John Wheeler

I have sensed from the writings of Catherine Ingram and the podcasts of John Sherman that they were pointing to something so obvious that it can be easily dismissed. It wasn’t until I started reading the writings of John Wheeler where he nearly shouts it out that I started paying more attention.

In his podcasts, John Sherman likes to compare enlightenment to his audience with their knowing that they are “here।” I would be disgusted with this oversimplication that I would say to myself sardonically, “Yeah, like duh!!! Who doesn’t know that they are alive?”

But when I started reading the writings of John Wheeler who is a student of “Sailor”Bob Adamson, Wheeler takes what Sherman was saying to a new level. The following is from Wheeler’s book, “Awakening to the Natural State:”

“Right now, as you read this, you exist and are aware that you exist. You are undoubtedly present and aware…. Once it is pointed out it can not be grasped or understood very quickly because it is just a matter of noticing, ‘Oh, that is what I am!’ It is a bright, luminous, empty, presence of awareness; it is absolutely radiant, yet without form; it is seemingly intangible, but the most solid fact of your existence; it is effortlessly here right now, forever untouched. Without taking a step you have arrived; you are home. No practice can reveal this because practices are in time and in your mind….

“Bob pointed out that there is no person here at all. The person that we think we are is an imaginary concept. There are thoughts and feelings and perceptions, but they are not a problem. They just rise and fall like dust motes in the light of the presence-awareness that we are.”

One other note about Wheeler is the fact that he had been on the spiritual path for 30 years. While he felt that he was making progress over the years, Wheeler still was confused about what the teachers were pointing to. He also realized that there was only so much he could learn from books and meditation. Wheeler also says that he could have continued in this confusion for many more years until he realized what he really needed was to find someone “with a real understanding.”

For Wheeler that person turned out to be Sailor Bob who lives in Australia and who was a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj. Wheeler liked what he read in Sailor Bob’s website and took the trip to learn from Sailor Bob firsthand.

“I met many teachers,” Wheeler writes, “but it wasn’t until I met Bob Adamson that I was convinced that I was dealing with someone who had fully realized his true nature. Something radically shifted for me because I came fact-to-face with the vitality, the confidence, the energy of that understanding....

“Surprisingly, things cleared up very quickly…. The basic teaching is very simple, almost too simple. It is so simple that the mind overlooks it.”

So what do you think? Is it as simple as this or do you think it is more complicated?