean that I've taken identification with the body or that I, if I was truly formless, would I care whether it was apple juice or orange juice? No, forget about all that because it's all within the illusion. Just as if in your dream you worried about, well, I drank apple juice in my dream and I really don't like apple juice. How did that, how is that possible? Well, who cares? Throw it away. In a real sense, makes no difference.

Q: It's sort of like you said you don't necessarily pay a lot of attention to the news and I'm noticing that actually that's kind of like what you're talking about with the apple juice. It's like you can give your attention to it, but I don't know. Anyway, I'm finding that I don't have to be affected by it or something. Yeah, of course. Not taking the touch type of thing.

John: Don't have to take the touch of anything. And it's not like you're being irresponsible. Like someone will say, oh, well, then you're not involved. Because people used to come to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj all the time and kind of beat on him for not being involved and helping, you know, the people and the people that are suffering. And same with Sri Ramana Maharshi. If you read the books, they come and they say, well, how can you just say his illusion and disregard all the suffering in the world? Know yourself in a real sense and then ask this question.

Q: Then you won't be suffering if you find out.

John: There cannot be. And you'll know no one is suffering. Again, just like in your dream. If you dreamt about a refugee camp and people starving and all that in your dream, when you wake up, it's finished. You say, oh, that's very not human. That's not very nice. That's not this and that. No, but if you know yourself in a real sense, you could say you are the cause of all the suffering or that there is no suffering and both are the same. We talked about if the entire world were to completely explode right now, eight billion people evaporated, it would not make any difference for you.

You are that in which the world appears. On which the world appears, the sense of existence creates the concept of a you in a world and otherness. But it's not true. That's why we call it illusion or Maya. And then you say, oh, well, Maya this or illusion that. And you start to create concepts of what illusion is. Illusion is that which is not. There's no need to create a concept about what's illusion and what's Maya and all this sort of thing. Illusion and Maya are non-existent things.

They do not exist. And yet we have a whole freaking vocabulary to talk about all the things that don't exist. And we even have branches of spirituality that will explain the things that do not exist so that the mind is put at ease when inquiring about all the things that do not exist.

And the spiritual journey is just inquiring about things that don't exist with the idea that you're going to get something. You're going to get some answers. The who am I is not who am I, who am I, who am I, who am I, who am I, who am I?

Remaining with your Selfless Self. All the answers are within. When you look for them without, mind is like, yeah, gotcha. Because you're going to ask this question. And then that question is going to breed another question. And that question is going to breed another question. Then you're going to be satisfied for a short time that you now have knowledge until something rocks that knowledge. And then you require more knowledge. Just like Sri Ramakant Maharaj said, when people come to the Ashram, and then they have this whole plan of, I'm going to go see the Amanda Ma lady or whatever.

And I'm going to go to Ramana Maharshi Ashram. And I want to go to Tiruvannamalai and all these places. And it's like this, this tourism. And that's why he says last destination, last stop. It's very sad. Once you're knowing the truth that you don't just sit there and say, okay, I need to sit with myself. Everyone says meditation. Everyone says, just sit with yourself. Just see what's there.

But it's a lot easier when you're identified with the body form to go on a spiritual journey, to bow to some different, various gurus to recite these different things, to walk around Arunachala, to sit in a cave, to torture the body because there's identification with the body form. This is needed. Instead, you just remain with yourself, the self, and all this dissolves. No requirements. As Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, were there any requirements prior to beingness? No. Sense of existence. I exist as something. All requirements came again.

All requirements came along with the body form. And you are not body. You were not body. You're not going to remain the body. Guru hopping is not going to help. It's going to just add more fuel to the mind's fire to keep you on the spiritual journey. And worse than that, to build egoistic spirituality that you are progressing on this spiritual journey. And in today's market, so to speak, not only will that happen, but you'll also be being fleeced. You know, all the free retreats that just say, oh, yes, the retreat is free. However, you have to rent a room in order to go to the retreat and the rooms are on the Ashram site and there'll be $2,000 for the week. And we don't provide food. You need to provide food, and you have to wear a certain kind of clothes. And we just happened to be selling on site the clothes. We strongly recommend you read this book before you talk to our master. I mean, come on now.

Q: Well, we do recommend reading the book before we participate too much in this.

John: You have to have a little bit of a base. Yes. But the truth is you'll never come to this unless there's something stirring inside you. Like most of the population is walking around happily, blissfully, and unaware of themselves. And yet that is your own self. Nothing is wrong with this. You desire to experience in a different way through that particular form. But when the time comes, yes, you'll be introduced slowly into the books and you. And usually, because the life that you were living, that you were holding on to and clinging so much, began to shake. And there are little cracks. There's a little vibration. Is this all there is? Or, oh my God, I'm really in trouble.

And that's just enough to say, okay, now I need to research. Then books, of course, is good. Go see a master, good. But come to the real master and know, like Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, this is the last stop. This mantra will free you from any ideas you've been holding about yourself that aren't true, that currently you believe they are true. And not by any kind of intellectual exercise. By slowly, silently, and permanently removing all the illusory layers until you know yourself. And then be with you always. Be with you always.

Don't give yourself away for every little thing that happens in the world. Because the world is illusion. When you get angry and you blow up at somebody, or you're very impatient waiting in lines, or you don't like the traffic, or there's bills to be paid and you're worried about it, all of this is because you don't know yourself in a real sense. And so you just remain with your Selfless Self. Okay, do your job. Do your duties. Take care of your responsibilities. In the moment, whatever needs to be happening is happening. And again, like Maharaj says, everything, every action, no matter how much it may have seemed important before, pick up the water, drink, put it down. That's it. Go to your job, pick up the water, drink, put it down. On your commute, pick up the water, drink, put it down. Out with friends, pick up the water, drink, put it down. Nothing like earth shattering. Be normal, be simple, be humble, be always with you.

Q: Because you don't really have to make objects of anything, because the objects are really not other than you in a sense.

John: Well, if you believe yourself to be an object, you'll see other objects. If you believe yourself not to be an object, I am not body, I was not body, I'm not going to remain the body, there's a deep understanding, then there are no objects. It's scenes appearing and disappearing and appearing, and disappearing. Not even I'm formless and you're an object. It's just because if I'm formless, you can't be an object. There could be an appearance within the formlessness, but it could not be an object unless I am an object in space and time.

Q: Because I was going to ask you, I had this question, are objects self-evident or are they only illusion? But you sort of answered, there are no objects.

John: There are no objects. There's appearances in space and time, appearance, just appearance in the formlessness that you are. Objects, if I identify as this is me, then there can be something other. There's no identification. Again, we go back to there's no hook to hang your hat. The hat of John, no hook on the wall, I try to hang it, it just falls. How does John feel about this?

Q: You don't really see that until you see it, kind of. But that's what we're doing here.

John: It's an intuitive understanding. That's how they call the knowledge. The knowledge is not some kind of objective knowledge to know. It's an intuitive understanding, oh, so that I am that, without having to say that, because there is nothing other than that, and now that is known.

Q: It's intuitive because it's not object based.

John: Direct recognition. And once the direct recognition is there, like I talked about last week about how seeing Conner and playing with the kids, and just the understanding was like the formless Presence is animating these bodies and moving them around, and each one is like experiencing a separate world and a separate existence, just like in a dream. It's consciousness that's just animating and moving things around and creating stories. But inside that little body is not a person. A person is a concept and an idea.

Q: And if I want an explanation of it, I just think, well, you can imagine.

John: Well, and it's deep. It's expressive. It was, yeah, just like when you understand that formlessness is not just a concept, it's how in the world could you be involved in this world? Like you just, it's not possible. And you go right back to dream to try and explain it. If you want to be mind logic, you say, okay, in a dream, you lay down sleeping, and sense of existence, it stirs, and the consciousness, objects appear within the consciousness, because there's identification with an object within the consciousness. There are other objects, and there's the subject-object duality, and suddenly now you have a scene, a world. You have people, you have movement, you have activity, you have speaking, you have conversations. When you wake up, you know none of it was true, and it had to have been all you.

Who else could it have been? When you know yourself in a real sense, this so-called waking world, this worldly existence, how could it possibly be true? And that's why going back in the beginning of this whole talk, we said, illusion is very hard to maintain. That's why it's easy to know yourself. And once you know yourself, illusion is just gone. It's just, there's no, nothing can hold it.

There's no structure, because illusion is illusion. And as we discussed in the beginning too, the, oh, you know what? It's starting to deepen, and deepen, and deepen, and what is being said is being impressed. It's because that is the reality. And literally, you know, we're on YouTube, and we have the website, and all that. Anybody stumbling across this, and starting to have curiosity, and listening, you discover your own self, because that is the truth.

That is the reality. It's not something where it's like, only when we're in these talks, or only when we're doing this, or only if you think a certain way, or if we hum, or we have to play some music in the background to get your mind right. No, it is the reality. It's open and available for everyone, because you are everyone. When you discard illusion, there you are.

Q: It's, you know, it's removing the layers, like we used to say.

John: Yeah. Layers of illusion gone, fires burning bright, there you are. There are no individuals, there is no body form, there you are.

Q: So, when the layers are removing, it seems like there's like a bliss kind of thing there, where it feels good to be free. And so, I was thinking, is bliss the, I wrote it down, is bliss the limitless power behind, is there any equivalency between bliss and the power, the formless power that animates everything?

John: Well, again, we talked about the Amrut, the nectar of immortality. This is like the Selfless Self intoxication. As you get closer and closer and closer to your Selfless Self, that sense of Presence, of course, for the first time it's felt, and it has no other things layering it down. So, there is this feeling of, oh, oh, I like this. And Sri Ramakant Maharaj talks about chocolate you're giving, and Nisargadatta Maharaj says, chew the chocolate, because this is this Selfless Self intoxication. It's a little reward for being with yourself and continuing to know yourself in a real sense. As illusion fades, you feel the freedom.

