Sacred Awakenings Series: Gangaji

Produced by The Shift Network
With blessings and gratitude to our volunteer transcriber Alana Kapell
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Stephen Dinan: Intro…

Gangaji: We are all honored to be with one another.

Stephen Dinan: I would like to start on a personal level concerning your own journey on awakening and starting to connect with the sacred depth of life, to shed some of the ego identity and to move into something that is more transparent to larger spirit.  What really put you on this path to make this shift to a higher state?

Gangaji: I would have to credit my unhappiness with that.  I was not a happy child for any particular reason. I was well fed and educated but I wasn’t happy so I began searching for happiness at a very early age. You could say I looked in all the wrong places; ran into lots of dead ends. At a certain point, maybe it was simply a point of growing up, I realized that nothing I was doing was giving me lasting fulfillment; even though I was getting lots of pleasure by that time.  Actually at that time I had a great degree of happiness, but there was still something that was untouched. I tried lots of traditions.  I was a meditator for many years. I did lots of meditation retreats.  We even ran a little Tibetan Buddhist center out of our small house in Bolinas in the 1970’s. I had wonderful experiences and deeply respect those traditions, but something had not penetrated my consciousness. 
By the late 1980’s I had begun to pray for a true teacher, just recognizing the futility of trying to do it myself; as much as I had gained from all the other teachers and teachings available.  There was something that I wasn’t able to do and whether that was hearing them completely or seeing something in myself. I really didn’t know.
I prayed and I didn’t have any idea how that prayer would be answered. I certainly didn’t have an idea that it would be answered the way it was which was miraculously leading me to my teacher who is Papaji. He is now dead but at that time he was living in India. I wasn’t interested in India or Indian gurus but when you make a true prayer you make yourself available for what can truly help you.  I accepted that and when I met him he asked me what I wanted. I said, “I want to be free.” Not even really comprehending what that meant. I mean I could have said I want to be free of my ego; I want to be free of my suffering. I could have said any number of things. But they are all limited in some way. But I said I want to be free. He just laughed and said, “ You are in the right place.” Then I said, “What do I do?” I have been doing lots for many, many years. He said, “You do nothing. You just stop. Be still.” This was a shock to me because I thought for sure he would give me some particular practice. Whether it was a practice of inquiry or another mantra or some kind of sitting still.  He said, “ No, don’t do any of that. Just be still and know who you are.  Just stop everything.” 
This was the last thing I had ever considered, to actually stop.  In fact it was very fearful to me just to stop. I recognized him as my teacher and so I was willing to investigate for myself what that meant. He wasn’t asking me to take it as a dogma even a belief but to really take a moment to just stop all searching, to stop all activity of the mind and recognize what is here.  It is so simple. It is what is always here and perhaps that is what keeps it out of our thinking process because it’s a medium that we are thinking in.  So when I was willing to just be still, I could discover this mystery of being, this sacredness that is always here every instant. And that is what brought us together.

Stephen Dinan: Do you think there is value in those other transformational practices and disciplines and at a certain point you need to let go of them and just stop, or are a lot of them not as valuable as we might think they are?

Gangji: I believe there is value everywhere. I don’t believe that there is a formula for when we are actually ready to stop.
I am truly grateful for all the experiences that came from practices I had, whether they were ancient practices from Buddhism or New Age practices of visualization.  They all benefited me in a certain way. Even if they just benefited me to get me to the point where I could recognize the limitation in my own self regarding those practices.  That in itself was beneficial. But there was much more.
In all of the traditions everywhere whether they were religious or secular, that doesn’t even matter, there is this deep desire in the human being to discover something that is bigger, something that is more. Whether you are a scientist, artist, or a spiritual seeker, that desire is a very natural part of us. I would never say anyone’s path is in error.
I can only say that for me, I had found all paths led to this same dead end. I was looking for another path. Actually when I prayed for my teacher, I thought he would give me another path. I really didn’t know much about what Ramana’s teachings were, I wasn’t expecting self-inquiry. I just knew there was an alive, vital teacher who was willing to meet with you regardless of your practices or non-practices.  In that meeting when he told me to stop, it was a revelation.
I know that everything has value. I know that no one can actually decide for us what that value is, but we can be open to really investigate: is something I am doing, whether it is a spiritual practice or a mental practice or a physical practice or a practice of how one lives one’s life, is it still really opening up a bigger and bigger horizon to being?  If it is not, than you can investigate something else.

