Workbook 2 Gude by gudechristiane

BOOK TWO 1

DONATED FOR INMATE USE Published & Distributed by The Gangaji Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization located in Ashland, Oregon. Copyright ÂŠ 2018 by Gangaji Editing by BDenempont, SEinolander Art Direction by CGude Photography by CGude, Ramana Ashram All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2018 ISBN 978-164204816-2 For ordering and more information contact: The Gangaji Foundation PO Box 716 Ashland, OR 97520 www.gangaji.org Email: info@gangaji.org Phone: 541.482.3100/800.267.9205 Fax: 541.552.9921

ABOUT GANGAJI Gangaji, born Toni Roberson, grew up in Mississippi. Like many of her contemporaries, she searched for fulfillment through relationships, career, motherhood, subculture experiences, political activism, and spiritual practice. She had never planned to go to India, and certainly had never wanted an Indian name. Yet, it was on the banks of the Ganges River that her search ended––when, in 1990, she met her teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja. Today, as a teacher and author, Gangaji offers to ordinary people leading ordinary lives the invitation to fully recognize the absolute freedom and unchanging peace that is the truth of one’s being. GF PRISON PROGRAM Gangaji first began speaking with prisoners in 1994, when she received a letter from a prisoner in Colorado. The Gangaji Foundation Prison Program is dedicated to supporting inmates in their spiritual inquiry. We welcome all inquiries about our program and this course.

WELCOME TO BOOK TWO We are honored for you to join us, and hundreds of participants across the US, in this opportunity for deeper and deeper self-discovery.

down your insights and responses to the inquiries. You can tear out the pages or leave them in the book. Your responses are for you alone. They need not be shared with anyone. Your participation is key. Your engagement in each of the inquiries can bring insights and realizations that serve awakening everywhere.

This course is an opportunity to discover for yourself, through direct inquiry, true peace and lasting inner freedom. There are no particular requirements for true inquiry. Whether rich or poor, in or out of prison, with plenty of leisure time and no leisure time, relative freedom or no freedom, all people in all kinds of circumstances have the capacity to honestly inquire.

Each segment of the course will lead you deeper and deeper into an essential discovery that you may not have previously heard about, experienced for yourself, or known was even possible. All the inquires will point to a fundamental core truth about who you really are and have always been, a mysterious yet undeniable resonance within you.

As you will find throughout the course, inquiry is not limited to any one question. It is actually the capacity of your individual mind to open to discover its source. In our restlessness, we think that we have to do something to get to lasting peace or happiness or freedom. Self-inquiry proves that all that is necessary is to be willing to open the mind.

Along with completing each of the inquiries, you can write letters and reports to us here at the Gangaji Foundation. While you may not receive a direct response, we will respond to some letters or questions inside our monthly Freedom Inside newsletter. If you are not currently receiving the monthly newsletter, please write to us and we will add your address to our newsletter mailing list.

W E L C O M E TO G A N G A J Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S C O U R S E F O R P R I S O N E R S, F R E E D O M I N S I D E: A C O U R S E I N S E L F-I N Q U I R Y.

Freedom Inside Book Two presents the second of seven inquiries of the course. After each chapter, we have included pages you can use to write

This

The Gangaji Foundation Prison Program does provide books free of charge from our library.

freedom Inside belongs to

CONTENTS

D I V I N E D I S I L LU S I O N M E N T

M E E T YO U R T R U E FA C E

L E T T E R S & R E P O R T S

YO U R I N Q U I R Y W O R K S H E E T 1

W H AT I S B E I N G P R OT E C T E D?

S U R R E N D E R R E V E A L S E V E R Y T H I N G

L E T T E R S & R E P O R T S

YO U R I N Q U I R Y W O R K S H E E T 2

R A M A N A M A H A R S H I: A G R E AT C H A N G E

W H AT I S T H E S E L F?

L E T T E R S & R E P O R T S

YO U R I N Q U I R Y W O R K S H E E T 3

E N D I N G O U R PAT T E R N S O F U N N E C E S S A R Y S U F F E R I N G

YO U R I N Q U I R Y W O R K S H E E T 4

T R U E I N T I M A C Y A N D L A S T I N G F U L F I L L M E N T

L E T T E R S & R E P O R T S

YO U R I N Q U I R Y W O R K S H E E T 5

R E A L P O W E R I S C O N S C I O U S AWA R E N E S S

L E T T E R S & R E P O R T S

YO U R I N Q U I R Y W O R K S H E E T 6

W H AT D O E S Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; T C O M E A N D G O

L E T T E R S & R E P O R T S

YO U R I N Q U I R Y W O R K S H E E T 7

T H E D E S I R E F O R F R E E D O M L E T T E R S & R E P O R T S

YO U R I N Q U I R Y W O R K S H E E T 8

M Y R E F L E C T I O N S

Divine

Another snag in spiritual investigation that must be unhooked and unraveled is the habit of looking for truth, perfection, or realization outside of ourselves. It is important to understand how this comes about, in order to unravel this very tight knot. There is an exquisite and important moment in the course of your life when you recognize the habits, addictions, selfishness, and suffering you have identified as “yourself.” Along with this spiritual shock of recognition, a desire often arises to find what is true, real, pure, holy, and free. Because you have identified yourself as the negativity and horror, the search for what is pure and holy begins “out there.”

There is an understanding that all your attainments still haven’t touched the depth of this longing. This understanding is crucial: you are recognizing that you will never be able to do it yourself because you don’t have the power, and you don’t know what to do. There are many, many avenues leading away from this moment as you search for a way to fill that gulf of seeming separation. But rather than taking any of them, I invite you to fall on the double-edged sword of disillusionment and longing. Let the sword rip through your sense of separation. Refuse to take any avenue of comfort or hope or belief. Meet the sword; have it cleave open your heart.

We have many splendid examples of “out there.” We have sages, saints, messiahs, wise women, and wise men throughout time whose lives we can look to and say, “Ah, there it is. They have it. How can I get it? Why can’t I get there?” Then we make many attempts to fix what is now perceived to be disgusting and limited in ourselves so that we can be pure and holy. There is a striving for that pure and holy image, a working towards it, a sense of gaining ground, and a sense of losing ground.

Whenever this longing appears, fall directly into it: not into some story about the way out of it, but right into the heart of the longing itself. The disillusionment is a direct invitation into what it is you have been longing for. The acceptance of this invitation is rare. It is an agreement not to move from the discomfort of the disillusionment, to neither dramatize the longing nor to deny it, but simply to experience it all the way through. It is in this radical experiencing that openness is most relevant. By not moving in the slightest from the pain of this spiritual heartbreak, you can at last glimpse what is really here, who you really are.

Disillusionment

Finally, there is another great spiritual shock, which I call “the great disillusionment.” It is the realization that all the work you have done—all the attempts to fix your character, personality, habits, and addictions—still has not touched that seeming gulf of separation between who you believe yourself to be and what you imagine to be perfection.

“Whenever this longing appears, fall directly into it.”

This disillusionment gives rise to a spiritual longing, sometimes called the soul’s longing for God.

The willingness to receive what is already in the core of your being is the willingness to not run from your own longing, to discover right now within yourself the source of that longing. Then you will discover that the longing itself carries you to the core of yourself, where true peace and perfection are revealed as never separate from the truth of who you are.

> meet your true face: the living possibility of self-inquiry The invitation from my teacher and from his teacher, from me to you and you back to me, is to be able to simply face and experience whatever is here, without pushing it away or indulging in a dramatic story around it. It is the invitation to stop and experience whatever is happening to you right now. To fully experience what you are avoiding is the way in to who you are.

own benefit. It’s about using tragedy, and the emotion that follows tragedy, for the benefit of the awakening of all being. The willingness to give up hope is also radical. Yet if we are to inquire into the reality of what is true—not just relatively true in this moment but always true—then all hope of change, of betterment, of happiness, enlightenment, escape, or even survival, must be put aside.

“The truth of who you are needs no hope because it simply is.”

Sometimes what is here is not pleasant, and sometimes it is exquisitely blissful. Sometimes we are just as afraid of the bliss as we are of the horror. But in general, the horror of life, as it is experienced in our bodies and on our planet, is avoided.

The mark, the proof, of the invitation to inquiry is the willingness to face the catastrophe that’s inevitable in the experience of living on this planet in a body. Whether that catastrophe is naturally caused or so-called unnaturally caused; whether it is a collective planetary disaster or it is personal. We might hope that catastrophe will not befall us, or we might hope that the outcome will really be for the good. When it comes to the inevitability of the death of the body, we might hope that the personality survives after death. That’s a big one, isn’t it? �Oh please let there be a heaven, let there be another lifetime, let there be a ‘me’ continuing.” The invitation here is actually to give up the story of �me,” and the willingness to give up the personal story is radical. There is nothing wrong with our stories; they are completely appropriate when they are appropriate. However, it’s not about using the tragic stories of our lives for our

Any hope is ultimately a projection of a me into a future in order to avoid the catastrophe that is sensed in the present, whether that sense is derived from reading a newspaper, watching the news on television, or just the sensations in one’s body. This truth is not for the faint of heart. This is not necessarily a teaching for the masses, nor is it a cult teaching. Mass teachings and cult teachings give you hope. This is about the willingness to stand alone, where you are, and face what you are most afraid of facing, the annihilation of you, without any hope of survival. You have the opportunity to face the loss of life as you know it, as if it were happening right now. To face the end of all that you have accumulated or gained or lost. To face the end of you as you think yourself to be. To face the end of it all, period, without any hope that this is not the end and then on to something else. It is then that this lion courage of the heart to investigate itself naturally awakens. You may not even understand in your mind what I am talking about, but I know that you have that

meet your true face

courage or you would not be interested in reading this now. With this teaching no catechism is given, no heaven is given, no afterlife is given, and no promise of communicating with the ones you have lost. This is simply the invitation to meet what is here when all hope of escaping here is given up. And it is radically good news! We think the good news is that we will personally survive, even if it is in a different form. We think that we are in love with the form, but what we are really in love with is the truth of the very beingness that is irresistible to itself. We have been mistaken in thinking that our beingness is in our flesh, or our emotions, or our intellect, or our collection of experiences. And this mistake, this veiling of the truth, is tragic. The truth of who you are needs no hope because it simply is. The truth of who you are is not separate from your flesh or your emotions, your intellect or your experiences, yet it remains present when all of that is finished. If you read that and take it as a catechism, as a hope, you will miss the point. If you take it as some kind of nihilistic, existential hopelessness, then you are still missing the point. The point is closer than either of those polarities, and it is the heart and core of real inquiry. For a moment I invite you to simply stop. Give up hope. Meet your true face. Then the entirety of your life is inquiry. Then every victory, every state of bliss, every relationship, every catastrophe, every state of terror or despair is a beginning point for inquiry. No experience needs to be denied, or discarded, or judged. Then every experience is the beginning point of going deeper, of going into, under, closer. Who are you if there is no dogma, no catechism, no hope, no heaven, no hell, no reincarnation, no tomorrow, no yesterday, no name, no gender, no relationships, no form? What is left?