Q: So, at first, it's a contrast, and it might seem like it's more powerful or something, but then it becomes more normal or regular.

John: You will no longer have Presence, seeing Presence. You'll have to, like, use the body form to drop back into Presence. Like, if you sit here and then, okay, you won't be, Presence will no longer be a thing, because you are that.
It's no longer like a fascination of your awareness of an object of, this is Presence, or this is consciousness. It's not like that. You just are.

Q: Then you're not concerned about whether it's dissolving at one time or another.

John: Well, because it's dissolved. Because it's dissolved. There's nothing.
There's no illusory, again, because that hook on the wall labeled Keith is no longer there. So, when I say, Keith thinks this, oh, no hook anymore. There's no hook for Keith. Where's the thought about Keith? Where's Keith's ideas, his conditioning? Nothing, because there's no hook. You've removed the hook, and you didn't actually do it. It's just that the hook was so false that by remaining with your Selfless Self, it could no longer appear as true. It never was true, but it appeared for a time true.

Again, going back to dream. Dream seems very real. Wake up. It's finished. Know yourself in a real sense. The illusion of the world is finished.

Yeah, there will be different stages towards getting this. I told you before about the Ashram. I had the experience where we were doing bhajans, and suddenly there's this feeling of expanding into the entire Ashram, and knowing that everything, all the activity in the Ashram was going on inside myself.

But this, again, was from the perspective of the mind. Mind views this as expansion, because the illusory layers are being dissolved slowly, silently, and permanently. Through the mind, it's interpreted as an expansion. I'm expanding, but no. If you're formless, you cannot expand. It's just that pressure of a limited identification is crumbling slowly, silently, and permanently. All concepts are removed. Even the concept that there were concepts, or that there's someone there on which concepts can hang, such as the hook. John, Alan, Keith, no hooks on the wall.

So, I say, well, Keith, how do you feel about this? Oh, where's that? And yet, in the moment, there's a response, still using language. Still, of course, body form is available. Body and world are synonymous. But world is no longer so. It's loose, like the clothes. You just wear the world as a loose garment.

Q: I was thinking, from a perspective of a Keith, that the mantra is enabling me to start. I'm getting a better connection with the mantra, and so I'm thinking the mantra is enabling me to dip into the bliss more, whereas maybe before it didn't seem to be connected with the mantra. But anyway, it's still just a perspective coming from a sense of limitation that's still there for a time, I guess.

John: And don't get hung up. You know, Sri Ramakant Maharaj and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Ramakant Maharaj was very clear about, don't sit and remain with this I am, because this is just a progressive step, a lot of stopping of, oh, this is it, this is the bliss, I love bliss, bliss on tap, I can escape to this place anytime I want. But no, you're Selfless Self, because all of that is still within the bubble of illusion. The I am is within the bubble of illusion, because there's a knowingness, I exist. That creates the concept of duality. You're out of it completely. So, just because that bliss is available doesn't mean you want to sit there and just bask in it. You want to remain with your Selfless Self, continue with mantra until you concentrate on the concentrator, until the concentrator dissolves within the concentration. You meditate on the meditator until the meditator dissolves within the meditation. Nothing is there. Even Samadhi. Samadhi is very nice, very blissful. Oh, I like a nice Samadhi state. For three days I didn't know anything, and I was just floating around, and I had no concept of body, and then it stopped. No, again, this is within the bubble of illusion. No experience, no experiencer. No witness, no witnesser. Nothing is there. Not the concept of nothing, the absence of everything.

Q: But you did, but then, you know, there's like contradictions and non-contradictions. It doesn't make any difference, but it's kind of like neither exists.

John: We use words, and words are meaningless, but we tie words together to try and, I don't know why I would do that, language.

Q: I did ask you a couple weeks ago, one true statement is, I am. So, even that's kind of like not true. That's the first illusion.

John: I exist. That's the key, the doorway. Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj talks about stay at the doorway, and then you understand there's no door, and there's no, because the doorway is the I am. On this side is the world, on this side you are. But if you're on this, if you are on the other side of, I am, then that means I am is an appearance on you, or to you. And along with I exist, comes I exist as something in a world. Look at all these things. I have actions. I have activities.

Just like when you first wake up in your dream, when you attach yourself to any kind of a body form, any kind of a form at all, doesn't even have to be a body, any form at all within your dream, then you, I exist as this object in a world with other objects, a story is created, dialogue, words. And when you wake up, you know none of that was true. The building blocks of illusion.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

This is the Tuesday Talk held February 10, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk February 10, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. with minimal editing

Q: Anything new? New is such an old word.

John: I did start transcribing the talks for 2025, putting them on the website with AI, this transcription service, where it like listens to the video and then you can make a transcript. So that was asked for by a couple of folks. So, it's on the website now.

Q: Anybody can do that? You can like play a video and it'll make a transcript for you?

John: Yeah, it is. Let's see, what is it called? It is called turboscribe.ai dashboard. It's totally free. You're limited to three a day and you're also limited to half hour. So, I have to take this talk because it's like 39 minutes, cut it in half and then upload two different versions that then create one document.

But yeah, it's totally free. And so, I started doing that because several people had asked, you know, why, why we didn't have that available. It's not, there's going to eventually be at the end of the year, it'll have everything and it'll be in one sheet and PDF that can be downloaded.

But for right now, you can just go to the website and read it. That'll also help with translations because there is one person who speaks mostly German who they asked through an intermediary, is there any way to translate the talks? And I think actually this AI service would translate what we're saying into a different language.

I don't know how accurate it is, but it can do that too. So, I know that's not the sponsor of this video and we're not doing advertising or anything like that. It's just, you know, we started doing that to further do whatever.

Q: Yeah. I wonder how long that's been available.

John: Yeah, I don't know. I just started researching it because somebody had asked me, hey, why don't you do transcripts and you know, put them together in a PDF or whatever. Like, so I looked into it and it is available and I am right now putting them in a Word doc, which will just keep going and going and going at the end of the year, convert that to a PDF, upload the PDF to the website, and then anybody can download like the whole year's talks.

Q: So spooky action at a distance.

John: Indeed. And it's not edited, by the way. So, like even our little casual chitchat, like what we're chitchatting right now will be in that.

So, it's not like some great spiritual manifesto or whatever. It's just the transcript of everything that we're doing here.

Q: Okay. I better not be inane.

John: It doesn't have your name. My name is the only one that's there. It'll just say question on each sheet, even if you're not asking a question, just to keep it so that it's not privacy wise. There might be somebody who attends, like we've had a few people who come in just for like one or two sessions and then we don't see them for a while. So, I don't want their name to be out there like permanently associated because they might not like that.

Q: Well, I know I said I better not be inane. I know you probably heard me say name, inane, you know the term, which I often am inane.

John: Well, no, I guess inane means like kind of, I don't know what it means exactly to be honest with you, but you're saying like, in case you say things that would make you look goofy or would make you...

Q: Something like that, irrelevant or whatever.

John: Exactly. So that's why I'd just say Q. And nobody would be like, oh, look at this dumb question that Keith asked, or look at this thing that he, you know, no, it's not like that. Because this is, we encourage everybody to come join us, question freely, and do as you wish.

Q: Indeed. I was kind of thinking about how funny it is, but then again, also not funny necessarily, that, well, that I put, that I'm always interested in and I desire to know stuff. And I like to; I desire to know how my mind works and all that stuff. And I, you know, I do, you know, inadvisably, I guess, spend...

John: Once you know yourself in a real sense, that won't be a thing. Like you'll have no desire. It's just like in a dream. Do you have any desire to know exactly how everything's operating in your dream? How is the dream world manifested? How are people interacting?

How is it that when you wake up, you understand that it was all you, but while you're in the dream, you're completely deluded into believing that it's separate than others. Who cares? You know yourself in a real sense. I'm the dreamer. Whatever happened inside my dream is not true, can't be true. And when you know yourself in a real sense, this quote-unquote waking is the same as that quote-unquote dreaming.

There's, okay, activities are happening and appear to be going on, but you're formless. Again, if you can really visualize, because I remember I was with Conner in the bouncy house right after having seen Maharaj, and it came so strong that all those little kids were just lumps of goo. And that the formless Presence was animating each one of these.

It's like the space in this room suddenly becomes aware that it's alive only because a body form, an instrument or food for that consciousness is suddenly made available. And then it's like, oh, there's life. But before that, you are. After that, you are. It's just a body factory, no matter what the elements are, no matter how they come together in whatever animal or human or fish or, I don't know, fish is an animal. I think fish is separate from animal.
But anyway, it's like marine life. Oh, no.

Q: There's plants and animals, I think the general term.

John: Plants and animals. Yeah.

Q: Did this break?

John: Hold on. There it is. That was weird. Okay. Anyway. So, it's just a body factory.

Whatever that body is, two bodies get together, they create another body. Once that body's created, and the blood and everything is coming through it, there's an awareness of life, that livingness. And suddenly, you know, I exist. But you haven't changed form. You haven't gone down into that form, even. There's just because a form is available, the food body, so to speak, the food body, the food for consciousness. Now there's an awareness of, I am something. Because suddenly, this food body is available. And when the food body is no more, then there's the sense, oh, and that's it. You're not like traveling into now, what is death? What is death like? Or whatever. Because you never were born. You knew yourself for a time as something other, because a body form was available. And as you know yourself in a real sense, body's here, but I'm not that.

Whether body is or is not, I am. And now, I can, because of the awareness of the subtle sense of Presence, because I'm holding a body form, oh, I'm more like this Presence than I am this body. The world is occurring within my Presence, including the body that I believed myself to be at one time. For a long time, I was convinced I'm this body, I'm living this life. Now I know better.

Q: And that's, being aware like that is what makes you able to see the bodies as just goo. And I had like a little flash of what I could say is a similar experience to that, maybe a week ago or something. It just seemed like I could see all bodies were just bodies. I was observing that, and I was not that. So, but this is just an experience. That's just, I could say, oh, I knew something at that time. No, it was just like an experience, just like a dream, like you say, that would, it formed as a type of experience at that time. And then I'm not going to remember and always see things just that way.

