Hallo,
im Anhang von meinem Beitrag poste ich einen Spendenaufruf von John,
der mir etwas Bauchweh beschert, ich weiß nicht warum, oder besser
gesagt schon, da ich denke, es tut der Sache nicht gut. Allerdings
ist die Frage "welcher Sache"?
Ich hatte John kürzlich erst 200 USD gespendet, da ich das Gefühl hatte,
dass er etwas klamm ist, aber solche emails vergraulen mir irgendwie
den Spaß an der Sache... da sie einen immer wieder in etwas hineinziehen,
Organisationen und all den ******, den man eigentlich nicht sucht.
Gott verdammt, geht es nicht etwas bescheidener, hat man das Geld einfach
nicht, und einfach erst mal nur um die Sache, in dem Rahmen wie man
eben die Kohle hat? Ich weiß nicht. Irgendwie kam der Impuls mich noch
mehr auf mich zurückzuziehen, da ich eigentlich was anderes suche...
und, let's face it. Ich hatte letzthin als Unverwirklichter eine Pfändung
vom Finanzamt am Hals, 1400 Euro, und es juckte mich auch nicht
besonders. Die Pfändung zerfiel dann allerdings in der Luft...
Egal, wer es lesen will, als Anhang. Ich mach mich erst mal vom Acker,
vielleicht heute abend wieder was dazu:
--------------------Zitat---------------------------
March 22, 2007
A Letter from John Sherman
My dear friends,
Last August when we urgently needed to raise about $8,500 within a week, I wrote to you asking for help, and you responded quickly and with great generosity, as you have every time we've asked for your help.
Now we're in trouble again, and we need your help again. We are two weeks late with the rent and two monthslate with the payroll taxes again. We need to raise about $5,000 immediately.
Our actual financial needs.
But the truth is, we never have enough money. Enough would be around $8,000 a month; and our average monthly income over the last eight months has been about $5,675. (See tables below.)
The difference — about $2,300 a month — Carla and I have had to find elsewhere. Over the last eight months, we've borrowed about $18,000 from family, friends and credit cards just to stay afloat, leaving us that much deeper in debt than we were last August. We really cannot do this any longer. We've run out of credit cards and family and friends with money to lend us.
So please, if you can, help us now.
Please click here to make a donation or a monthly pledge now.
Our work.
Our work is to teach Ramana Maharshi's insight and method of self-inquiry to all who will receive it. Ramana's insight is that the only problem anywhere to be found is the false belief that you are your life, and the only solution is the truth, which is everywhere and always present and self-evident. Ridding oneself of the false is as easy as repeatedly tasting the truth of being here — unmovingly, unchangingly here. This repeated looking directly at oneself is Ramana's infallible method of self-inquiry.
More than anything, we want this to become common knowledge in the world.
We've seen the results of Ramana's method in our own lives; we know how easy it is, and we've seen, with our own eyes, the transformation in the lives of those who have actually tried it. We've heard with our own ears the reports of the completely unexpected end of suffering and conflict that is the certain outcome of taking Ramana's medicine. We've seen for ourself that this takes nothing special, no special understanding, no special merit, no lengthy practice; no choosing between this practice and that, this belief and another; no special commitment to anything other than to take the medicine of truth as often as possible.
And the more we see these results, the more excited we become at the possibility that stands before us now: to truly spread this teaching freely throughout the world. This can be done. Modern communication technology makes this possible.
In order to do this, we need help.
All our meetings in satsang are now entirely free of charge. We've done this not because we think there's anything wrong with charging for satsang, but only because we want to be able to reach literally every human mind on the planet with this great good news of Ramana’s self-inquiry — including those who cannot or will not pay to attend satsang.
Although our satsangs are now free of charge, they are certainly not free of cost. And all the money needed for this work must now come entirely from the generosity and compassion of those who, like us, have seen for themselves the immense worth of spreading this good news to all humanity.
Please click here to make a donation or a monthly pledge now.
What we have done with your money so far.
We are now providing Public Satsang once a month in Ojai and Santa Monica; in 2006, we offered 23 public meetings with 505 people attending, three Five Wednesdays Series with 25 people, four Afternoon Events with a total of 69 people, two Full-Day Intensives with 30 people, and one Five-Day Retreat with 26 people. In addition to that, I had private meetings with 11 people and we posted 19 free podcasts with complete recordings of Meetings in Satsang on our website, which have been freely accessed more than 18,000 times.
We expect to continue at least at this level in 2007. This year, we are also offering Live Online Meetings in Satsang twice a month, in which John speaks with people all over the world over the Internet. We plan trips to Berkeley and Chicago, and we would like to do much more.
My new book is in the final stages of preparation and we would like to offer a paperback edition this Spring.
We need more than money.
We need help in raising money, and help in the administrative aspects of this work. We need help in publicizing and promoting this work. We need technical help, we need accounting help, we need help with everything.
We need a new board of directors made up of people who can see the incredible, unbelievable possibility of this work, and who have the time and energy to serve it.
What I am really asking for ...
I know this: I know that when we first embark on the spiritual life, we do so caught by the idea that there is a solution here for me; a personal solution to the unsatisfactoriness of human existence. If we are lucky, the outcome of our spiritual work will be to discover that all that we have so desperately wanted we already, always and forever, are.
When that realization comes, the only spiritual aspiration that remains is the desire to bring it to all the world, and the only spiritual work left is to serve that desire. This is what I am really asking of you in this plea for your help.
If you are interested in helping us in this work, or if you want to know more about what we're doing, please email me:
johnsherman@riverganga.org.
I am very grateful for your willingness to consider this, and I am very grateful to be your servant in this great adventure.
in love,
John
Financial tables
Monthly Expenses Average Amount
Event expenses: $375
Product expenses: $100
Web program expenses: $150
Van maintenance and insurance: $125
Office rent: $1,150
Storage locker: $100
General expense (phone, accounting fees, website hosting fees, credit card processing fees, interest on credit card, and other general expense): $750
Payroll taxes: $300
John and Carla living expenses: $5,000
Average monthly expenses: $8,050
Monthly Income August 2006 through February 2007 Monthly Average
Emergency donations, August 2006 ($14,000): $1,750
Other single donations, August 2006 through March 2007: $1,625
Monthly pledges, August 2006 through March 2007: $1,375
Donations at Public Meetings and other events
August 2006 through March 2007: $300
Product sales, August 2006 through March 2007: $625
Average monthly income,
August 2006 through March 2007: $5,675
Please click here to make a donation or a monthly pledge now.
Ungutes Gefühl...
Linear-Darstellung
