the silent refuge

~ Gangaji

 

we victims - our suffering

~ Gangaji

peace and the scary spider

~ Gangaji 

mind and simplicity

~ Gangaji

letting go of control

Letting go of control is a deeper relaxation, a floating on the ocean.  
You can become aware of where you are holding on,
 and you can just let go and allow the ocean to hold you.  
You can become aware that all your tension and clinging are unnecessary,
 and then relax and let yourself be supported.  
In this same way you can become aware of all the mental 
and emotional energy that gets exerted in holding on to a particular story,
 and you can just let it all go. 
 There is a deeper intelligence than the one you use to control, 
and it is present to be recognized in all lives, at all moments.

~ Gangaji

from: the Diamond in your Pocket

a story of war

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When you are called home, when you are somehow struck by the absolutely mysterious and irrevocable desire to know the truth of who you are, then you must be willing to put aside every story of separation.  Every story of separation is a story of war.

Human beings have been making war in every culture for a very long time.  Culture is a reflection of the individual mind, and the individual mind is a reflection of the cultural mind.  Since you are reading this, I assume you are interested in peace in your own mind.  You are not waiting for them to make peace.  This is good news, because war is fought to get others to do it our way so that we can live in peace.  When you stop waiting for them, and instead shift you attention to your own mind, then you can recognize the tendency toward war in your own mind, the tendencies of totalitarianism, hate, revenge, and holding on.  And you can recognize the suffering that those tendencies continue to deliver.

Some how, in the face of it all, you find you want peace.  You are sick and tired of the war within your own mind.  You may even express it in a conscious prayer, a plea for help, for understanding, for deliverance, for grace.

Grace is here now.  It is knocking at your door.  You have a chance to be at peace in this moment.  You only need to accept the invitation of your own heart, fight now, regardless of outer or inner circumstances, and let yourself sink into the peace of your innermost being.

Unless all of us take the responsibility for our own inner peace, the wars will continue.  We cannot wait any longer for someone else to change, We cannot wait for someone else to forgive us so that we can then forgive them.  We cannot wait for someone else to say they are sorry.  Peace cannot be postponed.

~ Gangaji

from the Diamond in your Pocket

addiction to pattern - avoidance and repression

 

 You cannot learn the Self. You cannot learn consciousness. 

You cannot learn love. 

You cannot learn trust.

 But you can learn how you deny all of that. 

For this denial, there are techniques and strategies. 

There is either indulgence or repression, 

and with both there is an avoidance 

of simply experiencing 

the power and the immensity of the moment.

We are speaking of a certain kind of addiction; the addiction to a pattern.

With addiction there has to come a point 

when you see that the desire is out of your control. 

Maybe the addiction is physiological. 

Maybe it has been practiced for so long that it has its own groove.

 But what is in your control, absolutely,

 is the willingness to not move when the desire appears. 

The willingness neither to indulge nor repress 

but to not move in the fire of this impulse of thousands of years.

 Have you ever experienced this?

Then you know the beauty of this fire. 

You know that in this moment, 

there is actually a willingness to die. 

Because the addiction to mind or to habits can be so strong that

 there is the sense if you don't feed the addiction, 

you will die. 

Eventually, through the maturity of the soul,

 there is a willingness to say, "Okay, if I die I will die.

 But I am not going to follow this demon down this road again."

This, too, is the mind, but it is the mind in service to what was betrayed. 

 It feels like a descent into hell

 because with any addiction, the impulse is strong

 to get rid of the craving, to get rid of the fire.

 How? How? How? There are millions of ways how, 

but to not get rid of it, to not go numb with it,

 to let it burn - this is the fire. 

This is the Buddha and the temptations of Mara.

 This is Christ in the desert. 

Everyone has to experience this -

 Oh my god, I am dying. Okay, so I am dying.

 I surrender. I surrender - and there is peace,

 there is freedom. You recognize what has never left. 

You recognize what is always here. In that moment,

 there is a break in the habit pattern. 

The habit may reappear, but there is something bigger than it, 

so it does not have the same hold on you. 

Do you follow this?

Justification can arise, and a kind of thrill from the adrenaline

 and the power that comes with justification. 

There can be quick excuse making, such as,

 "Well, so-and-so did it," or, "It doesn't matter," or,

 "We're all one, it is all the Self," but this is all thought.

 It is all the sirens saying, "Come, come back, 

back into where you were all-powerful, 

where you were in control, where you were God, 

where you got to say what happens."

 

 Don't follow any of it. DON'T MOVE. 

And an exquisite experience is revealed that can never be taken from you.

There is suffering, yes, but it is conscious suffering.

 This is very different from attempting to delay suffering. 

This is very different from following, 

indulging, or discharging suffering.

 Then suffering is spread out over time,

 and the suffering of the misidentification continues.

This willingness takes enormous resolve.

 Resolve is a little different from vigilance. 

Resolve comes after vigilance has been betrayed, 

after re-identification has set in. It is the mind's resolve

 to recognize the hell that has once again been created 

and to be here, to burn here, and in that burning, 

there is naturally redemption. 

No one is needed to come and redeem you. 

Redemption happens naturally.

Right here, in this universe, patterns of war still appear,

 and war is what we are talking about, right? 

Even though you have tasted peace, 

even though this universe has tasted peace on earth,

 how is it that conflict still has its way?

 This is true of every mindstream, especially in humans.

 War is inbred, and it has gone unmet. 

 So meet that war within yourself consciously, awake,

 refusing to budge. In meeting war, you will find peace.

 If you have tasted it, then you know it is so. 

If you have not tasted it, it may seem impossible,

 but taste it anyway and see. Just take one moment

 in the midst of one attacking pattern and don't budge.

Beneath the behavior is the energy of an emotion, 

and that emotion is fueled by some thought 

of protection from being wounded or hurt or not being seen.

 In the willingness to experience that wounded or hurt

 or not being seen, to really be wounded, really be hurt, 

really not be seen, then it is no big deal. 

Then the wound is nothing, the hurt is nothing,

 and you realize that you will never be seen.

 You are the Self. You cannot be seen. 

You are not an object.




~ Gangaji,
(excerpt from the Meeting, Immovable Resolve, San Diego, CA, January 18, 2001)

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The great good news

The great good news is that 

love is free and it has not gone anywhere. 

In all of these eons that you have been hiding from love,

 love is still here, 

it is still open, 

it is still waiting for your commitment, 

still waiting for you to say,

"Yes, I give my life to the truth of love. 

I vow to let love live this life as it will, 

for better or worse, for richer or poorer." 

The love that you search for everywhere is already present within you. 

It may be evoked by any number of people or events. 

A mountain can evoke this love. 

A sunset can evoke this love. 

But finally, you must realize you are this love. 

The source of all love is within you. 

- Gangaji

detachment from the world

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Confusion arises because certain spiritual teachings say that detachment from the world is necessary for enlightenment.  The concept of detachment can be confused with release from pain, a way of numbing so that you don't have to experience the pains of life.  If you are not willing to fully experience the pains of love, the pains of the heart breaking open, then you close your heart in the name of comfort and control, even in the name of enlightenment.

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Give up every idea of detachment, and experience your detachment fully.  Experience the pain and the beauty of attachment, and the grief as what you are attached to is ripped away.  Then you will recognize what can never be detached, what is not some stoic, unfeeling, unemotional, inhuman existence, but what is freely and consciously all of it.

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~ Gangaji

from: the Diamond in your Pocket

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