John: But the understanding, even in this incident that I was speaking about while I was sitting there, watching Conner and watching him play with all his friends, the understanding was very deep. Like, it was, you can't unsee that, basically. You can't really say like, because, and this was after Mantra, you know, I'd been with Maharaj practicing Mantra, and it was before he came to the USA.

So, I had gone to India, and this was a gap between India visit and him coming to USA like a year later, and him winding up just right up the street doing Ramakant USA and all that. But it was just, you know, you just knew. It's self-evident, and it's not even, I wouldn't even say an experience, because it's just like an understanding dawns within your own self that I'm not body, and that all these bodies jumping around, the parents playing with the kids, and the kids themselves are just the formless Presence, believing itself to be separate because of knowing yourself in the moment as a body in a world.

And we've gotten used to thinking of it that way. Well, the delusion of separation comes about because the parents believe themselves to be bodies in a world, even though it's the formless Presence, telling the little person that you are a little body in a world, and then the sense of doership, because you do good things, you do wrong things, you get punished, you get rewards, all this sort of thing. It's impressing, impressing, impressing.

Nobody sits there and tells you, oh, you know what? You're not this body. You know yourself now because of this body, and as long as this body form is available, you'll continue to know yourself, but please don't delude yourself in believing you're a body or that you were born. You've just suddenly made the realization that you exist, and you equate that existence to this little body that you believe yourself that I exist as this, because prior to that, formlessness doesn't know I exist. It's formless. And even the word formless comes along with the body when we're trying to sit there and explain it using concepts that the mind can sort of latch onto. Oh, formless, what does that mean? It's like space or sky, but it's not even that, because space and sky are within you.

Q: So, experience does depend on some kind of reflection.

John: Experience, you have an experiencer, and you have a subject-object kind of, I'm doing something, I'm experiencing something. But again, the deeper understanding, because you can experience in your dream. We talked about before, in your dream, you can jump off a building and experience flying, or you can be swimming and experiencing swimming, but you wake up, and of course, you're not wet. So, experience right there shows you that's not true. It appears that you are experiencing, but there is no experience, no experiencer.

Q: But there is reflection. What could be described as reflection going on there? It's knowing.

John: Not even so much reflection, it's just a, I can't explain it, because you're just sitting there and you're watching all this activity, and because of sitting with Mantra, seeing Maharaj, the knowledge is hammering, hammering, hammering, hammering, which we're doing all the time here, just hammering, hammering, hammering. You are not body, you were not body, you're not going to remain the body, body is not your identity. Except your Selfless Self, there's no God, no Brahman, no Paramatman, no Master, nothing is there.
Formless you. Just I, just I. All these things are hammering, and then intuitive understanding just comes. Oh, so that I, I am That. And since I am That That is all there is, regardless of the appearances, regardless of the children, regardless of the parents. Regardless, you are That, because That is all there is.

And That is not born, That does not die, That cannot be burned, buried, cut, separated in any way. As Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, the Ashram, you have, if the walls come down in the Ashram, does the space in the toilet go to hell, and the space in the Ashram go to heaven? No. Space is space. The concept is that this is the Ashram, this is the toilet, this is the living area, all separated. But this is not true. Space is not separated. Even after the whole thing is demolished, and it's just, you know, building, they knock it down to build another building. Now it's all different rooms. So where is the space in the Ashram, if it's a totally new, if it's a shopping mall now, suddenly? But the space doesn't know, oh, it was an Ashram, now I'm a shopping mall. How disrespectful.

You know, it's space. We create the concepts, just like we create the concept of wall, mud, water, and make cement and all that, and we say, oh, it's a wall now. No, technically it's just a bunch of rocks ground up with some water and mortar and things. But we don't say that. We say it's a wall. It's a house.

Q: That's why it can seem so contradictory at times.

John: Because words betray. No word can be true because words, you're prior to words. That's just like Maharaj gave the example. Hand, if I said, oh, these are your toes. Oh, these are my toes. There's no difference. It's labeled. Hand is toes. How? Which one? We create the labels.

Q: Yeah, right. Of course, they're going to contradict other terms. Some terms are gone.

John: Dramatic. Because it's words. Anytime you start using words, you start creating worlds of concepts. And what's worse is I can say some words, and you'll interpret them through your understanding and through your concepts. You won't interpret them like cleanly because you have all your concepts that you're coming and putting on. So, when you have ash over the fire, and then they're speaking about the ash over the fire, then you go and you add some more ash to the fire as we're speaking about removing the ash.

Q: And then you see, or I do, seem to know stuff. And then you live in that. We live like that.

John: Again, no knowledge is knowledge. Because when they talk about the knowledge that this Presence, I exist, the knowledge of existence, it's not knowledge like book knowledge. Maharaj used to say literal knowledge, bookish knowledge. It's not this. Knowledge is to know yourself in a real sense. Because after that, there's no need to know anything else.

What can possibly need to be known when you know that you are That? And the conviction is very strong. Nothing other than myself, regardless of the appearances. In a dream, nothing other than yourself, regardless of the appearances. If you dream tonight, again, we always talk about a park setting. We have people and dogs running around, and the sky, and it's a very lovely day, and people are picnicking. There's the appearance of separation, the appearance of things happening, people having experiences, quote, living lives. When you wake up, you know it was not true. It could not have been true.

And when you know yourself in a real sense, yes, okay, look out the window and you see cars coming and going on the road, and people in their houses, but it's not true. You know yourself in a real sense. Now you play your part very well. Whatever needs doing in the moment, okay, do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities. You want to go to the movies, go to the movies, read a book, read a book, go outside, have a picnic, whatever, doesn't matter. Just like in a dream, it doesn't matter, because you know yourself in a real sense.

And if there is irritation, it should be fast removed, because there's no like, oh, I will get revenge on this person. It's just, oh, coming, another thing happening, another scene, scene change. You go out, especially when you go out to like stores, or you go to the grocery store, maybe there's a long line, people are rude, people are butting in front, whatever.

But it's just like, that's a scene. Scene is coming, scene is going. You can't even sit there and say, oh, that person's doing that on purpose. Well, that's not even possible. It'd be like if you said somebody was doing something on purpose in the dream, and you're very angry, and you woke up feeling angry, and wait a minute, they couldn't have been doing that thing that you were so angry about, even when you were coming into the waking state, you were thinking, I'm very angry. But they weren't doing that thing. You don't want to live in an illusory prison of illusory problems with illusory people. Put yourself in a little box and be like, oh, I'm angry with these people. They're so bad people.

Q: And then pride gets involved, because you think you know that they did something.

John: If you have identification, if you have a local identification, then you're going to want to protect that. That goes back to Sri Ramakant Maharaj talking about the ants. Pour some water and those ants run, because they have a local identification and they want to protect the body. You know yourself in a real sense, okay, this thing's happening, and it's finished. And in the, quote, human sense, you just say nothing lasts forever, nothing good and nothing bad. So, whatever this is, it passes. And because you don't have a hat, a hook to hang your hat, there's no like, oh, this is such a terrible thing and drag in days and days and days. Is it happening? A scene has changed, a new scene. Just like if you turn on the TV and you're channel surfing, you don't get angry that, oh, this program is so terrible, and then sit there and watch it, suffer it. You know, oh, this is just a terrible program. I can't believe there's 100,000 other channels. You can switch the channel. You can change the scene easily. No need to just sit there and dwell on the suffering, because if there's suffering, you've created a sufferer, a local identification. And the mind is happily able to produce thoughts of a suffering machine. And with a local identification and a thought stream of a sufferer, you can manifest illusory suffering that feels quite real, as real as the dream, until you wake up.

Q: And we love to justify our suffering.

John: Well, there should be no suffering, because maybe you have a bad experience, good experience, bad experience, they come and go.

Q: Yeah, at least I do that. You know, I think I know that I have a problem. And I just forget that I'm just creating that, like, and I'm causing myself to suffer, because I'm creating this problem out of whatever.

John: You know, remember, your imagination is so wonderful that you can create this entire waking world and make it appear true. Just like you can create an entire dream world and make it appear true. So, if you have that kind of power in creating, the consciousness is able to manifest in just about any way it likes and take any form it likes, then you know, that is a powerful thing, that you do not wish to suffer and create this world that you're living in, you'll feel it, like in the past, I'm sure, if you're very, very depressed, you get into that depression, and then all the thoughts come in, and you're manufacturing this depressive state.

Q: You don't realize you're doing it.

John: And now, now you know. Now, even if you catch yourself starting to get a little angry or starting to get a little depressed or a little of this or a little of that, this number one, depression should always be equated right away to body-based issues, body-based problems. This is a five-elemental body.

Just as we have storms, just as we have wind, as we have snow, those are the elements. When the elements are disturbed, and this is a five-elemental body, then there will be a disturbance. You might feel sick, you might feel tired. That's the body. And because you're holding the body, even though you're formless, it's registering there's tiredness in this body. But if you know yourself in a real sense, okay, if there's tiredness in this body, sleep. If there's hunger in this body, eat, drink if you're thirsty. But it's just a scene. You're not holding on to something and dragging it through your day or dragging it through your week because you have no hands.

Q: I don't suppose this probably hasn't happened to you, but I don't think it has anything to do with my study of this topic. But for the past month or two, maybe two months at least, I fall asleep and I wake up after like two hours. And I don't know what's causing it. Anyway, I'm losing a lot of sleep. I'm getting insomnia. And it probably has nothing to do with like an energetic thing due to the teachings or anything like that, I don't suppose. Any ideas there?

John: I mean, I don't know. It's a five-elemental body.

Q: It's disturbance in the five elements. I'm 72 years old. It could have to do with age. Yeah, definitely.

John: I mean, I wake up a couple of times in the night to use the restroom.