letters & reports “I really miss the stars on a deep dark night, or a sunset, but it’s ok. There’s peace that comes up on me now.” Dear Gangaji, It has been 4 yrs now since I saw your video…I can’t begin to explain how that simple moment changed the course of my life. Seeing you sent a wave of something that is unexplainable. I’d call it emotion, but unlike all the other emotional responses in my life it has maintained its power & resonance. Recently I have come aware due to upcoming circumstances I very likely may never be released from prison. Upon this realization something profound happened. It was as if I was dying, suddenly there was a mirror, and everything was there, I couldn’t escape, or run, so I just watched it play out and let it go. Amazingly there was this sense of peace. I realized it was love that gave me the sense of loss for the things I would never see or share again; that my joy & sorrow were the same. I really miss the stars on a deep dark night, or a sunset, but it’s ok. There’s peace that comes up on me now. When I slow down, and stop, and breath, and I love these things, that beauty, and it’s ok. —GW

Now I am willing to completely give up all the horrible traumatic stories of my youth that has plagued my mind, thoughts, emotions throughout my adult life. Now I realize I’ve been the one to perpetuate all the years of suffering I’ve been experiencing. Also what’s been directed at me by others for a long time, I felt I was a victim from all the pain and hurt I went through. I’ve been in prison for 25 years. To have taken the Gangaji self-inquiry course has helped me to understand, giving me clarity. No longer holding hate or resentment toward those who victimized me. A lot of that has been a huge part of the anger I held bottled up inside of myself. Searching my conscience for answers, the truth, freedom, so I could redirect my focus and attention to better myself. I am choosing to stop suffering here and now. I’m willing to end that emotional roller coaster of pain, tormented suffering…I am much more aware of my choices even while I’m presently incarcerated. I am a free man no matter what my physical circumstances are. I am at home discovering my redemption. I had to look deep for that purity and for all of us to experience that opportunity is here and I can successfully say I met that pain fully now. I am able to put it behind me. These prison walls can’t stop this freedom. Now that I have been willing to open up, being willing to meet myself, discovering, redefining my original self the innocent…before I was broken, beaten and victimized as a little kid.

I N R E S P O N S E TO O U R J U LY I N Q U I R Y: Yes, there has been horrible suffering, and you have been on both ends of it. You have perpetuated it, and you have experienced it directed at you. Are you willing to end it?

I am most grateful for you Gangaji. I totally love you from the deepest of my heart. I constantly repeat this when I gaze at your beautiful face know that you helped me. In so many ways I am happy. I am free and I love you dearly. —TS

>>> INQUIRY WORKSHEET 1 <<< Write down all the responses that arise. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t edit yourself or judge your responses. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to show your responses to anyone.

Where do you feel longing?

Is there a connection between longing and disillusionment?

When you simply open to the feeling of longing, dropping any stories or thoughts or judgments about the feeling, what is here inside?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The way out is in.â&#x20AC;? ~gangaji

What is

People often ask me how to surrender, how to be still, because surrendering and being still are really the same. There is no how to surrendering or to being still. The how is in how the mind holds on, how the mind resists. That’s a very important how, because when you discover how the mind holds on, and how that holding is being defended, then surrender simply is ceasing to hold. The insight into why it is being defended will come naturally. You don’t have to go looking for the why’s. They will be revealed.

it is only a defense against your Self and the realization of your Self. Inquiring what the mind is protecting is really the same inquiry as who is protecting. I’ve noticed that in questioning who, there is often a jump into non-dual understanding, a jump over the wall of defense, and then ten minutes later, an hour later, a day later, a month later, there is the experience of suffering. I would like for the function of the wall to be addressed. What is this wall protecting?

being

The challenge is to tell yourself the truth. What is being defended? What is being protected? Then there can be choice. There is nothing wrong with protecting and defending. It doesn’t mean you are not the Self. It doesn’t mean you won’t go to heaven. It doesn’t mean you won’t succeed in non-dual realization. It doesn’t mean anything. That’s the joy of it. But the activity and focus and attention on how to protect gives a false meaning to what is being protected.

You don’t have to tear the wall down. You don’t even have to see that the wall is an illusion, and what it is protecting is an illusion, and the protector itself is an illusion. That is all true, but in this moment, tell the relative truth about what is being protected, what is being defended. This is the activity of mind, the strategizing and planning, the getting something or keeping away something else. At the root of these strategies of mind is some form of defense, some form of protection.

protected?

I am not speaking of the body. The body needs protection. While the body is here, protect it as well as you can. Clothe it, feed it, shelter it. When the body is sick, rest it and give it medicines. What I am speaking of is something much closer than the body. Something that has an imaginary wall of protection and defense built around it. The tragedy of that wall is that

For this moment, let’s forget that the protector is unreal, even though it is absolutely, totally unreal. Let’s forget that the wall is unreal, even though it is absolutely, completely unreal. Let us see what is thought to be protected, because in that seeing there is the capacity for the mind to let go, to be unprotected, to be still. To be still is to be un, period.

INNO > surrender reveals everything When we consider how we avoid surrender, we expose how we resist surrender. We are embarking on an exploration into how the mind moves. In this adventure, we can begin by appreciating the inherent beauty of the mind and the ways that our particular minds and our collective minds move in strategies often necessary for our survival. Initially, our minds move so that we can escape harm and then thrive. Whether it’s a plant mind or a planet mind or your individual mind, escaping harm is the central operating principle of mind activity. Moving away from harm can take the form of hiding, escaping, running, or becoming invisible. Psychologically, we can dissociate. We can attempt to be invisible like certain bugs do to keep from being eaten by birds. However, when we habitually try to escape harm, this attempt to escape becomes an attempt to escape pain of every kind. Since pain is an aspect of being a sensory human being, we begin to move away from ourselves. Clearly this is an unnecessary movement of mind that leads to further suffering. If we can recognize that the original intention to escape harm is pure, then we can also see that original fear is pure. We can discriminate between true threats and habitual, false threats. Anger is another strategy we use to avoid harm. With anger, we move against something to protect ourselves from harm. We fight. Ultimately, we make war. Original friendliness is pure. I don’t know what emotion to attribute to that friendliness, but it’s the natural, unthreatened openness we experience when innocently meeting someone.

Although friendliness can also often be a strategy of diffusing threat or harm, it is also beautiful in its pure form. Nonetheless, through habit and misunderstanding or misreading situations, purity of movement becomes polluted and corrupted. The pollution of these movements, once pure in their origin, results in unnecessary suffering. When we are habitually moving in reaction to some perceived threat, the result is a psychic, emotional pollution. Then, even the potential of harm becomes the harm itself, as we spend all our energy running or hiding or fighting or seducing whenever we perceive a potential threat. This pollution contributes to our complex experience of reality. Some aspects of this dance of emotions feel powerful, such as the arising of a natural, pure aggression of anger or will. Some aspects feel powerless, as when there is fear with cowering or running. Some aspects feel extremely pleasurable, as when the movements of our minds are used in the meeting of other minds, to connect and explore with wonder at the mystery of that and the enlargement of our reality through those connections. However, when any of these movements are used habitually, our life experiences are diminished. When fear is habitual we shrink into the corners of existence because of what might happen to us if we venture into the unknown. If we are addicted to our anger and our ability to attack, yes that may feel powerful, it may feel better than cowering in a corner, but the addiction to anger is obviously just another form of suffering. We’re polluted by it. Perhaps the hardest strategy of mind to surrender is false friendliness, because it feels so good and often gets such good results. Natural friendliness is beautiful in its purity.

CENT surrender reveals everything

However, when it is used as a ploy of seduction in some attempt to keep us safe, it becomes corrupted—an empty imitation of love. Ultimately, the attempt to maintain something that’s not true, that’s not real, always leads to more unnecessary suffering.

implosion of will. The reality of true surrender is an open expansion of consciousness, not needing to assert itself anywhere, not needing to defend itself, not needing to seduce another in order to be safe, but simply open to spaciousness. Then, as habitual suffering reappears, you have opportunities to recognize the difference between a pure fear that naturally, exquisitely appears when there is a real threat, and a polluted fear, a perceived yet unreal threat. You have the possibility and the capacity to actually tell the difference.

