“Life is often complicated, and complications have their beauty, but in a moment of real inquiry,  finally there is no complication. There is simply the willingness to open to whatever is here.”

Participant: Hi Gangaji, I’m so happy to be able to speak with you.

Gangaji: Welcome. I’m glad that you’re here.

I want to experience what I’ve heard other people say after speaking with you, that they now have peace and joy inside. I want to stop living in fear all the time, stop worrying if I’m making the right decisions, and stop suffering from all the pain I see in the world. If you can lead me there, I would really appreciate it.

Well, let’s start with what you are feeling in this moment.

I feel like life is full of grief and sorrow, broken dreams, people that I care about getting ill, children that are now adults who aren’t reaching the dreams that they wanted. I’m a therapist by profession, and I hear people’s problems all the time. It just feels so heavy. It feels sometimes that I lose hope of ever being able to help them.

Everything you said can be, and still you can discover something deeper that is reliably, paradoxically, always true, even in the midst of the horror and suffering in the world. There is no need to deny that horror and suffering, no need to sugarcoat anything. All that is needed is the willingness to open and tell the truth.

In this moment, when you check inside, what are you experiencing?

I’m feeling fear and sadness mixed together.

And are those emotions located anywhere in your body?

A lot is in my throat and in my chest.

That’s just right. Is it possible to be aware of those feelings in your throat and in your chest while also being aware of any inner narrative you might have about those feelings? Perhaps you are judging those feelings, deciding they are wrong, that they should leave, or that you’d like to get away from them. If so, without denying those feelings, can you simply stop any narrative about the fear and the sadness?

So just let them be there?

Yes, and even more than that, I am inviting you to open to them, to open your consciousness. By that I mean, with your conscious attention, enter the fear and the sadness in your throat and in your chest. Normally, for most people, the attention is on the narrative of what is happening and why it should or should not be happening. As soon as you’re aware of the narrative, for a moment, simply suspend that narrative. You can always go back to it. I guarantee it will always be waiting for you.

For a moment of inquiry, simply turn your attention directly inside these feelings in your throat and in your chest, with no judgment, no hope of escape, no idea of transforming anything, just meet them openly, with curiosity.

And now, what are you aware of?

(Pausing …) Well, now they are starting to dissipate some. It actually feels better to not resist or try to move away from them.

Yes, that’s the first insight. It actually feels better to give up trying to escape, to stop all the mechanisms of escape, which can be exhausting. Equally, it feels better to stop indulging in the emotions, if that’s what you habitually do. To stop the drama of the emotion, or the drama of denial, of trying to ignore what’s happening inside. Instead, you can choose to simply open to the emotion.

Your emotions are not separate from you. When you try to keep them separate, you make them either right or wrong. You decide that they should go or that perhaps they need to be transformed somehow. But when you are willing to allow an emotion to be here and to be naked to yourself in those emotions, you can investigate even more deeply into the truth of the matter. You might discover another emotion layered underneath the initial emotion. You might discover inner beliefs that are unconsciously driving those emotions. And always there is the possibility, if you are open to it, of discovering the peace that is always present regardless of any emotion.

Right now, as you open even more deeply to what is here, what do you experience? Fear and sadness might still be present. Maybe the sensations are still in your throat or your chest, and maybe they are gone now. It can change very quickly.

So, essentially, you’re saying to let them be here without judging them?

Yes, I am asking you to suspend your inner dialogue and open to whatever is here in this moment.

It’s such a relief to not be judging myself and thinking I’m doing something wrong.

Yes!

Or harming myself.

Yes, when you do that, you are actually contributing to the world’s suffering.

Exactly.

You are judging yourself as wrong, as not doing it right. You should be feeling a certain way, you should be thinking a certain way, and since you are a therapist, you should certainly know better than this.

Yes, exactly! (laughing).

Yes, it’s laughable. That’s it! You get the horrific joke of it. It’s like, “Oh my God, I am torturing myself.” Maybe this pattern appears because of the way you are structured emotionally, or maybe you take on energy from your clients, from your neighbors, from the news or from anything else in the world. But in any moment of true inquiry, you can stop that pattern of suffering and self-torture. When you simply open to what is here, you are not adding to the suffering.

For a moment you stopped trying to get rid of the fear and sadness. You stopped fighting, you stopped dramatizing, you stopped ignoring. You were able to open to your emotions because something is calling you from deep inside those emotions. I don’t know what that may be. It may be another, different emotion, or it may be the wonder that’s showing on your face right now of the peace that is always present regardless of emotion. If we know ahead of time what we think should be here, then we don’t have a direct experience in which the discovery is fresh.

Yes, everything just suddenly opened up, and I felt like smiling, which was a surprise.

Yes, you did smile. It was beautiful.

 I know!

I know the experience. Suddenly, the waves part and the scene is cleared. What you are discovering right now is what is always here underneath every emotion, inside every emotion, without denying or ignoring emotions, or dramatizing or trying to fix emotions. The secret is simply the willingness to open and to inquire, which is counter to everything we have learned.

Life is often complicated, and complications have their beauty, but in a moment of real inquiry, finally there is no complication. There is simply the willingness to open to whatever is here. In that openness, discomfort may be experienced, but then there is the willingness to open into that discomfort.

 So, is inquiry really just the willingness to accept myself and everything else?

Inquiry is the catalyst that stops the narrative about the fear or the sadness or the suffering in the moment. Inquiry is the willingness to simply open and discover what is here in the core of every emotion: vast, eternal, indefinable consciousness, conscious of itself. Then you may freely have all emotions without them defining you.