Q: I don't drink water later in the day. So that doesn't happen. I avoid that. But yeah, it's just, I'll be tired. And sometimes the energy shifts. I think I'm going to, for sure I'm going to fall asleep. But then the energy shifts and then. It's true.

John: You know, truly, many times when I, right away, turn off the TV, and I just sit there and listen to Mantra and just relax. And then boom, you're asleep.

Q: Yeah, I do Mantra. Sometimes that does help to fall asleep. Especially if I count each Mantra, the counting also can help sleep.

John: I mean, if that's, I don't know. I’ll just sit there because I sleep in a recliner. It's the best way for me to sleep. I'm sitting there, I watch TV, turn off the TV, put the recliner, start listening, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out. And then that's it. It's just you're gone. That's it. But again, remember Sri Ramakant Maharaj, because somebody asked about it, you know, I'm doing the Mantra, and I'm having too much energy, and I'm having a really hard time sleeping. And he said, there's no sleeping, there's no waking.

So don't make a problem about it, or have your mind sit there and try to figure it out. No sleeping, no waking. Okay, sometimes there's a little bit of trouble sleeping, sometimes not trouble sleeping, nothing to worry.

Just like if you do Mantra, you begin the Mantra, and suddenly you're very angry all the time. You know, that's, those are those tenants leaving the building. As Sri Ramakant Maharaj says, you know, you have the experience I had in India with the gold, where I was overwhelmingly, I wanted that gold. There was, and it was weird, it was like this burst of like, I must have, this is such a good deal, I want this, I want this. And I went back and I talked to Maharaj about it. And the coolest thing was, because I spoke with Maharaj about it, I continued my Mantra, just as I did, not worrying about, oh, these are disturbing feelings.
When we went back with another devotee, there was nothing. I looked at the gold, whatever, and showed him, here's the store, because Tata had sent us there, and nothing. There was nothing. And that was really very beautiful. Same with the food. There were a couple of times where suddenly I just started to get very, very angry.

And I told Maharaj, I was like, and I don't like the food, and there's geckos in my room, and this and that. And he's like, oh, would you like to move rooms? You know, there was nothing pushing back. It wasn't like two people. And it was just okay, this is happening because Mantra, these things are coming up and discard. Alex actually talked in a video very nicely about, he felt like it was a corked bottle, you know, that you shake it, and it's like boiling, boiling, boiling. And Maharaj was just like, no, don't worry about this. Continue with Mantra. The tenants are leaving the building. They're going to abuse you on the way out. You just concentrate Mantra, because Mantra helps you see the reality. Instead of all this conceptual noise that can take you and put you in a different place, just Mantra.

Remain with your Selfless Self. Be normal, be simple, be humble, be always with you. I actually have that saying with Maharaj's face at my work. And throughout the day, anything that's going on out there, it's like, oh, be normal, be simple, be humble, be always with you.

Q: Sometimes I don't, like, don't respect or don't value the Mantra enough, because I don't, because it doesn't seem to connect me to a sense of space or anything at times. But other times, it does seem to be like a sense of openness or bliss is sort of connected to the Mantra.

John: It’s true for me. I took it as God himself. I asked for freedom. And God himself says, to be free, this Mantra. That is my only thing. To be free. You want freedom? Great. Here's this Mantra. And it's given to you by God himself. That is the most important thing. They tell a story about the, we've told before about the people who look for the silver and this and that and the gold, all this, because you have to value it so high. When the guru gives you a little stone and says, this is the most valuable thing, go find the value. He goes to his mother, and his mother says, oh, I'd give one or two rupees. Then he goes on to the next town. Oh, this is worth a hundred rupees. He goes into a bigger town. This is worth a thousand rupees. He goes to another town. And the guy's like, this thing could, I don't have enough money in my store. That's how valuable this is. So, you have to understand that the perception of the value, that this is invaluable.

Q: And that's what you're really devoted. That's what, like I said last week, that's what we're here for is devotion to that supreme value or whatever, you know.

John: It is in the understanding of God, as you understand God, he has said in human form, this Mantra will eliminate the illusory world, and you will live completely free. This Mantra will remove the concept of birth and death, will remove the concept of suffering, will allow you to experience, so to speak, Heaven on Earth. And you say, well, you know, I give it like, how much, how long do I have to do it for? Like, is it like two hours in the day? Or like, I can't really spare that. Like what? Okay. Keep living your illusory life, playing spirituality, keeping the egoistic spirituality of I've learned so much, I can quote Sri Ramana Maharshi, I can quote Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I read this, I read that, or worse, I've traveled around Arunachala 55 times, and I even wore a little loincloth, just like Sri Ramana Maharshi. No.

Eliminate all concepts, slowly, silently, and permanently. Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj called it the Master key, and it doesn't have to be sitting. Like, so many people will say, oh, I don't like meditation, I'm not into meditation, I have to do it a different way. Okay, just remain with Mantra throughout your entire day, and non-stop, just remain with yourself, the Self, through Mantra.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

This is the Tuesday Talk held January 27, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk January 27, 2026
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. with minimal editing

 

Q: I received Naam Mantra about three years ago, right. And I've been doing it. But for me personally, I don't know. I guess I do the job of Mantra throughout the day, you know, and I liken it to almost a mindfulness practice in Buddhism, you know, where it's like you, you're using it, it's filtering, it's bringing you to the present moment, you know. So I do that. And then, I try to sit with it in meditation. Um, but I haven't, um, you know, like I, I had, um, about 16 years ago, I had a glimpse of the self, you know, among some other bits of Samadhi. I'm kind of wondering if, um, if I should, um, go back to like, just, just doing breath meditation, because, um, I've read that at some point, you know, with the Naam, it didn't end up stopping it, uh, for some people, and they just be with the breath.

And I know Nisargadatta, he warned against, you know, being too into Samadhi, because it creates an identity for some people, right? But at the same time, he obviously sat long hours, you know, during those three years. And, um, you know, it's, it's not that Samadhi gives you the realization, right?

Like that's not even, it's just, it's not, it's not required at all, but it helps stabilize, right? And so I'm wondering if I should maybe possibly go back to, um, you know, keeping the Naam, but just doing the breath, um, in meditation, because, uh, I feel like, um, I, like I have no, no issue with recognizing that everyone's myself, like this is, I'm the only one that experiences my experience. There's, this all comes from yourself, and this is all, you're formless and all that stuff, right?

Like that's not a problem, but the issue is that I still have issues with my nervous system, having anxiety or fears. And I try to go back to the Naam and I say, you know, just let the Naam do its work. And it helps to some degree, but I've read like, not just in our tradition, but in like say Buddhism that having Samadhi and being able to, um, concentrate and letting those experiences, uh, filter through into your nervous system, that that'll help stabilize you in, in these, um, realizations and stuff.

So, what do you, what do you think? Um, do you think that that's okay for me to just do breathe, uh, with the Naam?

 

John:  If you've been given the Naam, I highly recommend that you continue because eventually you're not actually doing the Mantra. You're just kind of listening to it running through. And when you talk about, uh, like negative, uh, highway, nervous and this sort of thing, um, I can only say from my own self, when I rode on the back of a motorcycle one time with this guy and we were zooming down the highway and I told him, I said, you know, I'm really not liking motorcycles as far as I haven't ridden on them.

And he decided to go and just go crazy. And during that time, I concentrated on the Mantra while I was on the back of the motorcycle. I was just concentrating on the Mantra, and it flowed because I was no longer thinking about the experience that I was experiencing and identifying with a local identification of I'm on the back of this motorcycle and I'm not enjoying it.

And what happens if we crash instead of focusing on Mantra, all the peace came. It was, and it wasn't even just peace. It was just the lack of anxiety, the lack of anything because mind could not sit there and create a thinker thinking thoughts about the situation that it looked like I was experiencing.

 

Q: Yeah. It was like, uh, I use it a lot. Um, uh, you know, not just like trying to say the job, especially that's a good time all the time.  Um, and, and, uh, I mean, that's, you know, it's, uh, there's like another tradition, they call it prayer without season, you know, and it's right, right.

John: Yeah.

Q: What you're doing, you know, correct. Same system.

 

John:  You're inviting attention of the invisible listener consistently and you're clearing away the thought train. You're no longer paying attention to this flow of thoughts because the thoughts are lessening and lessening and lessening. Cause the Mantra is like a broom that just keeps sweeping.

And when you talk about Samadhi, I'm guessing you're talking about your, the sense of presence that's coming. And then there's like a sense of presence. And then there's a sense of a, nothing of you in that sense of presence.

And you're able to just walk about and do your job and just kind of move about without any kind of thought, pressuring you into believing you're a separate body.

 

Q: Well, whenever, whenever I'm doing stuff, typically like just regular, I'm not, I don't have like, uh, pressured thoughts and I'm not having to plan out the next action. It just happens in the moment. But what I'm talking about with Samadhi is, um, you know, just sitting in meditation, being able to, you know, uh, like whenever I saw the self, it was like, everything was, it was just formlessness and it was self-luminous, I guess you'd say.

And, um, you know, it was very much, there was no identity there. I was not Matthew. I was just, it was like the most natural feeling.

And whenever I started realizing, I started observing it, that's whenever I came out of it. Right. And so I was like, I was, you know, years have gone by, I've spoken with some friends with, you know, other practitioners of different traditions and, you know, it's like, um, like that's, that's what I interpret the glimpse of the self as, but as far as, um, you know, I miss that a lot.

I don't, you know, I know that like, I've read that in our, in our tradition, it's like, it doesn't have to be this mind-blowing experience all the time. That's not what it is. It's not a, you don't have this, uh, it's a very normal thing at that point.

Right. But like in the back of my mind, sometimes I'm thinking, you know, with, with say Nisargadatta, you know, having sat for so long and living in the self, right. You know, there's, there's some, there's some problems with terminology, because if you haven't, if you're not like we say, well, you're already Parabrahma.  Right. But if you don't understand that, then it doesn't register. Right.