Stephen Dinan: When you made this shift into really recognizing this deeper ground of being and opening to that, has it been a more stable background or has that realization evolved in ways over the years since you have been teaching?

Gangaji: I would have to say both. After I had left being with Papaji that first visit, there was a moment where there was a clap of thunder that just went through my brain or my cognitive processing that flipped my mind inside out. I knew without a doubt that I am the ground of being, that there is no separation between this person, this name, this personality, these functions and the ground of being; that what appears as dualistic is not.  I knew that solidly.  That was twenty years ago.
Over time, especially in teaching and working with people and meeting people where they are and meeting that in my own mind, there is always a deepening. That is excellent news. When Papaji was asked is there an end to this, he said, “What ends is your preoccupation with your suffering. What is endless is your discovery of fulfillment.”  I discovered that to be true.  By that I don’t mean that there aren’t bad days and negative emotions. There certainly are because there is this human being here. But this human being is not separate from a ground of being that gives rise to the human being or to the plant being or to the cosmic being.  That is really good news, endlessly good as far as I can see. 

Stephen Dinan: The lineages that come out of the East like Ramana and Papaji often don’t put much focus on the psychological dimensions of our being. I know that you and your husband have also worked with conventional psychological systems like the Enneagram. How do you see that interface between this deep awakening process and some of the psychological work that has been more common in the West?

Gangaji: I think that the psychological discoveries that have happened have been profound and they have assisted a number of people. I have some small understanding of that. I have never really studied psychology but through work with the Enneagram, and that work was really brought to the West in a psychological context, I have appreciated the insides. 
There is a danger with a psychotherapeutic point of view as there is a danger with any religious point of view. I see a lot of psychology as a religion, as a kind of secular religion. So there can be great benefit and it is also pointing in its core and its essence to what is radiant, free and whole. But when there is an attachment to certain dogma and maybe the dogma in psychology is diagnosis, there is too often an overlooking to the truth that is closer than any diagnosis, also closer than religious affiliation. So I see that especially for our subculture in the West that we live under a kind of psychological context because it is part of our vocabulary. It is certainly a part of mine. 
We all know about narcissism and ego and suppression and those are useful but they don’t reveal the truth of one’s self, which has no notion of narcissism or suppression or ego and is not even separate from it. Like anything we can get caught up in secular or religious dogmas and the opportunity is to see deeper than that.
I think everything is useful and has great value, but it is also limited. What is not limited is what is at the core of everything, everything psychological, and everything religious, and everything secular.

Stephen Dinan: When we talk about realizing this ground of being we are also playing in the field of duality especially in relationship both with an intimate partner and all the other settings.  How does this awakening that you have been through manifested in a different perspective or approach to intimate relationship?

Gangaji: That is now where there has been evolution because that is in the field of One and Another.
We are very lucky that my partner, Eli and I, both at the same time decided we needed a teacher. He actually is the one who discovered Papaji first because we had heard of him.  There was one of his disciples speaking of him and Eli was in India looking for another teacher actually.  He met Papaji and was overcome with the bliss of his presence and grace.  He wrote me about that and came back to get me and take me there. So that is a great boon that we were on the same wavelength about that. We both recognized him as our teacher and as our spiritual father. We reveled in that.
Meanwhile we had a relationship and that relationship had history. A couple of years ago we broke up. We had some troubles. It was wonderful to spilt up. It was very necessary because in a very subtle way that we were both ignorant of, we had been carrying baggage from 30 years of relating and when we spilt up it was released. Then we were drawn back together within a couple of months and we were actually able to dismantle or deconstruct our time together and discover where it was we had been untrue to this core essence of ourselves within ourselves and individually and between us as a couple. It was a deeper evolution of what it means to be free in one’s self first, which is essential and then how that shows up in relating to the world.  It changed everything. It deepened our relationship profoundly. It ended a very subtle war that we had going on with us.  This war is what I think most people have going on with other people. Of course it is magnified in intimate relationships, but it is a war about Me and Other.
As human animals we have a survival instinct. And so Me is first even if it appears I am making you first. It is really so that you will take care of me first. That is deeply imbedded in our genetic structure naturally.  There is survival in each of us as animals. To be able to turn one’s attention to that and to allow that to unwind is a potential of a truly intimate relationship. For Eli and myself that meant the willingness and even the necessity of the relationship ending. 
Just like Ramana’s teaching is really to meet death, to meet your own death, and in that willingness you discover what doesn’t die which is consciousness, life.  Life doesn’t die when we die.  When we recognize that who we are is life then this particular life form, for however long it has, is infused with that recognition and then from that the particulars of relationship with an intimate other, with the world, with enemies, with friends, with known, with unknown all gets to partake of that, all comes from that. That is the journey aspect of not moving, of stopping. 
There is also going in the stopping, paradoxically. But the paradox is resolved in the willingness to meet the death, death of relationship, death of health, death of what was known, whatever it might be in anyone’s life, any particular point not to want that, but to meet that.  Then there is possibility and probability of discovering what is deep within that. What is here when we as form are gone? Now that is love. That is space, consciousness.

