what's interesting to me about Robert Saltzman

Jay Keith: What's interesting to me about Robert Saltzman is that people write into him saying that while reading his book, they watched seeking, this ongoing orientation to experience which was their lifelong situation, drop suddenly.

You may have noticed that there are countless books and videos and memes addressing seeking, but there's some way that Saltzman iterated it that went straight to the heart of the matter for some people. That's a really nice thing.

Is he Ramana? No. Ramana meditated for decades, barely even getting up to piss in the beginning. That is why he has his realization of hridayam as the epicenter of being. If what you are teaching is meditation to that realization, you may have fewer readers who drop into no-seeking and more who embark on long seeking years on "who am I". It's just different strokes for different folks.

Robert: Thank you, Jay.

Yes. This ongoing series of experiences called "life," or "myself," or "being," or "consciousness" is different for everyone. In truly noticing that, the habit of putting someone else's experience above one's own—putting another head on top of the one you already have—ends naturally without even trying.

To be a follower or disciple is just another of the countless ways of seeking to escape this moment, which is the only moment one ever really has. One may feel that the imagined "ultimate self-realization" of some other human, that she or he later expresses in words, such as Ramana Maharshi's words, would prove helpful in managing pain, fear, feelings of inadequacy, meaninglessness, or any of the other goads to spiritual seeking.

From my perspective, that is not often true--if ever. Following others, however wise they may seem, impedes finding one's own freedom, which is not a matter of becoming or transcending anything, but of simple openness to this once-upon-a-once, never-to-be-repeated instant.

In that posture, one lives step by step, one moment at a time, free of acquired “ultimate knowledge,” using the intelligence of this moment, without fixing on myself and my happiness.

Yes, people have told me that my message goes to the heart of the matter and ends their former dependence on spiritual goals and paths. I understand that and am happy to hear it. I am not the first to speak this way, and I won't be the last.