Only a Jani knows what a Jani experiences. And so, um, if in the back of my mind, I've thought, well, that experience of the self that I had, is that what Nisargadatta and Ramakant have always been in once they realized, you know, if they just existed in that identity-less, uh, formlessness, um, you know, experience, but they would say, well, if it's an experience and you can reflect on it, that's not what it is. Right.

 

John:  So, there's no experience, but that just I, just I, feeling that's the, I am that Nisargadatta Maharaj talks about where you remain with that. Just, I just, I'm speaking about it as presence. These are just words, but it's like just that very, very, very subtle, subtle, subtle sense of presence.

Slowly identification goes away from body and onto the sense of presence as, oh, I am more like this sense of presence than I am this body. This is not a thought. This is just an intuitive understanding, the knowledge, so to speak.

This, after some time of knowing, oh, I'm formless presence, you absolutely understand that whether presence is there or not, I am. And that is your own selfless self, ultimate reality. Presence is an appearance because of body form.

You can feel it, but you are more subtle. I am, I understand, oh, I exist. Just I, just I.

There's nothing there, but still, there's that subtle, subtle experience, for lack of a better word, of just I. You are the one to whom this has appeared. Now this is that black hole that you are just, there's nothing, there's no, you can't think of questions, you can't think to try and talk your way out of believing that you are that you're just here.

That's conviction, oh. Now, moving about your day, you just do your job, do your duties, you don't really pay too much attention to what is happening or not happening. Flow of thoughts has almost totally, completely gone, other than I'm hungry, you have some body-based need, and you go and do this.

You're not a robot or an automaton, you can still fully function in the world, but there's no longer an idea of a timeline of an object in space and time, creating a, quote, life. It's just scenes appearing and disappearing, appearing and disappearing, and then all the words and all these things, you can just throw those out. Jani, or Yanni, and Buddhist, and Hindu, and Nirvana, and Samadhi, and all these there, because they're all body-related, and you are prior to body.

Also, you're not involved in the thoughts or any kind of, like, mental picturing of anything, because you absolutely know that the mind can only show you images, projections of things that came along with the body, because mind came along with the body. Mind cannot be with you, nor can you suddenly say, I'm experiencing myself, because you're creating a duality where there is none.

 

Q: Yeah, I understand that. I just, like, I've noticed that whenever I try to sit, I just feel agitated, and I've tried to, you know, I've tried to cut the caffeine, and different things, and so that's why I was asking if you think that.

 

John:  I don't think breath is a good idea. It's back to egoistic meditation. You're going to be paying attention to breathing as a body form, whereas see, the Mantra is erasing all the concepts slowly, silently, and permanently.

Maharaj talks about it as a broom, so that no sticky concepts can stick, and eventually, if there's no place for these sticky concepts to stick, you lose interest. You're no longer creating worlds of difficulty because of belief and concepts of; I am a body in a world experiencing this experience.

 

Q: Yeah, I've kind of just thought about sometimes just, like, stopping it all together, just because it's like, there's no, like, if you, I feel like if you've seen, you know, it's there, but it's like, having this, this, if the conviction

 

John: Is strong, if right now, tomorrow, they were to say, God forbid, the doctor says, Matthew, you only have a couple of months to live, would there be the experiences and the thoughts of dying?

That's what Nisargadatta Maharaj talks about this, or Sri Ramakant Maharaj talks about on your deathbed, are you going to be shivering and shaking, or do you absolutely know, with conviction, I was never born, I can't die. Like the famous words of Sri Ramana Maharshi, when they told him he was dying, and he didn't understand, he's like, well, where would I go? Like, yeah, that's the deep conviction.

 

Q: I kind of fluctuate, honestly, I mean, because I got surgery coming up next week. And it's like, you know, this is a very real thing for me. And I think, well, I think I just get reborn into this again, there's not a change, there's not anything that I could be different.

There's just whatever is, is, is, and there's no, it's just, you know, just formlessness spread out. And it's just a dream, just like a real dream, you know, so there's not like, there's not a problem. But for me, you know, having been raised in America, and having this Christian upbringing, whenever I was younger, you know, sometimes that little health here creeps in.

And I think, you know, I think this is a deeply seated nervous system issue, you know, where, you know, for me, it's like, like, I don't know, it's just been weird. So it's like, that's why I was wondering about the Samadhi is like, you know, should I try to try to do that more to kind of get the nervous system to just accept the conviction? Because, I mean, you know, I don't believe that we have an intellectual tradition, I think it's very much a direct experience.

 

You've seen it, you've done it, you this is it for you, there's no question.

 

John: But Mantra should be removing doubts, because no doubts can be created. The story of the mother, and the children, the children are very active and mother can't cook. So, she gives them some toys to play with.

And now she can concentrate on cooking. Same with the mind, you're allowing this Mantra to run through the mind, cleaning it, clearing it, so that these thoughts don't come. And as far as surgery, when I went in from my pacemaker, I did the exact same thing, I concentrated on the Mantra, listening to the Mantra naturally running, and went through the entire experience.

Also, I'm assuming you have pictures of the various masters that you bow down to. And you're basically, even though it's a concept in duality, it's a devotion after liberation. So where you're like, oh, master, thank you.

Thank you, master.

 

Q: You know, I may be missing reading books every day, you know, Nisargadatta, Ramakant, Siddharameshwar Maharaj, I have Dasbodh. I'm I spoke with a gentleman, he has a whole bookstore, or like the Marathi stuff. And I was going to try to learn Marathi and just translate the books that you know, we don't have in English, you know, and just something devotional thing, right.

So, but, but, you know, I don't, I don't have their pictures hanging up. And I don't bow to them every day. But for me, the I've had, I'm just kind of weird about like, that aspect of spirituality, to some degree.

 

John: I mean, the main thing is that you surrender the idea that you're separate. That's, that's the, when I went to go see Sri Ramakant Maharaj, I very much understood that that was my concept of God that had manifested in this form. And I was able to bow to the feet and thank that presence that I understood was in the form of Maharaj for this whole thing and coming here and being relieved of so much pain and suffering.

That was a very well-known thing and bowing to the masters. I know even Sri Ramakant Maharaj, he says a lot of the foreigners would come into the ashram and not bow to any of the masters.

But you're not body and that's not body.

 

Q:  Oh, even I had a bad experience before with the teacher.

 

John:  So that's, and see teacher, that's, this is not, teacher is not the body. And I understand there are teachers out there who just teach and then they ask you to do things or they give you all sorts of promises or you must pay lots of money or anything like this. But the reality is yourself is projecting the entire world, including the images or the pictures of the master that you are internally.

And you're not bowing to Sri Ramakant Maharaj, you're bowing to Selfless Self, which is your own self. So, it's not like, it's not like, oh, I'm bowing to this guy's feet. No, this is absolutely, it's just Selfless Self-devotion.

And that also brings about that Selfless Self-intoxication. The more you really remain with the sense of presence, this I am, you can remain with nothing else. Nothing in this illusory world has any kind of pull for you, because it's just this, just this beautiful, just I, just I.

 

Q: You were your own master, correct? You were your own master, right?

 

John: Yes, yes. You are master. There is no such thing as master and disciple.

 

Q: Exactly. So, he doesn't have to have that perception if he doesn't want to.

 

Q: I mean, the thing is, is that it's like, this is all a projection of the self in my, the way that I understand it. And so, it's like, there's, I don't know, maybe the first teacher, I had false ideas about a teacher and that manifested as false ideas, whatever. I don't know them, you know, it's Maya, who knows, right?

So, but the, that devotional aspect is something that I have neglected, I feel like, you know, so.

 

John:  That's a large part. That's, that's why even the bhajans, still to this day, I wake up in the morning, I put the bhajans on, I listen to the bhajans to give that spiritual atmosphere, and then read books from Nisargadatta, Sri Ramakant Maharaj, a couple of different like daily readings and things. And that's just become a way to start the day in that devotional aspect.

But devotion is important. It's, it is because this desire to know yourself is to remove anything that is not. It's a burning desire within.

I don't know if you've read on the website, the Ramakant Maharaj Dakshina, but I outlined that when going to India at the airport, in those words that I said, I was like, I am going to India to bow at the feet of the master and ask that anything that is not that be removed. And that's that devotion that that selfless self-devotion, because whatever bad experience you had led you to Maharaj led you to be able to take Mantra. So it was just one step on the journey.

This is the final destination, your own selfless self. And even to have like preferences of I don't like this, I don't like the bhajans, I don't like that. There’s still something there, creating this situation of I don't want to do this, or I don't like that, or I don't want this.

And the more that that Mantra slowly silently erases, there's no place for these sticky concepts to stick. Like you said about Christian, okay, as a kid, I was I was raised up in Christian. Now with this, as I'm sure you have been able to see, and you already mentioned it is the same, like everything that that that Jesus was saying is what we're saying.

This is the absolute truth. And when you say after I die, I'm not sure about the heavenly experience or this experience or that experience. But you're not going to there's no birth, no death.

 

Q: Yeah, it's just something that is.

 

John:  And this is why it's important. Remain with the Mantra. Slowly, silently, permanently, there won't be no concepts that can stick, because there won't be anything for them to stick to no place to hang that.

The last thing you want to do is like veer off and say, oh, maybe this is not it. Let me go over here. Because you understand that's just game of the mind.

 

Q:  100% 100%.

 

John:  And if you fall into the trap of the mind saying, oh, let's try this master or this over here, or, you know, this is not working for me. Let me do Christianity. Let me do this.

Let me see more of this, or it's just more busyness, because the reality is, all of these are body knowledge. All body knowledge can be discarded, even all the body knowledge. It is because you're not a body, the body knowledge, body relations, body experiences, none of those are you.

 

Q: Yeah, I feel like I'm just like, right on the edge.

 

John:  And the slight push Mantra. And like I said, devotion, at least for my own self. This devotion was extremely important in my whole kind of evolution, if you want to call it that.