“We can open to the pains of our lives and discover a bigger, deeper life.” In our willingness to really discover how we avoid surrender, we get to see these movements of mind in their impurity. What’s required for the seeing is, first and always, the willingness to see. Maybe you don’t know how it is you’re supposed to see, maybe it even sounds abstract to you, or maybe you know it or understand it at some level, but you don’t quite recognize that there is actually a deeper seeing possible. When there is an innocent willingness to see what has not been seen, that in itself is the beginning. I’m not talking about analyzing or processing yourself, assigning blame or even fixing, but just the willingness to tell the simple truth. This is the necessary ground of inquiry. In this simple willingness to see, already there is a surrendering of the mind’s habitual movements. In our Western culture, this invitation to stillness can in itself feel threatening. Western culture in particular is based on the movements of the mind toward acquisition and defense of what is acquired. Consequently, to invite your mind to surrender is itself huge and unknown in the world at large. Your willingness is the great privilege of grace that has somehow arisen within you. Surrender can sometimes be misunderstood as cynical resignation, a giving up, and a deflated

I’m not suggesting that you analyze the difference. When your stop your mental activities, you can recognize that you can actually experience the difference. There is an intelligence that is alive in each of us that already knows the difference between what is real and what is false. Your initial reaction to events may arise automatically and result in fear or anger or some attempt at seduction. If that reaction is just from habit, you have a fresh choice. You can stop the habit before it is followed to its logical result of suffering. You can tell the truth to yourself. You can tell the truth when you indulge your habitual contraction or attack or seduction; you can tell the truth when it is appropriate and when it is inappropriate. When you smile at someone, you can tell the truth, is it natural or is it an attempt to be safe from some perceived threat? When you attack someone, either in your mind or with your voice or words or body language, is it really an attack against a true threat, or is it simply a perceived threat, a threat that is somehow associated in

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surrender reveals everything

your mind with an earlier threat? Or if you find yourself cowering from the world, retreating and hiding, is following this habitual response truly necessary? Only you can answer these questions for yourself.

Always I want you to know that I am not saying there is anything wrong with cowering, or any other strategy of mind. It is not for anyone else to say that a response is impure and that you shouldn’t be doing it. However, there is always a possibility that you can tell the deeper truth, and you can recognize that there is possibly something unseen that you can be willing to see. In an instant of not following a familiar response to feeling threatened, you can ask yourself questions such as these: “Where is the threat? What is the threat? What is the story or the narrative that keeps the movement of mind in place?” These questions are useful because they illuminate choice. Inquiring always means questioning strategic assumptions. Questioning assumption is the basis of penetrating your habitual mind movement with an intelligence that is not separate from that mind movement, yet is deeper, clearer, and free of it. The most classic example of the difference between perceived threat and real threat comes from an Indian teaching story: There is a rope in the road that looks like a snake. When we see a snake on the road, naturally everything in our survival drive reacts. Either we run from that snake, hide from that snake, grab a stick and beat that snake, or we might even try to charm the snake. We get into a relationship with the snake, a power relationship. The possibility is that as you get closer to the snake, in a split second you can see that in this particular instance the snake is not a snake. It’s a rope. It looks like a snake. The mind interprets

the rope as snake, a threat, but in a split second you can ask yourself, Where is the threat? Is it real or is it a false threat? What is the narrative that keeps the movement of mind in place? When this is seen, something is loosened, and a big plank is removed from the floor of our suffering. Where there has been habitual reaction and unnecessary suffering, there is space. All of this presupposes that you have the willingness to trust your own intelligence, while at the same time knowing that there is no guarantee mistakes won’t be made. As we are learning to trust our own intelligence, just as when we were learning to walk, falls happen, and yet these falls are an integral part in the willingness to learn. In life there will be pain, and perhaps this is really the crux of the matter. If we recognize there will be pain, and we’re willing not to seek a release from the pain but rather to let the pain be an aspect of our beingness, then our relationship with pain will not define our relationship with life. We can open to the pains in our lives and discover a bigger, deeper life. Certainly some pains are bigger than others. Some people have more pain in their lives than others. But you are in a unique position, regardless of how much pain is in your life, because now you know you have a choice. You have the privilege that out of some mystery of evolution or beingness or mutation, a desire for true freedom has arisen. Now you have the unique possibility of recognizing that all that keeps you from the experience of true freedom is the bondage to the movements of your mind, the addiction to your thoughts, the addiction to the habit of suffering, or even some kind of

superstitious ritual mental dance around the possibility of no more pain. I invite you to make this recognition concrete and relevant to your life. For instance, if selfhatred is your particular habit of suffering, the way that you habitually resist surrender to love and life, maybe it’s so close that you don’t even realize it’s there until you look. Once you recognize that much of your suffering is based on self-hatred, then you can see how this drives your internal dialogue about how wrong or bad or hopeless you are. If you find that your habitual motivations are driven by fear, you can inquire into this also. Is it a fear of being nothing, or a fear of accomplishing nothing, of failing, of starving, of pain, of death? Do you fear peace? Many people are surprised to find that they actually fear peace, they fear love; they even fear freedom. These questions serve to open your attention to what is motivating the engine of suffering. You then have the capacity to stop. Maybe your particular way of avoiding surrender to the truth of who you are in all of its magnificence and mystery is a preoccupation with blaming someone else for what has happened in your life. What is that avoiding? How is that a distraction and a delaying tactic away from the opportunity in this very moment to open to what is here? Simple surrender reveals everything – this peace, this truth of oneself in its depth and its limitlessness. The complexity of your strategies and motivations can be penetrated by your willingness. I invite you to enter the conversation and let us discover together how an avoidance of surrender shows up in your life, where you need support, and how you can give support.

letters & reports

This letter comes from a participant at Gangaji’s August retreat in San Rafael, CA. Her husband is in prison and introduced her to Gangaji’s teachings. Dear Gangaji, How miraculous that the program intended to support the prison population also has worked to serve those of us loved ones who have been separated from our families. It is a true miracle to come to the recognition that I needed to free myself from my own emotional prison. To find my true self again is a blessing of the highest magnitude. This is the first and only group in which I have been able to publicly share the trauma of my husband’s incarceration without fear of judgment or derision. This acceptance has helped me to integrate all about this world that seems so wrong, so unjust and so dreadfully unfair. The world just is and we are in it where we are in it, but we can take refuge in our compassion for the truth of who we are.

I read somewhere this weekend—“No one outside ourselves can rule us inwardly. When we know this, we become free.” This is what my husband has learned thru his imprisonment which has become an important guideline for me. I want and pray so much that his sentence will be reduced, but when the court hears his case and makes their decision, it may take up to a year before that decision is communicated to us. Our fear and separation are great, but the truth of our connection is greater still. We just keep loving each other and our loving hearts become our greatest protection. I am looking forward to the day you can meet him and hear his beautiful voice. He is my Gypsy-King and I know you will fall in love too! Many blessings. Love, M

>>> INQUIRY WORKSHEET 2 <<< In the privacy of your own inquiry, repeat each question numerous times and write down all the responses that arise. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t edit yourself or judge your responses. Repeating the questions serve to uncover our deeper, perhaps less obvious, mental conclusions. Spend approximately 5-10 minutes with each question.

Which of your emotions victimize you?

Which of other peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; emotions victimize you?

What is required for you to stop being victimized by your and otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s emotions?

Ramana Maharshi: A Great Change

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a great change

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi was one of the 20th century’s most celebrated saints. Born in India in 1879, he spontaneously awakened to his eternal nature at the age of 16. Confronted by his father’s recent death, and overcome with fear for his own death, he felt compelled to experience death directly. In his full and profound inquiry into death, he discovered himself to be that life which cannot die. After keeping silent for 11 years, Ramana began to answer questions from the people who had come to sit in silence with him. The name Ramana, which was given to him by one of his disciples, means “that which resides in the heart of all being.” Gangaji’s teacher, Sri H.W.L Poonja, also known as Papaji, was one of Ramana’s students. Before his death in 1950, Ramana recounted his awakening in an interview with biographer Arthur Osborne.

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“… [on that day] a great change in my life took place. It was quite sudden. I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it … I just felt ‘I am going to die’ and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to

consult a doctor or my elders or friends; I felt that I had to solve the problem myself, there and then. “The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards, and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now that death has come, what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff, as though rigor mortis had set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the inquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word ‘I’ nor any other word could be uttered. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body, am I dead? Is the body ‘I’? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. That means that I am the deathless Spirit.’ All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truth that I perceived directly, almost without thought-process.

a great change

You having applied the remedy for my confusion, ‘I’ was something very real, the how can I still remain confused? You shine do you not, only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious as the mountain medicine made up of Grace? activity connected with my –Ramana body was centered on the ‘I.’ From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music, but the ‘I’ continued like a fundamental intonation that underlies and blends with all the other notes. Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else, I was still centered on ‘I.’ The first and foremost of all thoughts, the primeval thought in the mind of every person, is the thought ‘I.’ If you could mentally follow the ‘I’ thread until it led you back to its source, you would discover that, just as it is the first thought to appear, so it is the last to disappear. This is a matter that can be experienced. It is possible to go inwards until the last thought, ‘I,’ gradually vanishes. A man/woman will become truly wise when he/she has awakened to the true Self, the real nature of man, immortal consciousness. “When a man/woman knows the true Self for the first time, something else arises from the depths of the being and takes possession. That something is behind the mind; it is infinite, divine, eternal. Some people call it the Kingdom of Heaven, others call it the soul, and others again Nirvana. The Hindus call it Liberation; you may give it whatever name you wish. When this happens, a man/woman has not really lost themself; rather they have found themself.” Excerpted from Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self Knowledge by Arthur Osborne, B.I. Publications: Delhi, India, first published 1954.

W H AT I S T H E S E L F? In our experience as human beings, we have the natural capacity to identify ourselves as individual egos. This is an enormous power, and there is nothing wrong with this power. It is an extraordinary power, an evolutionary adaptation that has given the human species an advantage over other species in almost every circumstance. However, ego also has the power to generate self-hatred, self-torture, and an endless host of destructive behaviors. If our individual body/ mind/ego is believed to define who we are, this belief inevitably gives rise to enormous, unnecessary suffering. If you base your life on the belief that you are limited to a body, then both consciously and subconsciously the preservation of that body becomes the overriding concern. In the growing recognition that there is no absolute guarantee for your body’s safety, great fear arises. When preservation of the body is primary, we live in a fearful universe driven by thoughts of “me first,” “my tribe first,” “my nation first,” at the cost of all other peoples, tribes, and nations. It leads to the suffering of war. Whether this war is experienced between brother and sister, parent and child, husband and wife, or between races, tribes, and nations, it is all based on a deeply limited identification of who we are, an idea of a particular someone who is essentially separate from everyone else.

