The Awareness Podcast, Ep.35: Living in Not-Knowing with Jenny Beal and Sam Visser: Uncertainty and Surrender
Sep 08, 2022
Episode #35: Living in Not-Knowing with Jenny Beal and Sam Visser: Uncertainty and Surrender
In this edition of the Living in Not-Knowing podcast with Jenny Beal, Sam Visser discusses his spiritual journey which included time spent in an Osho commune, before coming into contact with non-duality and the Direct Path. He goes on to describe the approach he uses in his work as a psychotherapist, helping his clients to see for themselves that suffering never happens in the now. Situations don’t cause suffering, it's only our resistance to them that causes suffering.
When you can’t change the situation, just surrender. Surrender always points to the now. Life is uncertain, but embracing that uncertainty leads to freedom.
Sam goes on to explain how he came to lose all fear of death of the body. Life is a blessing.
ABOUT SAM
Sam Visser is a psychotherapist specializing mainly in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Although he was brought up in a Christian family, Sam had little interest in spirituality until his early twenties when he stumbled upon a book on Zen which seemed to offer what he was looking for. Although he didn’t become a monk, for some years he spent almost all his spare time at a Zen monastery in England, meditating for many hours and doing chores at the monastery.
He later came across Osho and spent many years as a sannyasin, living in Osho communities in the Netherlands. It was the extraordinary and disastrous events in the Osho ashram in Oregon that led him to abandon his association with the Osho community.
At that time he met with Alexander Smit, a Dutch non-duality teacher and friend of Nisargadatta. The non-dual teaching made a deep impression on him. He went on to explore the teachings of several other non-duality teachers, including Rupert Spira. From 2014 onwards he attended most of Rupert’s retreats and weekends in Europe. Through Rupert, he came to understand the difference between the progressive and direct paths and gained a much deeper understanding. More recently, he became interested in the teaching of Francis Lucille.
Sam now lives a life of causeless peace, having understood the power of effortless surrender. He continues to work as a psychotherapist, and while he doesn’t normally talk to his clients about the non-dual philosophy, his interactions with them are underpinned by his understanding of our true nature as one universal being.