Because without it, there would be an egoistic spirituality, like Maharaj talks about of I'm in the river with my leg up for five hours because of this thing, or I walked around Arunachala, or I lived in cave for like, you know, two months in the cave by myself, because Ramana Maharshi did a similar thing. This is all the egoistic, we're talking practical spirituality, where when you know yourself in a real sense, okay, now you just do your job, do your duties, because that conviction is deep. And if for some reason you go through, like you said, surgery, body-based experience, perfect time to be with Mantra.

As in my own case with the food poisoning in India, rather than flipping out about barfing and really being violently sick in a foreign country with nobody that I knew around me to like, quote, help me and relying completely on Mantra and Maharaj and going to a foreign hospital, but not experiencing any of that. And going for pacemaker, again, remain with Mantra, going through the whole experience without experiencing this. So you could say, oh, if there's a sudden kind of flash of this is happening, Mantra, because right now I've already created a local identification of something happening to me.

So why not then use that to experience the Mantra?

Okay. And as I mentioned, even the motorcycle ride, because at first that was no matter how Selfless Self you are, you get on the back of the motorcycle, this dude's doing like 100 miles an hour. And you're like, Oh my god, man.

So, Mantra, Mantra, Mantra. And then, oh, here we are at our destination. And I wasn't even like, like shaking.

So, it wasn't even a physical manifestation of fear, because that had left.

 

Q: Well, thank you for clarifying. I appreciate it.

 

John:  Jai Guru.

 

Q:  It's sort of like devotion is what keeps us here. And it is what we're doing. It is.  It's here. Devotion is, it's sort of why I'm here.

 

John: Devotion just comes from internal, like, even at the ashram. It's funny, because when I went to India, first off, it was, okay, I don't like fruits and vegetables. Well, guess what?

You're going to be eating a lot of vegetables. But I said, internally, I didn't ask Maharaj, but I said internally, Master, please let me look at these vegetables and not register that they're vegetables and just eat and not have something in their blocking, not put a me in the road. Let me just do this, please.

And Mantra, Mantra through lunch. Okay, you're eating vegetables. You would not have done this before.

Waking up really early, because Kakad Arati is like, I don't even know, I think it's like 5am or something. We wake up. And I'm up a little bit before that, because I wake up, take a shower, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, go to the ashram, and begin that he's, the people are sweeping and preparing for the bhajan and putting the flowers and all this sort of thing.

And there's just that natural devotion of just surrendering. And at least in my experience, the surrender was very important, because like I said, the whole thing that brought me into this was a 12 step program, where I was completely out of control, egomaniac off the charts, and then smashed and had to rely on something or someone else to help me, which then led to my understanding of a greater than myself, as this presence, worshipping this presence, thanking this presence, doing the prayers to this presence, which eventually then led to Sri Ramakant Maharaj. And all of that was because it needed to be surrendered, it shouldn't be. I think Nisargadatta, well, Sri Ramakant Maharaj talks about born in Russia, or India, or America, or Britain, and all the different body-based concepts that might have come along with that, but you are not body.

There's no India sky, America sky, Russia sky, they're never at war with each other or complaining or saying you're too far over into my part of the sky. It's not like this. All body-based concepts have to be just; nothing can be held onto.

Because if you hold onto something, then how in the world can you know yourself, unless you create egoistic spirituality of, I'm a very spiritual person, knowing myself. Sri Ramakant Maharaj talks about that trap where it's like, oh, I'm now a spiritual man, and I know that everything I've done, I didn't actually do. But there's the idea that nothing was actually done, and there is no spiritual man.

There's an understanding that's come that before this body, I am. After this body, I am. Or as even Jesus said, before Abraham was, I am.

There never was a time where you were not. There can't be. Because you're all there is, manifesting through the various different forms, in various different ways, just as electricity can charge your phone, you can watch TV, you can have a light, you can have heat, and electricity has no idea what it's doing, it's just supplying the power.

Or in a dream, in a dream, it's a formlessness. You lay down asleep, it's obviously formless, because you're sleeping, and yet the entire dream world is projected, populated, conversations happen, it looks very, very real at the time you're experiencing whatever you're experiencing, and then you wake up. And waking up here is just to know yourself in a real sense.

I am not body, I was not body, I'm not going to remain the body. Invisible, anonymous, unidentified identity, that you are.

 

Q:  Yeah, that's one thing that I've kind of wanted to have more of with Samadhi, is that it's like, when you suspend, you know, you do Pratyahara, and you have sense withdrawal, right? You take away the senses, you exist by your own, there's no need for outside stimulation for you to actually be, you know, you just are. And so that's why I felt like, am I missing that to some degree, to like to stabilize that awareness of, you know, that I exist on my own, you know, without the support of anything, right?

Like closing your eyes, the whole world goes away, you open them back up, it's there. That, it's just, it's not a, how do I put it? It's as simple as that in illustration.

I know we use the dreams and, you know, the dream world and the deep dreamless and that, but it's like, you know, you're the first and you're the last, it's at all, everything that you have comes from you and ends with you. And so knowing that, you know, you don't cut off your hand, and you say, oh, no, I've been cut off. It's like, you know, that you're not the body, you know, that you're not the mind, you know, that you're not the senses or anything else like that.

And so that's why I was like, you know, not having had Samadhi and so long, it's like, you know, that I was thinking that may help stabilize that understanding, you know, so that's.

 

John: When you sit for Mantra meditation, the sense of presence, that's not like, I mean, now that you know that it's there, you can dive into it pretty much any time, right?

Q: I don't feel like that is, I don't know what's blocking that then only the concept that I'm not because that presence maybe is the meds I'm on.

I don't know. Like I’m, I take psych meds too. So, I don't know if that's had a dampening effect or something, but again, that's a body-based thing.

 

John:  So the only thing that's going to cover your own self or concepts, body-based concepts, because again, fire is burning ash ashes, remove fires, burning bread, same thing with that sense of presence, that sense of presence, that just die, just die. Even first thing in the morning, when you first wake up, you can feel that just I, just I. And anytime, I mean, in this moment, drop back in awareness, just falls into the sense of presence and you could call it Samadhi, but it's not, it's just a, it's just your own self.

It's the most natural state.

 

Q: Yeah. There's something that I'm just not catching, I guess. I don't know what it is.

 

John: You know, this concept of I'm not catching it. Remember you are the self, the self, whether you believe yourself to be that or not. So the concept that I'm not catching this, or I'm not progressing or any of this, these are body-based concepts and can be easily removed.

It's absolutely not true. You just sit. Presence is all there is.

That's, that's the, and that's the closest you can quote experience your own self because you are yourself and presence is sort of the first layer, the first concept of duality. I exist, I am, just die, just die. Before the concept of I am something, presence is Selfless Self-intoxication.

 

Q:  That's, that's the, Is that the same as Samadhi? Selfless Self-intoxication?

 

Q:  Samadhi just means concentration. That's all that means. Samadhi is absorption or concentration.

It's not like, it's like whenever you, your mind is absorbed in a meditation object. So, the idea is like, you know, saying the Mantra over and over and over, right? Like at some point you understand the, which you can look it up, right?

But like you understand experientially what the Mantra is. That's the idea with, if you were to have Samadhi on the Mantra.

 

Q:  But it's sort of like stabilization of attention.

 

Q:  Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much.

Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's a close way of saying it. Yeah.

As far as I'm aware, like, so I don't know.

 

John:  Again, if you have Samadhi, you have an experiencer of Samadhi. Right. That experiencer is not ultimate reality.

Right. So, and then they call them Nirvakalpa Samadhi is the reality of, of just, you're just, you have no awareness of your own self as anything separate.

 

Q:  That's, yeah, that's, and that's what I'm saying is I think the not having Nirvakalpa in like a long time, I feel like I have all this like body-based like stuff that I'm just like, I don't know. I'm going to keep doing the Mantra for sure.

 

John:  Yeah. And all the time, not just in specific periods and forget about meditation because Mantra all the time. Yeah.

Just you're in traffic, Mantra. You're walking to the store, Mantra. You happen to be doing whatever, watching TV, Mantra, whatever it is, because what you just said about not knowing yourself as anything separate, this Mantra will do that because you'll suddenly, again, in my own experiences, you understand from the other side, Oh, I just went to the hospital.

I did this. I did that. I did it, but I did not experience it.

I did not create an experiencer experiencing because mind was concentrated on Mantra. So, it could not create a local identification of an experiencer on which the concepts of fear or the concepts of, Oh, what's going to happen to me or body protection, none of these things could happen because Mantra just didn't allow any hats to be hung.

 

Q:  Would you say that's like an sort of intense focus on the Mantra? Just throughout the day.

 

Q:  I mean, mechanically is what I've been instructed.

 

John:  Well, not mechanically though, because it's like, breathe in first part and breathe out the  second part. And that's that, that, okay. Just slowly, silently, permanently, all the concepts are removed without you having to say, I'm removing them or without you having to concentrate.

Oh, my mind's so busy. That's fine. Mantra.

And you watch yourself. I mean, I know this because in India, I got the Mantra, started doing the Mantra and wound up wandering all over India, totally, completely lost and had to take one of the little rickshaws back to the Ashram because you are so totally absorbed that you do not think about the you, what you are, where you are, what you're doing.

 

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.

 

 

 

 

This is the Tuesday Talk held January 13, 2026. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

Tuesday Talk January 13, 2026

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.  with minimal editing.

 

Q: I can say I had a pleasant time since I woke up from a nap today. I just started feeling like everything was just right. It's sort of an unexplainable thing. I guess I've always thought things were... I knew that things are just right at times, but somehow, it's also... I see it's possible for...

But, you know, words are tricky because you say something's right, and that could appear to mean that you know something about it. But this is just right the way it is, everything is just right the way it is, it has nothing to do with words or even... I always thought it had to do with feelings too, but I see that...

