Gangaji reflects, not for the first or the last time, on the extraordinary times we are living in. While celebrating the wealth of possibilities that our lives present, she offers the timeless teaching from Papaji, to just stop, wherever you are, and drop all that you think you have gained. In a moment of the most pristine, indescribable depth of silence, it is possible to discover the truth of who you are. Gangaji is inviting you, just as you are, into this space of stillness, where the mind clings to nothing.
GF Topic: Essential Teaching
The Power of Illusion
What do you think is happening? What story are you telling yourself about yourself? We develop “illusions” using powers of mind: memory, projection, dissociation, interpretation. In the extreme, we create outlandish conspiracy theories. In our daily lives, we often use the power of mind to create needless suffering. This month, we examine these patterns and Gangaji helps us unearth the jewel in being disillusioned.
“It is very useful to recognize illusions. It is also crucial to recognize that regardless of illusion, you are present. You are the power behind illusion and the power behind truth.”
The Maturity of Letting Go
May 18, 1997, Boulder, Colorado
What does it feel like to want to support? What does it feel like to want to control? In this video Gangaji makes a clear distinction between the joy of supporting ourselves and others and the misery of believing we can control. She speaks of letting go of control as the mark of spiritual maturity and invites you to catch fire in the joy and the peace of simply letting go.
“Spiritual maturity has nothing to do with how many years you’ve prayed, how many years you’ve practiced or not practiced, how many years you have been good or bad. At the most basic level, spiritual maturity is the realization that you are not in control.”
Who Gets Enlightened?
October 18, 1997 PM, Asheville, NC
In this video from the archives, Gangaji clears up any confusion that a “someone” can go out and “get” enlightenment. The question is: Is it you that realizes the truth of consciousness—or is it that consciousness realizes itself in you?
“The personal is a set of clothes that is taken to be real. In taking it to be real, life is then experienced as relative to that set of clothes. It is believed that there is a lower self and a higher self, a little self and a big self, and this is the illusion. Finally, consciousness recognizes itself as free of it all. Free to play in the illusion, free to be free of the illusion. Free.”
How is Self-Inquiry Relevant to You?
In this clip from an online weekend with Gangaji, Gangaji examines what is self-inquiry, and how it can be really relevant for you, in your life, in this time. In the moment of true inquiry, there is a surrender to the deepest mystery of who you are. Gangaji goes on to introduce her teacher, Papaji.
Join Gangaji for a live event. See her online Calendar here.
The Paradox Is Not The Problem
August 19, 2001, San Rafael, CA
In this video Gangaji addresses these age-old paradoxes: If there is a benevolent, intelligent God, how can there be so much suffering in the world? Do we have a choice or is it choiceless? Is enlightenment or realization the ideal that eliminates paradox?
“There is a great shift that occurs in consciousness in a moment of grace, whereby the mystery of life, the unbearable paradoxical nature of reality, is joyous rather than tormenting. Whereby in the midst of horrifying ugliness ca-n be revealed limitless beauty. In the midst of profound stupidity, there can still be intelligence.”
Falling Into What Does Not Change
May 11, 2002 PM, Boulder, CO
Whatever apparent changes you may be facing in life, it is possible to discover the immense relief in letting go the choice to run. This video features a powerful exchange about facing a major surgery, the pain of recovery, and everything the mind imagines that change might bring. The wisdom that pours forth exemplifies how life itself reveals the deepening into what never changes.
“As you surrender, as you let yourself fall into the experience completely, it is possible to recognize that the Life inherent in the falling is unmoving. There is really no cliff, no jumper, no falling, no faller. There is only the present presence of You, eternal and unchanging.”
How Do I Completely Surrender?
With the burning question of “how do I completely surrender” a woman discovers the depth of surrender that is closer than knowing and forgetting.
Immeasurable Opening
July 14, 2002, Rohnert Park, CA
In Immeasurable Opening, Gangaji points to the radical simplicity of the open mind. Whatever your question may be, whatever the challenging circumstance, Gangaji suggests that the answer is to open and see directly for yourself that simply opening is forever the resolution. Are you willing to simply open?
“I’m speaking of a deep, profound, radical simplicity, a deepening beyond any possibility of measurement. Simply opening is not simplistic, nor is it abstract. It is very concrete to every moment in your life.”
Living Freedom
September 28, 2020 – Online Public Meeting Hosted by Alternatives, St James Church of London
Gangaji begins this global meeting in absolute gratitude that it’s even possible for us to meet on Zoom in these unique times of Covid-19. The conversations that follow point ever deeper to what it means to live a life in true freedom, no matter our external circumstances, no matter our internal challenges.
“Many times we try to rearrange our circumstances to get to peace and freedom. This meeting is an invitation to discover that the freedom we long for is always here—the spaciousness, the mystery, the beingness that is free, that is love, that is peace in its heart, is here.”