Many of us, without realizing it, bring our driven, perfectionistic energy to spiritual practices. For decades we may fail to realize that the goal of spirituality is not a perfectly-polished, shiny version of our personality nor even a consistently happy life - which are just goals of the ego. Who we think we are is as simplistically inaccurate as a stick-figure drawing of a human being, or humanity's conception of Divinity.
Eighty-three-year-old “teacher, author, & spiritual leader Gangaji, offers Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Poonjaji's radical invitation to stop the search for fulfillment & enlightenment and to fully recognize the truth of one's being, which is already completely whole and permanently at peace.
Her radical invitation is to:
Examine your own life.
Choose to wake up from the trance of who you think you are and experience the truth of who you really are.
Resolve not to go back into the trance by turning away from that essential experience of waking up.
Freshly inquire anew as thoughts or feelings of separation arise.
Gangaji's invitation is radical in part because it is not based upon a particular philosophy or religion. There are no prescribed practices or rituals, unless one considers self-inquiry or self-observation a practice. Most radically, it calls into question the very structure of who we've believed ourselves to be.
Who you are is not separate from God or Love or Truth or Freedom or Peace or Silence, whatever one chooses to call it.
Therefore, there is nothing you have to do to 'get there.' No merit to be earned. Who you are is already here, has always been and will always be.
The invitation is to wake up and be Yourself.”
Gangaji. “Freedom and Resolve: Finding Your True Home in the Universe.” Hampton Roads, 2014.
Below, Gangaji reads & comments on a letter written to her:
Letter: “I experience full being ecstasy when I see someone crack open, when the ‘aha’ shines from their face, when their tears leak the truth that has been bottled so long. I simultaneously experience the ‘aha,’ the tears, the nowness. I have experienced these moments in my own heart too. So many times now that it seems normal.
And it is this normalcy that I wonder about. When I stop, am I stopping too soon? I always have the feeling that there must be just one more hidden attachment or contraction to notice.”
Gangaji: “Well, that’s the hidden attachment. ‘There must be one more’ - that’s the hidden attachment.”
Letter: “There must be one more hidden attachment to unburden my heart from. I am like a dog looking for that last morsel of food that rolled under the refrigerator out of reach, but well within smell.”
Gangaji: “So then, you’ve had the experience, you see the play of the mind, and then the play of the mind gives this ‘scent of more nourishment.’ That’s when, are you willing to stop, right there, to die? Because that’s what this is about."
Letter: “Well, I just need to get a little more of something, so I don’t die in the stopping. I mean, I don’t want to stop until I have all my goods handled."
Gangaji: “So it has to do with ‘unburdening,’ and so forth. But you have to see it through the wiliness of the mind. It’s still a postponement of stopping. It’s still a postponement of death.
You can spend your whole life like that, having been graced with exquisite moments of truth, and then getting on with the business of accumulation.”
Letter: “If I can just get that one last tidbit of untruth, then I can rest.”
Gangaji: “There is always more untruth. You get that one last tidbit, it’ll only make you hungry for the next last tidbit. Haven’t you had enough of the lies? Haven’t you had enough of untruth? When is the point when you say, 'Stop!'?
This is such a trap of the mind. This trap of the mind is psychological sophistication. ‘Well, I’m sure I have to clean up a little more. So best not to stop now.'
Stop and die. That’s what it’s about. Stop and die imperfect as you are, without any hope of being cleaned up and shiny, and presented to God as some pure vessel. Just as you are right now, you present yourself, fully, nakedly, with all your imperfections and no hope of cleaning them up, and see what welcomes that as you are, not as you will be, if you follow this little morsel, this stink under the refrigerator.
Letter: “It just feels like, ‘There’s something I must be missing.’”
Gangaji: “You see, here we go. This is the rebirth now. So if it feels like that, feel like that fully and completely missing the boat. Missing it all. You are missing it. It’s true. When there’s this feeling, ‘I’m missing,’ – that’s right. That feeling is a Divine feeling.
But our tendency is to get rid of that feeling. So, we find one little bit of spiritual morsel, one little way to clean up the act a little better, so that we’ll be ready to stop next time.
If you are feeling that you are missing something, recognize I am missing something, and be that missing fully and completely. BE the pain of that, the horror of that, the self-betrayal of that, the lie of that, all the spiritual and psychological maneuvering around that is a way to escape that.
But as you can quite clearly see, you may sense or feel that you escape it in the moment, because you take the morsel and there’s some alleviation of the hunger. But it arises. It will haunt you until you meet it. And be glad it will haunt you until you meet it. Be glad that you haven’t fully learned how to deny. This is the pain of anything less than full self-recognition, and it is quite reliable.
Letter: “I feel like I must be absolutely clean sometimes before I can present this who I amness to the world.”
Gangaji: “‘Who I amness’ is nothing! It’s not clean. It’s not dirty and it’s not clean. So when you are thinking I have to be absolutely cleaned before I can present this who amness to the world, you’re still thinking about this object called you. This is now me, as who amness! This is a big thought. The thought I amness. You are not who you think you are, whether that’s I am notness or I amness.
Letter: “There seems to be a shadow and veil separating me from me.”
Gangaji: “Yes, it is. And that shadow and that veil, is this lie: ‘I am separated from me.’ That’s the shadow. That’s the veil. Dive into it and see how thick it is.
Letter: “And I spend much of my time looking for confirmation of my separation in the world.
Gangaji: “That’s right. And you will find it.
Letter: “Looking for a wink, or a twitch, or a glance that will confirm this doubt that I am not here yet.
Gangaji: “That’s right. ‘You’ aren’t here yet, because ‘you’ don’t exist. ‘You,’ who are thinking has to get somewhere, doesn’t exist. It’s a thought in your mind. It will never get there. It will never get there!
If you can appreciate the pain of that, the frustration of that, the absurdity of that, that you can die to that. (Fully process all of it physically http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=physical+processing)
It’s not about ‘you’ getting somewhere. It’s not about ‘you’ becoming clean or you becoming the I am that. That ‘you’ does not exist. It’s a thought. It’s made up. It’s illusion. Investigate it for yourself and see. That’s what self-inquiry is.
Rather than continuing this pursuit of satisfaction for this madeup you, now it’s like this. This messy image of me, I don’t like. I want this squeaky-clean image of me. They’re both just images – the clean and the messy. Both just images. Both made up in the mind to keep the mind entertained, spinning, weaving, moving, deflecting, imagining. ‘Stop’ has nothing to do with stop so that you get clean; stop so that you wake up.
Stop so that you can see that who you think you are, you are not! Stop so that you can see that when the thoughts of who you are stop, you remain! You don’t need thoughts of who you are to be, whether the latest thought is squeaky clean or filthy dirty. Neither are needed. You exist independently from any thought. No thought exists independently from you. Every thought needs you for its thought. But you exist independently of any thought.”
Gangaji "The Lie that Keeps You Searching" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DepjSGrRjL8
We're so STRONGLY identified with our small, narrow-minded personal and group stories (MY country, MY race, MY religion, MY dogmas, MY political party, MY skin color, etc) that we rarely if ever remember the infinitely wiser, greater spirit we actually are. Being trapped in any story is being confined to a small, cold, dark prison cell that we ourselves maintain by continuously engaging with self-talk.
STOP engaging repetitive, circular self-talk in your head. Learn to shift awareness to your heart center and live authentically - spacious, free, loving, nurturing, warm, peaceful.
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