I guess earlier today I saw that there's something totally invisible Presence that has to be there for anything else to be present. And I guess that aligns with what you talk about a lot, that this invisible, anonymous identity. It's like a value that can't be specified or limited to any value, but something about it is...

As soon as you say something about it, you're limiting it. So, it's... But there's something that feels really...It's like everything is all right. So, everything, but nothing in particular is recognizable as... I guess it's recognizable from a standpoint of...was that, okay, you have a division is something you can do. It's something that we think of when we divide. We have done the division.

It's like the invisible ability to divide is not... It must be there, but it's not divided. It's not one of the divisions that comes out of it. So, all divisions would be appearances within. I mean, you say division is a concept, but that's not really saying anything either. Because division, the ability to divide is not...It's like invisible. It's there, the ability, the potential, but it's invisible. So, you see where I'm getting at?

 

John: Yeah, I mean, invisible, anonymous, unidentified identity. And the world is all right. Everything is perfect without you, like without creating a you.

That's what you're basically saying, it is like when it's just that formless, just I, just I, the sense of Presence, everything is right. Even if things appear not to be right, because they're occurring within your own self, and because you're not trying to create a local identification and get involved in whatever's happening, that's why it's just, oh, okay, this is just a happening inside my own self without having to say it. Because within your own self, there is no division of you.

There are appearances within you, but even then, you're not dividing. Like you're, and even, again, a dream is a perfect example. The formless dream consciousness creates an entire dream world, populates it, a lot of activities going on, but the dream consciousness wasn't divided.

It was just that all these appearances started appearing, and then moving, and all this, and when you wake up, you know, oh, it wasn't true. So, you can't even say that it was like individuals, even though within the dream, it appears as individuals.

Q: Yeah, it kind of makes everything, it turns everything into a joke. As soon as you start thinking something is something, you can, it's like the joke's on you, because you're the one that's making it out to be a certain way, as if it's dependent on what you think it is, and then...

 

John: Well, that's the power of your attention, or the power of awareness. Awareness directed towards something is, I am aware of. Awareness, quote-unquote, pure awareness, just I, just I, is not directed towards anything.

There's no subject-object created. If you look at something, and you say, oh, that is something, then there is a seer created to have seen this object, but the seeing, just I, just I, there is seeing. Am I seeing?

I don't know. Seeing scenes appearing and disappearing, and without a need to create anything, any obstacles in the way, because as soon as I even say, oh, wow, I'm seeing that everything is myself, then again, that's taking egoistic, kind of, I'm seeing. I see that everything is one with me, but there's no need to say this, because again, you're prior to the very first word, so uttering a word only creates a world of concepts, all within the bubble of illusion.

The you that you are, can't speak, much like, again, they talk about the flute. The flute is giving off all this music and all this, but it's not doing anything. There's a flow coming through that creates these things, but without a flow, without blowing in, the flute, it's just an instrument, just a dead body.

There has to be that power, that energy to come through to then create, to do something, to make a sound, but the flute is totally unaware, and the sound is not, the air that's going through doesn't know, oh, I'm going to be making these sounds. It just flows. No individuality.

 

Q: Dasbodh talks about wind. I'm just reading the page where he was talking about wind and mind mixing together to make creation or something like that.

 

John: Well, again, Dasbodh, the whole concept of Dasbodh is that there is no world, and then this is how the world was created, if there was a world. That's the idea of the elements. But in the very end, too, Dasbodh gives you from the perspective that God wrote the book, because it talks about everything you've heard and this and that.

It's all divine. It came from the divine, and as you can understand, it's the divine that's written this book, but it's not necessarily like people would think of God on some throne that comes down and writes a book. It's, again, the flute.

 

Q: And the words just come out of that.

 

John: Yes, yes, well, because within the bubble of illusion, these instruments have communications. But again, it's the same as in your dream. All the little dream bodies may be carrying on conversations, maybe talking.

You may even have a dream that there's a police officer, and you have people, and you have a fireman, and you have all these. Nobody went to school. Nobody had any professions.

Nobody did anything. It's you. And when you wake up, it's not like you totally destroyed the world.

All the people have a nice view of the lake, and everybody's enjoying a nice sunny day, and you wake up, basically like Armageddon for all these people.

 

Q: But it's Armageddon, well, it's putting, well, it's not Armageddon. It's like making something out of nothing as soon as you think it's you that did it or something.

 

John: Because something appears out of nothing and goes back to nothing, because it always was nothing. The something, the dream, came formlessly. Your dream consciousness, as we'll say, for instance, laying down sleeping, creates the dream world.

And then on the other side, there is no more dream world, because the something appeared, but it's just an appearance. And when you know yourself in a real sense, it's one long continuum with appearance and disappearance.

 

Q: Yeah, I was sort of getting a sense of that, of what you're talking about, things just appear and disappear. It's very simple. It's nothing super profound, except that it makes it easier to go into a sense of ease and what could be called bliss. It makes it sort of more accessible, but less special, maybe.

 

John: I mean, when scenes appear and disappear, it's just like you say, okay, I'm not working anymore. I come home from work and I watch television. There's this scene of television.

And hopefully, your mind is not, like, continuing to try and place you in the illusory existence of work. That's why you say, oh, the person is very stressed. Why is this person stressed?

Because they are living in many different places, worrying about the work, worrying about the bills, worrying about this, worrying about that, all these sorts of things, and creating each one of these worlds and carrying them all with you. So even while you're at home watching TV, the concept is of work, because you're identifying with all these thought flows of work. And your physical body may not be at work, but that mind flow identification is at work while watching TV.

And then you say, oh, this TV show is terrible. I'm not relaxed. Well, you're not relaxed because you're at work, even though you commuted home. And that's only because you've created a local identification.

 

Q: Although the boss will tell you that if you don't get this done in time, it all depends on you. And his point, he's making a you out of you.

 

John: No one can make a you out of you. You make a you. Somebody gives you an assignment to do, you do your job, do your duties, and you leave it.

If my manager said, oh, you have just like, okay, we're coming up on our transition time. And from where I work, all the new Congressmen, as soon as they get elected, we have to create all websites for them and get them all set up and do all this sort of thing. There's going to be a lot of work.

And I will be working at home and in the office and at home and late. But again, it's just do your job, do your duties, take care of your responsibilities, and finish. Only you can create a you.

Your manager can't say, okay, I want you to be Keith right now and do all this stuff. Be working, Keith. It's not.

It's just, I mean, it can be, because again, you are the ultimate reality, and the creation of any illusion is totally possible. I mean, you're creating this whole illusory waking world, and you create a whole illusory dream world. So, you can quite easily create a working Keith, but there's no need for this.

 

Q: That's not all. That's not all there is.

 

John: But there's no need to create any Keith. Because in reality, when you know yourself in a real sense, body is available, but it's no longer a tight suit. It's more like linen suit, just very loose and fluffy, except in the cold, of course.

But then you have a puffer jacket. It's not constricting you. It's nice and puffy, keeps you warm, but you're not constantly focused on it.

 

Q: Sometimes when I don't know if this is true, but sometimes it seems like when I'm in a little bit more of a loose state of mind like that, that the coldness affects me less or sensations me. Coldness is a good example because sometimes I'm usually very sensitive to cold, more so than most people. And then I make a concept out of it, and then I’m ready to resist the cold.

But sometimes it just doesn't affect me because I'm not, I'm in a better state of mind or something. It's not affected.

 

John: Because again, awareness of body sensations, your attention grows anything because your awareness is like, oh, I'm cold. I'm really, really, really cold. Just like the concept of time.

If you go to some lecture and it's just a totally boring lecture, and this guy is almost, you're dozing in and out and you have to keep checking your watch. And that one hour seems like four days, or you do a lecture and the guy is right on and it's, and it's so fast. And you're like, wow, it went by so fast.

Because again, all of that is within you and your attention. If you're constantly looking at the clock do this even at work if you're sitting at work and you're Constantly checking the time. Oh boy. Is that going to be a very long day for you?

But when you're sitting there and you're just doing your job doing your duties taking care of responsibilities. Oh, oh, look, it's lunchtime Okay, go to have a lunch come back. We're doing job, doing responsibilities. Look at that. It's time to go. Okay, good, good.

 

Q: Even if you're like sitting with nothing to do and you could turn that into a state of boredom you could also Just appreciate everything and feel that sort of peace that's there all the time, too you know, and then and then you won't think of it as being bored that you'll actually enjoy it because you're just open to not making it into anything

 

John: Appropriately in each situation But yes that reminds me of when I first was in spirituality like 2010 I guess it was and I Was reading all these books and doing these different meditations and I had this big screensaver of an aquarium That not screensaver But like a video that you could play and I had a big screen from work and I played this aquarium and I had this little Zen garden and everything at my desk and I would break the little sand and put the little things and stuff and the manager walked by and saw this was like What the hell are you doing? I was like, oh, you know, this is just a very nice relaxing I'm just taking a moment to you know, just feel the universe and be one with it and all that He's like, okay. Well, let's do that during lunch break or something like that. So well, no because it was more terrible than getting caught and like I said in 2010 I went through a lot of different very crazy stuff and it was like, you know And I was listening to Mooji at the time too and the whole concept of not doing anything I didn't actually understand it. I didn’t have; I hadn't been in touch with my own self.

I was just hearing this “Don't do anything, you know, you're not a doer. Don't do anything. Everything will get done for you basically”, so I'm at work, you know watching the videos and playing with my Zen garden and I go outside for sometimes an hour at a time and meditate by the fountain and it was just it was too much sattva like they talk about the different gunas when the sattva guna really hypertrophies it's very crazy That's why when I went to go see Maharaj the beard that was all out the long hair the Rudraksh the dashiki Isn't all this kind of stuff? Because the sattva guna had just gone absolutely just bizarre but then once you know yourself in a real sense somebody says oh, you don't do anything. You're like, yeah, of course.