Since you and I appear to be separate, we draw an understandable yet tragic conclusion that we

what is the self?

therefore must be separate. The conviction of the egoic belief “I am this body separate from all other bodies” is in fact the only obstruction to recognizing the truth of who you are (and everyone else) as boundless, vast, eternal consciousness.

The original sin, the original mistake, is the belief that separation from the source, from consciousness, from God, and from one another is even possible. Since separation is our experience, we believe it to be our reality. This mistaken perception is the root of all suffering.

older person, a healthy person, a sick person, a suffering person, or an enlightened person—always, behind all of that, is the truth of yourself. It is not foreign to you. It is so close that you cannot believe it is you. Instead, you have taken on the conditioning of parents, cultures, and religions as the reality of yourself rather than what has always been with you—closer than your heartbeat, closer than any thought, closer than any experience. The truth of who you are is free of it all. You are already free, and all that blocks you from the

“ln the discovery of the vastness that you truly are, you begin to understand that the perception of separation is an illusion, just as a dream or a trance state is an illusion.”

In the discovery of the vastness that you truly are, you begin to understand that the perception of separation is an illusion, just as a dream or a trance state is an illusion. Illusion holds enormous power until it is deeply questioned. True investigation is designed to reveal what is real and what is illusion, what is eternal and what is passing.

The world is not as you think it is. You are not who you think you are. I am not who you think me to be. When all mental activity around who you think you are or what you need for happiness is stopped, there is a crack in the authority of perception, in the structure of the mind. It is through that crack I invite you to enter. Come in through that opening. When you do, the mind is no longer filled with its latest self-definition. In that moment, there is only silence. And in that silence, it is possible to recognize absolute fulfillment: the truth of who you are. The truth of who you are cannot be named or defined. However you have identified yourself— as a child, an adolescent, a mother, a father, an

realization of that freedom is your attachment to some thought of who you are. This thought doesn’t block you from being the truth of who you are. You already are that. It blocks you from the realization of who you are. I invite you to let your attention dive into what has always been here, waiting openly for its own self-realization. Who are you, really? Are you some image that appears in your mind? Are you some sensation that appears in your body? Are you some emotion that passes through your mind and body? Are you something that someone else has said you are, or are you the rebellion against something that someone else has said you are? These are some of the many avenues of misidentification. All of these definitions come and go, are born and then die. The truth of who you are does not come and go. It is present before birth, throughout a lifetime, and after death. To discover the truth of who you are is not only possible; it is your birthright. Any thoughts that

who are you?

this discovery is not for you—now is not the time, you are not worthy, you are not ready, you already know who you are—are all just tricks of the mind. It is time to investigate this I-thought and see what validity it really has. In this examination, there is an opening for the conscious intelligence that you are to finally recognize itself. W H O A R E YO U? The most important question you can ever ask yourself is Who am I? Of course, the external world has told you who you are. Beginning with your parents, you are told that you are a particular name, a particular gender, and that you play a particular role as a child in the family. The conditioning continues through your schooling. You are a good student, a bad student, a good person, a bad person, someone who can do it, someone who can’t do it, and on and on. You have experienced both success and failure. At a certain stage you realize that who you are, however that is defined, is not satisfying. You want to know the truth of yourself. In its power and simplicity, the question, Who am I? throws the mind back to the root of personal identification, the basic assumption, “I am somebody.” Rather than automatically taking that assumption as the truth, you can investigate deeper. When this very basic assumption of who you are is directly questioned, the mind encounters the I that is assumed to be separate from what it has been seeking. This is called self-inquiry.

Who are you, really? How do you know that is who you are? Is that true? Really? When you turn your attention toward the question Who am I? perhaps you will see an entity that has your face and your body. But who is aware of that entity? Are you the object, or are you the

awareness of the object? The object comes and goes. The parent, the child, the lover, the abandoned one, the enlightened one, the victorious one, the defeated one—these identifications all come and go. The awareness of these identifications is always present. You are the awareness itself. The misidentification of yourself as some object in awareness leads to endless cycles of suffering. When you are willing to stop the misidentification and discover directly and completely that who you really are is immaculate, unending, limitless awareness and not these impermanent definitions, the search for yourself in thought ends. When the question, Who? is followed innocently, purely, all the way back to its source, there is a huge, astounding realization: There is no entity there at all! There is only the indefinable, boundless recognition of yourself as inseparable from anything else. You are free. You are whole. You are endless. There is no bottom to you, no boundary to you. Any idea about yourself appears in you and will disappear back into you. You are awareness, and awareness is consciousness. Let all self-definitions die in this moment. Let them all go, and see what remains. See what is never born and what does not die. Feel the relief of laying down the burden of defining yourself. Experience the actual non-reality of the burden. Experience the joy that is here. Rest in the endless peace of your true nature before any thought of I arises.

letters & reports The uniqueness of consciousness is that consciousness can recognize itself through the individual form and simultaneously recognize itself as the animating force of everything. When I was a child, 5 or 6 years old, a thought came to me at night while we were riding around (my Mother, Father, sister and I) of what is really there? I mean time, life, death. At such a young age, it scared me. It bothered me for about 2 weeks. Just the “nothingness” of what was there, like a void. Space, time and what is the meaning of it all. I finally got myself to stop thinking about it, until summer vacations (being out of school for the summer) each year from 6th grade to the 10th. Oh, it was so horrible. The thought would come into my head and literally haunt me. It was unbearable. I would stay in bed for 2 weeks at a time. So depressive until finally I’d think about not thinking about it and go on with life. Now, the thought may come and go, but it’s different now, a more “understanding” to it for me.

AN ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCE In the timeless instant of recognizing that consciousness exists without any need of concept, identification with concept falls away. This is an essential experience. What follows is the deepening recognition that consciousness is free regardless of concept. This is true freedom. Fear can often be a part of this essential shift away from identification with concepts toward the silent ground of being, because the shift threatens the known structure of life. Fear can have many different disguises, including anger, numbness, and despair. This existential terror is like the gargoyle at the gate to the sanctuary. Unless it is met and exposed as just another strategy of mind, it can keep you away from the revelation of the silent, aware peace at the core of your being.

Your friend, J The messages from the great masters who have realized their essential nature encourage us to meet this terror of the dissolution of our individuality. The result of this meeting is paradoxical: The individual is dissolved and yet becomes more individually distinct. The uniqueness of consciousness is that consciousness can recognize itself through the individual form and simultaneously recognize itself as the animating force of everything.

>>> INQUIRY WORKSHEET 3 <<< When this very basic assumption of who you are is directly questioned, the mind encounters the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;? that is assumed to be separate from what it has been seeking. This is called selfinquiry. Investigate the following questions. Allow the responses to arise without editing yourself. You do not have to share these responses with anyone.

Who are you, really? How do you know that is who you are? Is that true? Really? Is that all you are?

When you turn your attention toward the question â&#x20AC;&#x153;Who am I?â&#x20AC;? perhaps you will see an entity that has your face and your body. But who is aware of that entity? Are you the object, or are you the awareness of the object?

Before You Begin ...

Give yourself the gift of taking just a few minutes to fully be here with yourself.

Respect exactly where you are in your body, in your emotions, and in your life.

Take a moment to breathe and to gather yourself back home.

Give yourself permission to be completely quiet and to discover the vast living presence that you are.

Already at peace, already free.

Ending Our Patterns of Unnecessary Suffering “How is it possible to end our patterns of suffering? It is only possible if you’re willing to have the power of observation activated.”

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ending our patterns

In the previous inquiry we delved into the nature of the self and the question, Who am I? We saw that when we identify ourselves as separate bodies/minds/egos, an entity we call “me,” we believe that we are an object in awareness rather than the awareness itself. This misidentification as an entity that is somehow separate from pure and present awareness leads to endless patterns of unnecessary suffering.

How is it possible to end our patterns of suffering? It is only possible if you’re willing to have the power of observation activated. It gets activated by your own desire for truth, your willingness to inquire how you suffer, and your ability to discern when that suffering is unnecessary. This word “unnecessary” is important, because there is certainly suffering in the world. There is pain in the world for all forms of life. This personal observation is not about getting something right so that you will be free from suffering. That freedom would be conditional. The freedom I am pointing you to is the freedom that is already alive within you in this very instant, regardless of conditions. Inner freedom is not reliant on your doing anything. It is the inherent truth of who you are. T H E D R I V E TO S U R V I V E Our bodies, as well as all life forms, are hardwired to survive. Our minds have the capacity to veil the truth of who we really are as vast, limitless consciousness. Part of that capacity to veil truth comes from a primary drive to survive, to keep the body alive. That is the whole point of identity. Without a body, we don’t need an ego. We don’t need a story of me. Yet because we have objectified ourselves as a body in space and time, a body that carries with it a storyline,

the motivating force—the engine of the storyline—becomes about survival of the body. We also know that after a certain time our bodies will die, and yet this survival drive is so strong, the power of it so convincing, that we even deny the certain ending of the body. We spend our lives worrying about that death, fearing that death, and denying that death. In that avoidance, survival itself becomes a poison to the truth of our inherent freedom. While it’s true that fear is simply part of what it means to be a living form, as human animals we can actually become conscious that our fears are finally about the fear of losing something. That feared loss may be one’s life, one’s identity, or the losing of a pleasure, or the losing of a love relationship. Death becomes the event to be avoided at all costs, even at the cost of our integrity. Since your body is actually alive in this moment, you have the capacity to observe your own drive to survive and even the beauty of that drive. This drive, however, can get so out of balance that it generates a living death, a living numbness, a life of hidden terror, and this is what I mean by unnecessary suffering. I invite you to look within your life right now, and see if you have sold your integrity for some notion of survival of the body. What are the strategies that you employ for survival? Do you desire to be rich or smart or powerful or useful so that then nobody will hurt you, so that you will fit in, and your body will have a better chance of surviving? The same can be said about wanting to be attractive or trying to be a “good person.” You desire to be these things because you think this is what gives you worth, and if you have worth, you will survive.

ending our patterns

This is why it is also important to fully experience your own badness, your own goodness, your own beauty, and your own ugliness. You must experience the polarities that are at the core of your conditioning. Just after the thought “I am somebody” is some variation on the thought “I am somebody good or I am somebody bad.” You know in your heart of hearts that

F R E E D O M I S FA C I N G D E AT H There are all kinds of deaths. There is the death of every moment. There is the death that occurs every night when you drop off into sleep, the death of a relationship ending, and the death when a child leaves home. But the death I would like you to turn your attention to now is physical death, the end of your physical life form. Many people begin the spiritual search looking for attainment, but true spiritual attainment is revealed through the loss of everything. The spiritual path is actually a path of death, a path of loss. If you can investigate the loss of your life now, before death comes to take it, you have the possibility of dying freely, in peace, losing something very precious, yes, but gaining more in the capacity to meet the loss head on.

