This month, Gangaji begins an exploration into the many facets of self-hatred. Our first installment in a series begins with the egoic cycle of inflation and deflation. How do we get off this wheel of suffering? We are all familiar with feeling great and feeling horrible, but what does that have to do with who we are? This powerful monologue helps us see how the egoic structure works, and that is possible to stop perpetuating patterns of avoidance and patterns of grasping.
This month on Being Yourself, we return to the summer of 1993 in Boulder, Colorado. Gangaji speaks about the opportunity to break the trance of fear by directly experiencing fear itself.
“This is a kind of contraction against life. Direct experience is the medicine, the remedy. When you really experience fear, fear is not fear.”
“If your attention is on the story of how you do not deserve what is being offered, this is the continuation of self-denial. There is an open door in this jail, in this prison.”
When we seek freedom on the spiritual path, it is often freedom from our mind or mental activity. In this podcast, we focus how we can lock ourselves up inside a mental prison, not recognizing the door that is always open.
“To play the role of yourself, which is the transcendent role, the role of freedom, you have to trust something unknowable.”
The themes of belonging, freedom from identification, and trusting our direct experience come together in this month’s podcast. This powerful interplay of themes opens the mind to the heart and invites an inquiry: What does it mean to be free? Where do you belong?