How could I do anything? Like that there's no there's no You know yourself in a real sense. There's no deed. No doer. No birth. No death. But when it’s just conceptualized in the mind You wind up watching fish and raking Zen gardens.

Yeah, just like Eckhart Tolle. When I very first started reading that was the very first book I ever read of any spirituality. He mentioned the Presence around the flower and I literally went to the flower and would stare. I wanted to see the Presence of this flower. I wanted to see That, and I didn't really understand the Presence and these sort of things but the good thing was I had this burning desire to know myself and Although it may have seemed silly to sit there and stare at the flower It was a burning desire to know this Presence.

What is Presence? I want to feel this Presence I want you know if this is true I want to see this and this of course is what you must have You know that that burning desire. I must know myself or in the beginning if it's just I must know this God or I must know how to surrender to God or whatever because when I went to go see Maharaj, I had felt the Presence and I had identified that with a power greater than myself and was going to Maharaj the sole purpose was to bow down and thank God for having changed my life so dramatically through the 12-step program that I was in at that time. Because my life was in shambles before it was just all over the place and I wanted to Bow down to this power greater than myself and say, “Thank You” and now whatever's left of me. I leave it your feet How can I best serve Thee and thank God Maharaj was a real one.

Because there are some out there Okay, give me all your worldly possessions shave your head, you know go to the airport and collect some kind of thing and saying God because I was in that state where I would have been like, okay, let's shave the head let's go to the airport. Let's do this. But even that because the Selfless Self the more you have that desire there's Nisargadatta Maharaj talks about like the self is interested in you and you're interested in the self and it it's an exchange. Actually it's Siddharameshwar Maharaj who talks about that exchange it's like a magnet

 

Q: I guess for some of us it takes longer than others to really to sort that out to where You finally recognized that you Like me, you know, I'm good I feel like, you know, I took another step today into like I could call a clarity or something And it's taken me so many years, but I've always had a sense of it, but there's always you know, this push and pull where Identification takes over or you know, it takes over. It's not like I’m doing that.

 

John: Remember that's illusion, too. Yeah, because when I was going through my quote early stages, I Would go have times where it was just total peace and bliss and I was just like, oh, this is it. This is what they all talk about and then something happens and I'm like, oh then I lose it. Then I of course go online or I go to like the Mooji chats or whatever and it's like, oh I was there and then I lost it and then it came back and then I lost it. But see again concepts and because I was looking for other people who are experiencing these concepts. We're all trying to explain these concepts to one another rather than like Maharaj, it's finished. All these concepts are illusions. Their layers on your Presence. Discard the layer. Presence is there.

How do you discard the layer? Meditation Mantra. Oh, so that I, I am that. Then, you know, it can't come and go

 

Q: Actually, I could feel the way much are working now.

 

John: Right on the spot more so than yeah, it's the magic eraser for illusory concepts like etch a sketch. The old etch a sketch where you would draw something and create these all-beautiful pretty pictures and all that, and then you just go shoo, shoo, and it's all gone. Shoo, shoo is the Mantra

 

Q: Although concepts. Well It's not working that much.

Why did okay? I did the Mantra a couple minutes ago How come I'm not feeling perfect now, you know, that's because then there's a you in the Mantra You just have to continue and Mantras all the time.

 

John: It's not just sitting for meditation That was one thing that was huge in the beginning too. Because as soon as we got Mantra, we all sat around and it was like do like hour or two of meditation But then there was this continuum and that's when the walking around all of India started and it was understood that this Mantra is just consistent cooking hot dogs, Mantra. Getting in the shower, Mantra. Brushing teeth, Mantra. Going to work, Mantra. Commuting, Mantra. Then eventually you just hear Mantra as it's naturally circulate and actually running through the body and then when you're hearing the Mantra, there's an understanding that oh, I'm not doing the Mantra. As much it’s just the invisible anonymous unidentified identity is being texted.

 

Q: Parallel You go with its watchers parallel breathing. It's the background. This is the concept

 

John: Background of everything because you're just like, eventually meditation won't be a thing for you because the entire world is the meditation. You're no longer sitting for meditation because you're not a body, you know, you're not a body So if you're not a body, then the world is actually the meditation. Thoughts are coming and going. Various forms are coming and going. All within your own self and there you are meditating. You don't have to sit there and say oh, I'm going to meditate unless you want to oh That was the thing. I said I was going to do New Year's Eve. Was and I have been doing this previously sitting there and listening to Maharaj all through the evening do the talks and all of that on YouTube. Commercials are insane nowadays. I was like I couldn't do it for more than like four, maybe four or five different talks and I had to stop because every talk it interrupted four times I was like man, this is the worst It was on YouTube or something that was on YouTube.

Yep, you know where we have the YouTube channel and You know all the Maharaj Talks are there in the whole playlist I hit play and all the previous years I've been able to kind of just sit there and kind of doze in and out and hear Maharaj and All throughout the evening all the way into the morning, but this time too much commercials Like I mean four times in a 10-minute speech. That is ridiculous Yeah, and they're loud like he'll be like, you know Invisible not in the Sun identified 499 come on down, you know, it's like oh my god, man. Come on Or that crazy Limu we knew that keeps popping up.

I'm like, oh my god. This is just it's too much so I was not able to do that this year, so we'll see if this year turns out to be Absolutely terrible Now I'm kidding but you know those So even that and see that truly it was like, okay, I can't do it and that's it finish but In the very beginning that would have really bothered me a lot. Like I said, I would have been like, oh my god You know what's going to happen now.

But that's only because you create a local identification. Without a local identification nothing can stick to you. You have nowhere to hang the hat of any concept. If you have a whole bunch of pegs. You know I'm this, I'm that, I believe this, I believe that. Then every hat of every concept can hang If you have no little pegs. Whatever concept tries to hang drops. Very nicely, very easily.

 

Q: We're talking about Being on the job or something and being whether things depend on me or not and it occurred to me that what things will seem to depend on you if they seem to depend on you and you will be living as if You as if what you think is true and you will be feeling that way according to what seems to be true according to the way you think but that's exactly the kind of Spinning wheel we want or Do we want to get off of?

So no, it doesn't depend.

 

John: I mean. Again, this is practical spirituality. I work in a team. If I just sat there and said, oh, you know, everything's going to do itself everything is lovely everything is beautiful The world is beautiful. Nothing relies on me.

 

Q: Well, I'm saying the opposite if everything seems to depend on me and I think I'm the one that's controlling the team Then you know, it's going to go well, no you do your part.

 

John: Yeah, we go back to the Bhagavad-Gita. When Krishna told Arjuna you have to fight. Don't try to be this great warrior. But you have to fight. You, you must do your duty. And do your duty but just in the moment. Without ego. Without taking pride or ownership or doership. It's just in the moment. But if you're on a team you do teamwork. You do what's assigned do your duties and take care of you assigned duties.

 

Q: Excuse me. It's practical. It all doesn't, it all doesn't not Ultimately depend on me. Because even though I'm part of a team if I drop out or if I die The team's going to go on it doesn't depend on me.

 

John: So, I mean in in everything. There's always a replacement for the person. But again, you do your job. You do your duties, take care of your responsibilities. If you are put in charge doing your job and doing your duties, is making sure that everyone else is taking care of their responsibilities and that is your duty. Again without ownership.

 

Q: But I've always thought okay like sometimes I feel free and sort of blissful and then I don't anymore. And somehow, I end up I could get the idea that somehow that depends on something I mean, I don't me that did that can do something about it or because again, you're taking your bliss.

 

John: From outside yourself. You're taking your peace and your bliss and all this sort of thing from outside yourself. You don't want to do this. You're the fountain. Right. Everything is within you. I really don't you start trying to seek happiness and peace and bliss outside Then yeah, you're absolutely right. You're chasing your tail. But the fountain is within. And I really don't. Nectar of immortality sipping just I, just I, Presence there is no person responsible for that. It's just That. There has never been. Are the people in your dream responsible for all the things and yet. Maybe you dream that somebody's walking the dog. Well, they're taking care of their duties. Yes, the duty is being done. Activities are happening. But it's all within your own self.

 

Q: The word one word kept coming to me today. Was it felt perfect. Everything was kind of feeling perfect and that was nice and I could still feel it. You know, it's just kind of perfect It's a concept. I guess you can make a concept out of it, but it's also Beyond concept two or something.

 

John: Well, the absence of any disturbance because you're not there. If you're not there, there's no way to be disturbed. If I have a local identification, then I have a position then I have concepts. I have thoughts about myself If I have no local identification, none of these is true. And that's why Nisargadatta Maharaj said If you say that I'm a very great saint, I'm not impressed. If you say I'm a very terrible saint, I'm not depressed. Because you're not speaking about me. This body form that you see is not myself.

 

Q: I know this There was something there was something Extraordinary about this Nisargadatta Maharaj, the way he expressed things. The guy was just coming from. He's speaking from ultimate reality the bottom of reality He was an intelligent guy, even though he wasn't educated. He was super intelligent or something. Well again, he's speaking from it.

 

John: It's not like he went to school and learned all these things. It's just coming from within. The responses are coming from within. He even says in the book that the responses just come. A question is put and the answer is appearing along with the question. Because there is no questioner and there is no answer. Just like in the dream. If you had one person asked somebody a question in the dream. The questioner and the answerer are exactly the same. Even if the answerer seems very profound in their answer, it's all you.

 

 

 

This is the Tuesday Talk held December 30, 2025. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

 

 

 

This is the Tuesday Talk held December 16, 2025. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

 

 

 

This is the Tuesday Talk held December 2, 2025. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

 

 

 

This is the Tuesday Talk held November 11, 2025. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!

 

 

 

This is the Tuesday Talk held October 28, 2025. Tuesday Talks is a gathering on Zoom of devotees from the Ramakant Maharaj USA visit. This is a gathering of devotee’s to discuss and clarify the teachings of Sri Ramakant Maharaj. These spontaneous utterances are recorded and shared with anyone who may find them useful.
Jai Sadguru!