“Do you have the courage to be who you truly are, to die to your conditioning? This is a huge question that should only be answered with serious examination.” both are lies. In this knowing, you can honestly inquire, “Without the body, without the qualities of goodness or badness, without the feelings, without the thoughts, who am I?” You have the opportunity, in this moment, through your ability to inquire and to observe, to actually cut through the illusion of identity. That opportunity comes from your own willingness to observe for yourself where you are obsessed with avoiding loss or protecting yourself from loss; where you are fixated on keeping. In your willingness to inquire you can drop your attention deeper than your thoughts into where fear is held in your body. With your consciousness, you have the capacity to penetrate inside that fear, leaving all the narratives behind—“If I just do enough, if I could just get enough, if I could just get more, then I would be safe.” As you sit here, alone with yourself, be willing to be unsafe and take the inner dive into the unknown. There it is possible to discover what is free of both birth and death and so cannot be lost. What is not subject to loss is always here.

To meet our death while the body is still alive is counterintuitive, contrary to our conditioning as organisms designed to avoid pain and fear. We normally listen to fear because it is part of the survival mechanism of the human body. There is nothing wrong with that. But self-inquiry takes the mind deeper than what is right for survival. Once the desire arises to truly be free, the question of what survives after the body dies is more important than simply surviving. As you are reading this, you have the privilege right now to actually consider the end of your life. You can take this time to actually reflect on what your life has been about, on what is important and what is not. You can speak honestly to yourself. In this moment, you have no reason to lie. You can put aside all physical and mental rituals and strategies that further construct your

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ending our patterns

life, and meet the reality of the end of your physical form.

I invite you now, this moment, to die before your body dies, to recognize your attachment to your body, and to face its inevitable end. And in this facing, to tell the truth about who you really are. If you are willing to stop for one moment and face death, it is likely that you will have time to see what life is like when you meet the reality of the death of form. What is the experience of life when there is no “you” left? What is the experience of problems when they are not “your” problems? Am I talking about suicide? No! To meet death is not suicide, nor is it the least bit dangerous. It only seems dangerous. What is dangerous, what is a living suicide, is to live your life in bondage to the belief that you are limited to a body. As long as you resist the fact of death and hide from death through the tricks of the mind, you will suffer. In the recognition that death is simply the cessation of all experience, you can actually invite death now. The willingness to directly examine your own fear of death makes it possible for you to discover the truth of what does not die. Then, when your own physical death comes, you will have already had the experience of meeting it, and you will go into your physical death awake. Through this same discovery, you will go through your life awake, because you have been willing to meet the other side. Who are you? Are you the body? Teachers tell you that you are radiant consciousness, that you are the light, the truth, but you must recognize who you are for yourself. Otherwise, whatever anyone says is just another addition to the story of who you believe yourself to be. True, lasting

recognition is not just another spiritual experience to add to a collection of experiences. Do you have the courage to be who you truly are, to die to your conditioning? This is a huge question that should only be answered with serious examination. You cannot live fully until you are willing to die fully; and you cannot die fully until you are willing to meet the fear of death fully. If you really meet the fear of death, you are at peace. You recognize what cannot die. I am not speaking of reincarnation, because the hope that you will reincarnate is still rooted in a fear of death. The courage to stop and inquire into the truth of death reveals what has never been born, what cannot die. I invite you to ask yourself the questions that are really the heart and core of all true selfinquiry. What is it that dies when the body dies? Who is it that dies? Who is asking these questions? Inquire deeply into yourself. Look closer and closer. Experience the energy, attention, and effort that it takes to keep death away. Are you aware of the fear of being nothing, of no longer existing? Right now, let your consciousness sink into the core of that fear. Let yourself be nothing right now. All is finished. All is over. What is left? What remains when everything is gone? Who are you?

>>> INQUIRY WORKSHEET 4 <<< I invite you to ask yourself the questions that are really the heart and core of all true selfinquiry. Please note that you need not share your responses with anyone. This can be a purely private inquiry. What is it that dies when the body dies?

Who is it that dies?

Who is asking these questions?

Inquire deeply into yourself. Look closer and closer. What is your experience?

Experience the energy, attention, and effort that it takes to keep death away. Are you aware of the fear of being nothing, of no longer existing? Right now, let your consciousness sink into the core of that fear. Let yourself be nothing right now. All is finished. All is over. What is left?

What remains when everything is gone?

Who are you?

“Stop. Tell the Truth. Be Still.”

~gangaji

Before You Begin ...

l invite you to take a few moments to relax.

Close your eyes and bring your awareness to your breath, and then to the space between breaths.

lf there is noise in your external environment, just allow it to be as it is and recognize that there is a spacious presence inside you that is untouched by it, unaffected and undisturbed by any of it.

Let whatever noise you may be aware of be brought home into the indefinable, immeasur- able depth of silent awareness that is filled with love and self-acceptance, recognizing itself as you, just as you are.

As you give yourself the space to fall into this deeper presence, the truth of yourself that is always here has a chance to be revealed freshly.

True lntimacy and Lasting Fulfillment

true intimacy and lasting fulfillment

Our last inquiry delved into questions about our inherent drive to survive and the fears of death and loss that fuel that drive. Out of this core drive are birthed two further strategies for survival: sex and personal power. This session we will focus on sexuality and the next, personal power. We can see clearly how the sexual aspect of survival is actively around us in all life forms. The fact of pollination, the exquisite dance of flowers, birds, bees, and insects, is the inherent sexual dance of life. Our sexuality as human beings can also lead us into the mystery of relationship and the experience of bonding with another human being. In the deep intimate knowing of another, we are annihilated in our individuality. We bring our individuality to that relationship, and then we surrender it to something bigger. In that experience it is possible to recognize that this depth of intimacy is not limited to other human beings; it’s actually possible with all life, including with oneself. Human sexuality is obviously a necessary part of the survival of our species and the cultural story of humanity. The sexual energy that each human has is natural. There is nothing wrong with it. It’s the way we are made. It’s part of what it means to be alive. However, the intent of this course is not in making sexuality right or wrong. My interest is in the possibility of you freeing yourself from the bondage of sexual identity. If you are suffering with this aspect of your humanity, you might find yourself ready and willing to look into your own life and see how your sense of happiness and self-worth are somehow linked to your identity as a sexual being. When one’s fulfillment is associated with the expres-

sion of sexual energy, suffering is inevitably created and sexuality becomes a veiling of truth. I invite you to consider how you define yourself as a sexual being and what judgments you might be bringing to that definition. Not necessarily to change anything but to simply be willing to tell the truth, and then observe what happens when you tell the truth to yourself. You are not being asked to discover what is the right way for you to define yourself. This discovery is simply about bringing the light of awareness to all of your strategies of survival—however subtle or gross— that unconsciously create unnecessary suffering. In our Western culture in particular, we have worshiped sexual power. We have bowed to it, fed it, and ultimately been enslaved by it. If you follow sexuality with thought and energy and devotion, you are following a limited god. When limited gods are worshiped, the devotees suffer. Our sexual energy is a huge force, and there is deep conditioning to do something with this force. The mind can get very activated with fantasies of how this force might be satisfied. Some people, after realizing how much the mind is entangled in sex, are no longer interested in sex because they are no longer interested in feeding the mind. They want to realize what is beyond the mind, what has more power than even the mind. The truth is that if sexual thoughts are not fed, they dissolve effortlessly. Obviously, an enormous spinning of the mind can occur around the dance of sexuality, because sex is where most people experience some kind of bliss, release, silence, or peace. Many people would say that sex is as good as it gets. Yet in linking up bliss, silence, and peace with the sexual act, a regeneration of struggle, ten-

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true intimacy and lasting fulfillment

sion, acquisition, and loss also occurs. Once again you find yourself fully back on the wheel of suffering.

My teacher, Papaji, would say quite often about any drive, any desire, or even any thought, “Just don’t touch it.” This means don’t make it wrong, don’t make it right, don’t make it something you need to express, don’t make it something you need to repress, just don’t touch it. Then the energy is free to be present as part of the mystery of our physical and emotional life forms. When sexual energy is free to exist without the necessity to either express it or repress it, you have the capacity to intelligently see what is appropriate in relationship to it. In this you can see clearly what it is you truly want for yourself, and what it is you want for others. DISCOVERING THE DEEPEST INTIMACY If in your heart there is a deep longing for intimacy, then don’t miss the opportunity to experience this longing directly, with no action taken to satiate it. The longing itself can speak to you of your true nature, of your hunger for what does not come and go. The truth is that sexual intimacy is not necessary for the discovery of the deepest intimacy. True intimacy is endless. It has nothing to do even with being human. It is an intimacy with the whole universe. The true meaning of intimacy is an embrace of the universe with itself in all of its horror and all of its beauty—in love with itself and deeply intimate with itself. Whether or not you ever have sex again, if you discover the truth of your being you have discovered infinite, unconditional fulfillment. No person and no particular act are needed for this. Experience the truth of yourself directly, and

your relationship with yourself as a sexual being will never be the same or have the same power to cause suffering.

