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Being Yourself

Consciously Opening to Emotional Pain
March 11, 2024,
Episode 68

“There is no problem with pain. There is pain. If you are seeking something to avoid pain, that’s the suffering. That’s the search that must be called off.”

It takes effort to avoid our emotional pain. We can try to avoid it, but ultimately the common strategies of withdrawing, protecting, and dissociating from feelings of hurt actually turn emotional pain into unnecessary suffering. This lively exchange taken from the Gangaji archives offers a clear demonstration of how we can recognize the strategies we use and then choose to give up the power to suffer.

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“Do you put more value on your doubting mind than you do on the reality of what is always present?” 


In this episode, Gangaji speaks about “the wheel of doubt”—addressing the way the mind generates doubt from the "fear of being open, or being still, and not knowing.”  While doubt has a very legitimate purpose in our lives, when we are caught up in a pointed search for certainty, it can become a life-long source of suffering. The invitation she offers is to recognize the activity of the mind and to recognize what is always here regardless of what thoughts are passing through our minds. 





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“Who I am doesn’t need to be thought. It’s here. It’s already free of thought.”

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I was in that place of "I give up. I don't know." And that's a very open place, actually.

On this month’s episode of Being Yourself: Self-Inquiry with Gangaji, we are honored to share Episode 4 of Finding Home, the six-part audio documentary series that traces Gangaji's spiritual journey. 

In the fourth episode, From Disillusionment to Awakening, Gangaji reflects on the disappointments, failures, and unexpected turns that led her to India and her life-changing meeting with Papaji. What appeared to be the end of a path became the doorway to a profound awakening. 

This intimate conversation is both a personal story and a listening journey—an invitation to discover that beneath uncertainty, disappointment, and disillusionment lies the possibility of discovering—home is here. 



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“I encourage you to let your heart be broken. Waking up to yourself has nothing to do with forgetting the suffering of others as if it never existed.”

How do we reconcile the recognition of truth and peace with the suffering, cruelty, and devastating loss we see around us or even in our own lives? How do we face real heartbreak, given this paradox can’t be reconciled in our minds?

Rather than turning away from outrage or despair, Gangaji invites a direct meeting with them—and points to the possibility that even outrage and despair can become a doorway to truth



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“It’s in fully seeing it all…that there is this undeniable yes in the core.”


“It’s in fully seeing it all…that there is this undeniable yes in the core.”


“The real healing of trauma is bringing your love and consciousness to it.”


“The real healing of trauma is bringing your love and consciousness to it.”


“If you are really, hopelessly lost, instantly you are found.”


“If you are really, hopelessly lost, instantly you are found.”


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“Can you find a problem when the desire to attain anything is given up?”


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“We have overlooked what was actually innocent and was called stupid. We lost our stupidity and in that we lost our heart. Yet, we are haunted by the fear that we are still actually stupid.”


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