July 13, 2002, Rohnert Park, CA
For the last thirty years Gangaji has been extending the invitation to all who are ready and willing to hear it, to meet yourself truly in the core of your being. No matter how deeply you think you have heard her invitation in the past, or how many times you think you have met yourself, in this video she promises that each time you say “yes,” you will meet yourself freshly, and ever more infinitely. Are you ready for a deeper yes?
“At some point, somewhere, you will hear this invitation in a way that you say “yes” irrevocably. It is possible that time is now. Let us see ...”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
The Dance of Inflation and Deflation
January 13, 2002, Marin County, CA
In this video Gangaji lays out the egoic experiences of inflation and deflation in the search for truth. Often it can feel like you “get it” and then you “lose it,” all the while never questioning who? Who is it that gets it and loses it? Who are you? Here Gangaji illustrates how it is imminently possible not to think yourself but to simply be yourself. And in that being is the answer to who.
“All that the inflated ego can hold is a thought of the truth, a thought of peace, a thought of who one is. This is a huge thought, and it even points to reality, but it remains a thought. In our meeting I invite you to give up both deflation and inflation, and recognize yourself as the pure consciousness that holds it all.”
In this global online meeting, Gangaji shares unwaveringly that in these tumultuous and uncertain times, filled with change, there is an ever-present silent core within, inviting you to rest and be nourished. She welcomes you back to the unmoving, unconditioned, spaciousness of consciousness—the truth of who you are.
“Always the true answer, the essential answer, is in the silence of your being. In any one moment, you can give yourself the space to simply be here, as you are. When you are just here, simply here, you can receive what is always here. If you are to turn your attention to that, then you are at peace.”