“The truth is that sexual intimacy is not necessary for the discovery of the deepest intimacy.” Causeless fulfillment is within you. As long as you have any misunderstanding that true fulfillment can be found outside you in some object, then you are chasing a false god. You can recognize that fulfillment is within, untouched by anything and always here for you, regardless of circumstances. Then the mind can cease its outward activity. You recognize the futility in these habits of reaching for “it” out there in some object or some activity. You recognize that what you want is here already. True identity, true fulfillment, waits for your discovery, is realized, and is a satisfaction beyond anything imaginable. It is the satisfaction of needing nothing, of love overflowing in the fulfillment of itself. S E X UA L I T Y A S P O W E R One common way that sexuality gets distorted in our culture is to use it destructively as a platform for personal power. And an inescapable truth is that whenever we are doing harm to others, we are doing harm to ourselves. Obviously, when it comes to rape, rape is not just sexual; it’s a violent abuse of power. It’s an act of violence that uses sexuality as an outlet for rage and the need to feel powerful. And if you have ever

experienced abuse, you know it’s not a question of surrendering your personal power; power is taken from you, and that’s the harm. Another common misunderstanding is that people take freedom to mean free license for the physical body. While there can be an experience of relative freedom for the body in terms of physical circumstance, there is no possibility of absolute freedom for the physical body, so we can stop searching for everlasting freedom in regards to the body and its circumstances. The forces of nature imprison the physical body. There is no way out. The emotional body is imprisoned in feelings of “me! me! me!” The mental body is imprisoned in thoughts of “why? why? why?” True freedom is not about freedom of body, mind, or emotion. It is about recognizing what is beyond and untouched by body, mind, and emotion. If you are no longer identified with the body needing freedom, or the emotions needing freedom, or the mind needing freedom, then you realize absolute, everlasting freedom. There is a possibility to tell the truth about what your life has been about … and what you would like your life to be about now. Then, for at least an instant, whatever wheel of suffering we might have around sexuality is interrupted. Once it is interrupted by the light of conscious awareness, it doesn’t have the same power. The integrity of that particular pattern of suffering is broken, and from that point onward, real inquiry can begin.

letters & reports

In response to our inquiry featuring Ramana: From J The question of consciousness being independent of the body is indeed paramount. But Ramana only pretended to die, and imagined what it was like. How does this prove anything? His insight that consciousness persists after physical death may have been accurate, but on the other hand, if consciousness is just matter/ brain-based, it could have done the same pretending/imagining. From Gangaji When Ramana met the death of the body and all that was named, he did not see that his individual consciousness would survive. All that is individual is born and dies. He saw that the substratum of all is not subject to birth or death. Translations of his report after his awakening call it many names. I call that “Life.” Finally no name can capture what is not subject to being named.

Many religions and metaphysical teachings promise that the essential part of you survives after death. Ramana’s teaching is not saying that. Rather it is pointing to that in which you arise, are animated by, and die into, as your true identity—all of life—not just a particular life form. You can realize that with the matter/brainbased consciousness of a human being. From R I can’t define what I am in mere words, for it must be experienced; but I know I am not this form, name, roles played out in life, religious preference, meditational technique, etc. What I “really” am, I experience when all mental activity is still. In that silent, still, spaciousness, there is a “presence”—that’s what I am. And even deeper, even more revelations come. It is much easier to define what you are not rather than what you really are. For what you really are (is) beyond words.

>>> INQUIRY WORKSHEET 5 <<< Write down all the responses that arise. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t edit yourself or judge your responses. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to show your responses to anyone.

What is it that dies when the body dies?

Who are you when you look deeper than identity as a sexual being?

If there were no sexual energies in your life, or no sexual outlets in your life, who are you?

Before You Begin ...

Take a few moments just to be still, to be here, regardless of what is passing through youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the sights, sounds, smells, emotions, thoughts, information, events, and so on.

Recognize that you are the hereness that all is passing through; the ever-present stillness that is here now in the core of your being.

Our last two inquiry sessions have been an exploration into the most primal of human drives: the drive to survive.

This session investigates how the quest for personal power and control can lead us further down the path of mistaken identity and unnecessary suffering â&#x20AC;&#x201D;suffering for ourselves, our families, and our planet.

Real Power ls Conscious Awareness

â&#x20AC;&#x153;At the most basic level, spiritual maturity has to do with the realization that you are not in control.â&#x20AC;?

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DEE real power is conscious awareness

In fundamental ways, both socially and culturally, we operate under the belief that if we can attain a certain measure of personal power over others, our environment, or ourselves, it will assure our survival in the herd of humanity. Consequently, much of our time and mental activity is devoted either to amassing more personal power or running from feelings of powerlessness.

The drive for power is naturally alive in all of us to one degree or another. It is an aspect of our shared humanity. It can serve our physical survival, but as with all human drives, when we define who we are based on something as temporal as having power or lacking power, we will inevitably find ourselves caught on a wheel of unnecessary suffering. However you see yourself in this continuum, identifying yourself as having power or being powerless, it is the same wheel. What is offered here is the possibility to recognize what is untouched by any power, what is free of all power and free of all powerlessness— the truth of who you are—not who you can fabricate yourself to be. The irony is that there has to be some level of accumulation of power before you can even begin to recognize that the powers you have accumulated are still not giving you what you yearn for, which is the truth of yourself. In order to discover the truth of yourself, to drink deeply and be nourished from this eternal fountain of peace and freedom, you have to fiercely start telling the truth. And the truth is, no matter what it is we might say we want, we have to see that what we’ve usually been searching for is power—even power over spiritual realization—and the desire for power is synonymous with the desire for control. When we shine the light of conscious awareness on these desires, they no longer have the same authority

to cause suffering in our own lives, as well as for those we are in relationship with. What powers have you tried to accumulate? What have you hoped that power would give you? What has it given you? Is that what you really want for your life?

The truth is, all power has to be surrendered in the end. And the invitation of this teaching is to face that end right now as if it were imminent. LETTING GO OF CONTROL

If what you want is to awaken to unconditional inner fulfillment—over and above the need to survive, to be in power, or to exercise control— then this requires a measure of spiritual maturity and a rigorous willingness to tell the truth and inquire into your own unconscious motivations. Spiritual maturity is usually considered a necessity for true awakening, and I am often asked if there are any particular signs that mark spiritual maturity. It’s true that spiritual maturity is a necessity. This kind of maturity, however, has little to do with how people usually conceive of it. It is not related to the number of years you have devoted to spiritual practice, or the number of years you have prayed, or the number of years you have been good. At the most basic level, spiritual maturity has to do with the realization that you are not in control. This is, of course, a shattering realization, because from the age of two or earlier you have believed that if you could accumulate enough power, there might be some possibility of control, and much of your attention and energy has been funneled into the fight for control. The desire to be in control, the illusion of being in control, and the hope of being in control, are

PER real power is conscious awareness

all based on the megalomaniacal belief that you know when and what the outcome should be.

Obviously, you can control many things to a greater or lesser degree, but there is nothing that you can totally control. You can, to some degree, control your bodily functions, as well as circumstances, thoughts, emotions, position, and survival, but you can never have complete control. If what you really want is true and lasting peace, you can begin by inquiring into what it is you are trying to control, and finding the willingness to let that control go.

ing fear, because to let go means you could fall, or you could lose something. Be willing to lose everything. Letting go of control is the same as meeting your death. Consciously meeting your death means discovering what is bigger than anyone’s power to control, what has no need of control. Finally, you can, blessedly, surrender to that.

“Letting go is a deeper relaxation, a floating in the ocean of consciousness. You can become aware of where you are holding on, and you can let go and allow the ocean to hold you.”

You need no model for letting go. You cannot do letting go. Letting go is not a kind of saintly passivity or not being bothered by anything. The mind is very slippery and can even use the desire to let go as a tactic for control. Letting go of control is a deeper relaxation, a floating in the ocean of consciousness. You can become aware of where you are holding on, and you can let go and allow the ocean to hold you. You can become aware that all your tension and clinging are unnecessary. You can actually 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 about yourself and your life, such as all of the harm that has been done to you by others or the harms you have perpetrated, and you can just let it all go. There is a deeper intelligence than the one you have been employing for power and control, and it is present here now, just waiting to be recognized in your life, in all moments. Different emotions may arise as you approach the possibility of letting go of control, includ-

If what you are searching for is perfect safety, perfect comfort, or a life that is dedicated to accumulating more and more personal power, then the freedom I am pointing to is not for you. The invitation to accept the treasure of a life lived in conscious awareness is not an invitation to safety and comfort. It is an invitation to live life fully and completely, which is never ultimately safe and is often uncomfortable. Power is mostly searched for because there is a belief that it will bring you comfort and safety, and this in turn will bring happiness and fulfillment: “If I am just safe enough, then I can relax.” But I am talking about recognizing that you can relax right now, even though you aren’t completely safe and you never will be. In that understanding is more than safety for the body, mind, or emotions. It is the realization of your very beingness, which is eternal.

The area where you do have some power and control, and which is too often overlooked, is in the choice of where you put your attention. You can choose to put attention on consciously recognizing what does not need to be controlled

real power is conscious awareness

to be truly free, and you can support others in that.

