James Wood Teachings

Alas, IToc — the Iamness Teachings online community — has been shut down. I pulled the plug on it last night (“Taps” plays in the background). Ning, the hosting company, was going to start charging me a significant amount for it, and I decided that this website would work just as well.

Although we are continuing to update this site, we have already made some changes, such as a “bloggier” home page that also functions as a newsletter. And, in case you haven’t noticed, we changed the domain from Iamness.com to JamesWoodTeachings.com (my middle name is Wood, in case you were wondering). What’s nice about having a blog-like format is that it allows you guys to comment on posts such as this one and develop a discussion about spirituality and awakening.

And that’s the main thing I noticed about IToc: discussions didn’t really happen unless I posted material to discuss, such as an article. It is true that some people raised topics, but I felt that for a vigorous discussion to happen, I needed to be the one that started it and fed the flames of conversation. I’m fine with that, but it would be a lot easier just to post material on this website and let the discussion take place here via user commentary.

I think that this website is better suited to host a serious online discussion. Although IToc was designed to host discussions, it did so in the guise of social networking à la facebook. But facebook is more about socializing than serious discussion; those kinds of conversations tend to start themselves. I won’t say that IToc didn’t work. It worked quite well (I liked the “group” function, for example), and I learned a lot from it. But in the end, it was time to let it go.

So let’s put the discussion here and see what happens. You can comment on this post, for example. You can get yourself a gravatar so we can all see what you look like, or at least a stylized emblem of your personality.

I’ll be posting audio, video, news, and event information, plus whatever else may arise that helps people figure out what awakening is.

Here’s a hint: you’ve never had a tomato, never seen one, never even been close to one. One day you find one. What does it taste like? Answer: you have to bite.