If your attention is on the desire to control, your mind clutches at what you think must happen, should have happened, or did happen. That mental clutching perpetuates suffering. If your desire is for true freedom rather than for control, you will catch the fire of truth. The mind will stop its clutching and will begin to open. What follows the natural opening of the mind is the most profound, the most mysterious, the most unspeakable realization. As you investigate your attempts to control, ask yourself: What do I try to control? Be as honest as possible, and then even more honest. Be aware of any defenses to truly seeing, and be willing to drop these defenses. Perhaps you will uncover even more completely what has been hidden behind the closed doors of the mind. Through honest investigation these doors can open, offering a deep opportunity for surrender. Open your mind to the possibility that each moment and every circumstance in your life can be a natural investigation into responding without controlling. See if you can experience the difference between responding to what occurs and attempting to control. Can you rest in your capacity to respond? Can you rest in your own innate intelligence? Now you can ask yourself: What cannot be controlled? Perhaps through this investigation you will recognize the enormous energy and mental activity that you have spent unnecessarily in attempting to control what cannot be controlled. Can you open to the possibility of trusting what remains when you let go of any attempt to control?

letters & reports Thank you for the reports and insights you share with us. The report below follows up on our session featuring the topics of sexuality and fulfillment. Our inquiry was: “Who are you when you look deeper than identity as a sexual being? If there were no sexual energies in your life, or no sexual outlets in your life, who are you?” From MG When I look deep, past all sexuality, I am “I”, but somewhat feel less than “I”. Sexuality has always been such a main piece of my identity that without it I don’t feel whole. For me sexuality is a sharing of being, a sharing of energies between two individuals. All people are sexual beings, regardless of creed, class, race or religion. To deny the sexual part of oneself I feel is being disingenuous. The Creator placed our sexuality in us for continuation of the species, but also for pleasure. To reject sex for pleasure is I feel to reject part of the Creator’s plan for us. Without any sexual energies or sexual outlets are we truly being all we are intended to be? I feel we are meant to be sexual beings and without that “I” am not truly “I”.

Gangaji Sexuality is certainly natural and often beautiful. It is a profound and potentially joyous way of connecting to another. The connection is most joyous when the “sense of self” is dissolved. Then there is only the mystery of connection, the wonder of surrender. The examination of sexuality is in no means an invitation to deny any aspect of the wonder of being. The invitation to inquiry is not to invite you into denial. You are being asked if there is the possibility to discover what is alive and free and connected to all with no need of identity, or action of any kind. Identity is also natural to us as human beings. Yet while inseparable from our humanness, there is an ocean of fulfillment that needs nothing for its joy and is free from identity.

>>> INQUIRY WORKSHEET 6 <<< Use this area to write any responses to the questions. Take 5 to 10 minutes for each question. Write down all the responses that arise. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t edit yourself or judge your responses. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to show your responses to anyone. What powers have you tried to accumulate?

What have you hoped that power would give you?

What has it given you? Is that what you really want for your life?

What Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Come and Go

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what doesn’t come and go

As we begin this discovery together, I would like you to consider the vast oceans of our planet. Recognize the different expressions that are natural to the ocean—small waves, huge waves, no waves, the coming and going of the tides, the incredible depth of our oceans, and the shallows where ocean meets land. At times the oceans are calm, peaceful; at other times they are violent, terrifying, threatening. Consider that regardless of all the different faces of the ocean, ocean always remains ocean. It is always, simply, water.

Likewise, we can consider the sky. The sky can be brilliant and crystal clear, or clouds and fog can obscure it. Sometimes it is blue, sometimes white, and sometimes gray or even black. Yet it always remains the sky, the spaciousness of the infinite, regardless of the conditions appearing in it.

a name or a definition. For an instant recognize not only what is within you, but also what you are in—what you are born into, what you live in, and what you will die into. S TO P A N D S E E W H AT I S A LWAY S H E R E Because our energy and thoughts are all based on states of individual consciousness, the truth of pure consciousness, what is always here, is overlooked again and again. Normally, when we speak of consciousness, we are referring to particular states of awareness— being aware of something or not being aware of something. Here I am pointing to the awareness itself.

“Even the most illuminating state of consciousness has a moment when it comes into being, a moment that it exists, and a time when it passes.”

Now, let us consider the word “I,” this word we use to refer to ourselves when we inquire, who am I? As we consider “I,” we can likewise become aware of all the conditions that appear within us—happiness, sadness, peace, despair, clarity, confusion, enlightenment, ignorance, comfort, discomfort, agitation, stillness, and many others. Just as with the space that is always present in the sky, and just like the water that is always present in the ocean, the fundamental truth of who you are is everpresent consciousness. Consciousness is not an object. It is hereness itself. Pure consciousness is what these words appear in, and what all bodies appear in. It infuses all words and bodies, it is conscious of itself, and it is you. And in your recognition of yourself as pure consciousness, you awaken to yourself. See what is shining here, right now, without needing

For instance, when we experience focused attention, we usually consider that as “being aware.” When attention is unfocused, we usually consider that “not being aware.” But pure awareness is fully present in both states, focused and unfocused. In one state, we experience clarity and presence with focused objective attention. When unfocused, we may experience no sense of time, no thought, no attention on an object. If we stop valuing one experience over the other, then we can easily see that the awareness itself, consciousness itself, is continuously present. Awareness itself is unchanged by any mental, emotional, or physical state occurring within it. This is a radical invitation: do not try to reach any state of awareness, whether focused or

what doesn’t come and go

diffused, and do not try to keep any state away. Rather, recognize what is always present. The wonderful result of this recognition is that objective states become clearer, subjective states become softer, and peace is found in all states. While it is useful to develop your mind, your body, and your work, attempting to develop consciousness is a huge mistake. If your attention is on “developing” rather than on recognizing what is always and already here, you go in a circle, chasing your tail and searching, searching, searching. I invite you to stop. Right here. Right now. Stop. Whatever it is you are searching for, stop. Whatever it is you are trying to keep away, stop. Stop and see what is always here. It may appear terrifying, it may appear thrilling, it may appear dead, it may appear blank, but if you stop reaching for it or running from it, you cannot help but finally see what is. As a means of deeper investigation, you can inquire directly within. You can ask yourself this question: What is here? Take a moment just to be still, to be here, regardless of what is passing through you. Recognize that you are the hereness that all is passing through. All the changes, sights, sounds, smells, emotions, thoughts, information, events, births, and deaths are all passing through the ever-present stillness that is here now in the core of your being. W H AT I S T R U S T W O R T H Y? As adults we have seen things and we have felt things and we have been hurt. We have been betrayed and we have betrayed. In this, we have discovered that not everything is trustworthy. I am never suggesting that we get back to some

baby state or puppy state of wide-open trust. I am talking about as an adult, in the recognition that essentially everything in life is untrustworthy, where do we place our trust? When I use the word trust, I am referring to what is always obviously here. Whatever comes and goes is ultimately not the truth. Even the most illuminating state of consciousness has a moment when it comes into being, a moment that it exists, and a time when it passes. My invitation is always to discover what does not come and go. Then you trust that or you don’t. To trust that is to surrender, and surrender is really just telling the present moment truth about what comes and goes and what is always here. In any moment, you can check and see. Many people speak of trusting in God, and that’s a big one because trusting in God usually means trusting God to give you what you want or to do your bidding. In my understanding and experience, God is life itself. And life itself, God, is what allows my form to be present, what gives my intellect its intellectualism and my instincts the capacity to inform. One day this body will be no more, it will be finished, and that, too, is trustworthy. Inquiry is a complete opening of the mind to what is here. What is life? What is death? Who are you, really? No one can check for you, and that’s the beauty. That’s in respect of your innate freedom. You are innately free, and that recognition has been covered by your desire to be safe, your desire to be good, your desire to have different circumstances, to feel a certain way, or to never feel a different way. That’s where the slavery is.

Whatever has happened to you in your life, still your birthright is this innate freedom. Whatever you have done, whatever your karma is, what-

what doesn’t come and go

ever your destiny is, this is bigger than destiny, closer than karma. It’s your right, it’s your time; your name has been called. Any postponement is just some kind of obedience to slavery.

Although innate freedom is your birthright, it is not in your control. Life is not living for you. You are living from and for life. So once you really understand the surrender, you’re back to the wonder you initially had as a child. The difference is that now you are an adult; you know bad things can happen, mistakes can be made, things can be lost, regrets can be present, and yet the wonder is still here and alive within you.

You can’t get this truth from anyone else. You have to discover it for yourself. Are you separate from the silent awareness that’s within you? Does this that you are ever really come and go, or is it always here? As long as the desire and the willingness are present to know the truth in the core of your being, you have the capacity to discover it for yourself. What is real, what is true, what is always here? The answer is alive within you. When you are willing for that to lead your life, you discover what is always absolutely trustworthy. Let what comes, come. Let what goes, go. Find what is always here.

letters & reports

From M I have spent 46 years on this earth trying to earn my right to be here. The past 20 years have been spent in prison for a hate-filled and tragic murder committed in 1997. I have begged, borrowed, and stole, I have given but mostly taken. I finally see that I cannot earn peace or my ultimate truth. In Issue 01 you asked, “Where are you?” I feel dazed, confused, and lost much of the time. So for my physical existence, I didn’t fit in “free” society, and even 20 years in, I still feel misplaced in here. All I really want is to really feel OK in my skin. I just want to find this peace inside that most religions speak about. It seems that I have run up many blind alleys only to find myself with more questions than answers. Now I have one real question. It comes out as “Who Am I?” “What’s REAL?” as well as “What is behind the veil of ignorance?” I don’t know who I am. I especially doubt that there is actually a solid, separate “ME” behind the veil, but until I am sure I will try to remember to STOP…

From Gangaji to M Thank you for your honesty. This course is designed to support you whatever you may be feeling about yourself. When we are honest with ourselves, we have the opportunity to ask the deepest questions and then discover what is underneath whatever we are feeling. Amazingly, your feelings of misplacement—however unpleasant they are—are the opportunity for living a more full and happier life. These negative feelings can be the beginning of deep self-inquiry. Our normal strategies for managing bad feelings are escaping them (distraction, ignoring, denial), fighting them (blaming ourselves or others), or dramatizing them (self-pity, physical ailments.) The opportunity here is to be willing to recognize what strategy or strategies you habitually use to deal with these bad feelings. Then you can recognize the thoughts that accompany the strategy. When you recognize the thoughts, you can stop following the thoughts. Then it is possible to experience the feelings fully, however bad they may feel. This direct experience strengthens your mind. The bad feelings no longer have the power to define you. This strength allows you to experience what is underneath all feeling. This that is underneath and not separate from any feeling is free and spacious. It is who you are.

letters & reports

From L Today I am honored to say that something broke inside of me because of the day I remembered my mom behind these prison walls. I was completely shattered by the realization that we are so loved even inside these walls. And no matter what I have been through and done in my life and in the past that causes this incarceration in my life, I am loved, accepted and blessed more than I could have ever been in my life. You see, after all these years Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been doing wrong in my life, God had already seen and assured me that He causes all things to work together for the good in my life. I have to admit, it was a daily struggle inside these prison walls when I think about my flaws and everything (I did) to upset myself and draw myself away from Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s light. But today, I realized that there is absolutely nothing greater than Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s love and the love our moms feels for us, and for me being in here and the love she feels for her children. I thank God for Him and for my mom in my life.

>>> INQUIRY WORKSHEET 7 <<< Use this area to write any responses to the questions. Take 5 to 10 minutes for each question. Write down all the responses that arise. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t edit yourself or judge your responses. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to show your responses to anyone. Is awareness angry when you are aware of anger; is awareness fearful when you are aware of fear?

Does awareness come and go or is it always present, regardless of what else is present?

the desire for freedom

The Desire for Freedom

the desire for freedom

Desire is an awesome, powerful, element of life. Obviously, it’s the desire to live that gives rise to all other desires, including the very basic desires of the human organism—the desire to be fed and to be sheltered, the desire to procreate and to feel secure. All creatures share these basic desires, and there’s nothing wrong with that, it is completely natural. After the basic creature desires are satisfied, desire gets more subtle. There is the desire for knowledge, and the desire for power, and these types of desires get fed and are satisfied by the activity of the mind.

that appears is then subject to disappearance. This includes states of mind, thoughts, emotions, insights, experiences, sensations, conclusions, and so on. The very fact that this desire for truth, for true freedom, will not be satisfied by anything in the future is what most people avoid, because it is so radical, because it means that truth, enlightenment, or God is not just a toy of your mind. It is not just a thing to enrich your life, or your sense of yourself, or to feed your high feelings and keep your low feelings at bay. In the facing of this, a kind of disillusionment can occur, and this disillusionment is essential. You realize that no matter what you try to do, you cannot get It. And if It appears to you, you cannot capture It, you cannot keep It … and you want to!

“l have found that the discovery of what one truly wants can be a doorway to realizing true freedom.”

There is a point, however, when somehow, mysteriously, in a certain blessed lifetime there arises the desire for enlightenment, for truth, for true self-knowledge. Then of course there are many attempts to feed that desire in the normal way in which other desires have been fed, either through the acquisition of some object or by imagining how and when the desire might be fulfilled. Eventually you realize that no matter how much you try, no matter how much you figure, no matter how much you think you “get” what has been spoken or written on the subject, whatever you try to do you cannot find this that is called God or Truth or true Self because all desire is a projection into the future. The truth of yourself can only be discovered here in this moment. It is not an object that can be acquired. This is where you begin to realize that this desire is of an entirely different order. Any thing gross or subtle, even the most subtle, exquisite thing, will not satisfy it. By “thing,” I mean anything that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, because anything

My invitation is to actually turn the mind back into that desire rather than project it into the future by imagining how it will be satisfied. I invite you to actually burn in the desire. The same is true with the desire for food or sex or power. If what you really desire is the totality of yourself, it is very useful, at least once when one of these impulses arise and maybe only once is necessary, to not allow the mind to go into any activity of how that might be satisfied. You can actually choose to turn your mind back into the central energy of that desire so that an experience can occur, so that you can see what has been unconsciously leading or directing your life, and in that moment you can recognize that you have a choice. You can see for yourself that these impulses do not in reality have to direct

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the desire for freedom

your life. Any desire can be met simply for what it is: an energy, a sensation, a coalescence of conditioned thoughts or beliefs. If some sadness arises in the meeting of that, some despair or fear of losing, then you can meet that as well.

how you will know, and how you will keep it once it’s attained. To call off the search simply means to be present, right here, right now. Then, if the desire arises to “be here now,” call that off too!

D E S I R E A S A M E A N S O F S E L F-I N Q U I R Y In your spiritual studies, you may have come across the idea that the very fact of having a desire or even a preference is an obstruction to self-realization. Having this belief, however, does not mean you will stop desiring. It simply means that you will be adding another layer of conversation and self-judgment on top of your desires, even to the point of desiring to have no desires at all and desiring this beyond everything. If you are willing to look directly into the core of any desire, into the energy of the desire, it is possible you will discover that what you want is who you are. What you want is what wants you, your own self. You can discover this directly, for yourself, by inquiring into your desires. Your direct discovery is all I’m ever interested in.

This is not about teaching a way to get what you want, or a method of fixing up and keeping what you think you already have, or a means by which you will someday reach a place that you think you are not. This course is here in your life simply to assist you in stopping all activity to get anything, fix anything, or even to have a future, and to return your attention to this most beautiful of inquiries: What do I really want? If this question is asked earnestly and answered honestly, it is possible to discover directly—not thru learning or practice or memorization, but directly—the source of all desire. W H AT D O YO U R E A L LY WA N T? T H E C H O I C E I S YO U R S

You may have beautiful meditation practices, and in those meditation practices, perhaps you have beautiful moments or periods of abiding in the truth of yourself. But the sole purpose of this course is to help you to discover beyond all doubt that the truth of who you are is always here, whether you are on the meditation cushion or off the cushion, in a good situation or a really horrible situation. Who you truly are is both the source of all desires and the fulfillment of all desires.

One of the most powerful lines of self-inquiry is the question, What do I really want? In my experience of speaking with people, I have found that the discovery of what one truly wants can be a doorway to realizing true freedom. There may be an immediate response to that inquiry, such as, “What I really want is a better life,” or “What I really want is to be out of prison” or “What I really want is the right mate.” Whatever answer immediately arises, it is very useful to then ask, “What will that give me?” If you have the perfect soul mate, what will that give you? If you have a life free of prison, what will that give you?

I am inviting you, as Papaji invited me, to “call off the search.” To call off this continual, mindgenerated activity around desires based on the past and projected into the future—what is needed, what it looks like, what it will feel like,

If the answer is, “Then I will be at peace, then I can rest,” the truth is that this is possible now in this moment. Peace and rest have nothing to do with circumstances. The peace, rest, and fulfillment you have been searching for outside,

the desire for freedom

however exalted or sublime, is actually here now. If in this moment you can simply discard your outward reference points for what will give you peace, you can recognize that peace is already here regardless of any internal or external circumstances. In this recognition you can investigate more deeply to see if there is any separation between the peace that is always present and who you are. What is the boundary between who you truly are and peace? What emerges in a perfect moment of realization is what has always been present, and this usually gives rise to great laughter. What you have been searching for desperately, furiously, relentlessly and with great frustration has always been present exactly where you are! It is present now, in you, and it can be revealed to you now as your own self.

you stop looking for that anywhere, you will find that it is already here as the nameless truth of yourself. The discovery of this treasure within is simple but it isn’t necessarily easy. It is the challenge of a lifetime. It is the biggest challenge of your life, because you can even fool yourself into believing that you are telling the truth, that you are inquiring truly, but in your heart of hearts you know that you are still searching for something or turning away from something. That is the moment of choice, and in that moment you can recognize the pull of your conditioning, the tidal wave of the suffering it initiates, and you can choose to stop. The choice is yours.

Another very powerful line of inquiry is the question, “What do I do to get what I want?” Through that investigation, you can begin to observe your own activity (even if it is purely mental) of searching to get something or running away from something else. Once that activity is observed, you can make the choice within your own mind to reverse your attention once again back to the source. When I met my teacher, Papaji, he told me to “Stop.” Eventually I understood that this meant to stop looking anywhere for what I truly wanted. This was, for me, a truly radical suggestion. All I had ever known was to look everywhere else for what I wanted, and the idea of stopping that activity felt scary. In the willingness to actually stop searching for the answer, to stop searching for anything, you have an opportunity to discover directly for yourself that what you really want in the core of your being is already here. Whatever name you give it, whether it’s perfect peace or happiness or enlightenment, if

letters & reports

These reports were shared in response to the previous inquiry: Is awareness angry when you are aware of anger; is awareness fearful when you are aware of fear? From E Awareness is never angry even when I am angry…but pure awareness is always present! Even when anger and fear arise. But now that I’m aware of all, I am enlightened! Enlightened to know that pure awareness is always present no matter what state of mind I am in or what emotion I am processing. From J Anger is a feeling I once struggled with. I was once “owned” by this feeling, and it caused me so many problems and hurt many people. I learned to master my feelings of anger when I learned that anger is really just confusion and not really who “I” am. Awareness is not angry even when I am aware of anger...The central “I” or awareness is not changed by what it is aware of. It simply acknowledges the subject it is focused on, so it is also not fearful when fear is acknowledged. Awareness is always present. It is the observer of all things and thought in this existence. Regardless of what is also present or in the objective view of awareness, it is always present even when nothing else is present at all.

Letters to Gangaji We invite you to send us your spiritual questions and reports by mail. We won’t respond directly, but some letters may be published in our monthly newsletter to support our on-going conversation in these pages. Write to:

Gangaji Foundation Prison Program PO Box 716, Ashland, OR 97520

>>> INQUIRY WORKSHEET 8 <<< The discovery of what one truly wants can be a doorway to realizing true freedom. This series of questions can serve you in uncovering what it is you truly want, and identify the objects, circumstances or states of mind you have imagined will give you lasting fulfillment. For this inquiry to be of greatest value, respond honestly and truthfully. Please remember, your inquiry is only for yourself. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to share your responses with anyone. First, ask yourself this question: What do I really want?

Follow your answer with a second question: What will that give me?

Repeat the second question to continue deepening your inquiry: And, what will that give me?

Keep repeating the questions until you reach a point of discovering what you truly want.

When you have uncovered your ultimate response then respond to this next question:

And, Is it possible that what I truly want is actually available in this moment?

>>> MY REFLECTION S <<<

“There is no end to true discovery.” 88

~gangaji

“Let silence have you.”

~gangaji

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