Stephen Dinan: How does that love begin to engage the larger world and the larger challenges we face? We have environmental crises and wars and higher rates of imprisonment and all sorts of major challenges. I know you have done work in prisons and done a number of things in the service arena.  What does awakened service really look like?

Gangaji: I don’t believe that there is a formula. I know that Ramana, my guru’s guru, just sat at the foot of his beloved mountain all of his life. He didn’t do any active service and yet the emanations of his peace have served us all in various ways known and unknown. And then of course his colleague, Gandi, was totally active in the world and also the emanations of the spirit that he was active in as well as the actions he took have served us all. So I think for each one of us it is really a discovery where there is an affinity, where the heart is called.
For me there was an affinity with prisoners. I was invited into a prison when I was spending some time in Boulder. I was so moved by the prisoners and their willingness and in their recognition that their lives were failures and how that could actually be a starting point. And then from the prisoners’ insides when I would go back and speak to the people I was meeting with in Boulder and bring those insides, they were profoundly affected by those in prison. So there is this going back and forth between what is called on the inside which amazingly means prison and on the outside which amazingly means freedom that is a reflection of the opposite of that within ourselves inside, our inner deepest life, the core of ourselves which is free and alive and the outside which is the manifestation of form relationship and problems, environmental problems, problems of ongoing war, and whatever problems are happening in your neighborhood or your family. So there is this possibility of this give and take between both that for me the prisons and the prisoners those at least who were interested, that really not only symbolized but is the manifestation of, is the direct representation of, and so I just loved the prison program and I love that I get to go in occasionally and there are many volunteers that go in, and all of them report how it benefits them, that it is not a chore. They aren’t doing it for duty; they are doing it out of love. Of course the prisoners feel that and they are amazed that people would even care to come in, to take time from their lives and go through hassles of the prison bureaucracy to actually be with them. So that loves spills back and it is contagious.
We can actually offer each other this affinity of the heart but only if it is true. If I had thought I should go into the prisons it would have been an entirely different matter. It is just how do you want to live your life. How do you want to offer yourself? How do you want to offer what you have discovered? That becomes the question.

Stephen Dinan People may come to you and they can feel the steps of awakening presence and maybe they can feel it with you or around you but then they go back to their daily life and they feel like they are trapped in old patterns. What do you find is the most useful advice for people in that kind of situation?

Gangaji: I would say what my teacher said to me, which is the most useful thing that has ever been said to me: take a moment. Papaji said it only takes 1/12 of a second so I say give yourself a second and then twelve times that. Give yourself one second to just retreat, to be still. In the midst of an argument, in the midst of busyness, in the midst of turmoil there is one second that everyone has to simply be still. To let it all fall away. Whatever is going on whatever opinions you have or whatever fight may be happening, even whatever agreement may be happening. Just take a moment.  Retreat into yourself and be still until the truth about what’s there. It’s always here.

Participant Question: Can you give advice in how I may be more at home with myself and more open to receiving being free?

Gangaji: I believe that is the quest of everyone who is interested in anything spiritual or even psychological or even political: how to be free, how to be at peace.  First of all I would say that the self, your self, and the truth of who you are, is already free.  All that is required is that you check the moment to stop giving attributes to what freedom will look like or feel like or how you will know you are free and again just retreat to what is in the core of yourself.  In other words, what my teacher told me was to stop and when I first heard that it was fearful to me. To stop I thought I will lose what I have gained. I have been working on myself for years and he is telling me to stop. That was the first thing that came up for me.
If there is fear there or self-hatred, confusion, the advice is simply to open your mind and by opening your mind I mean, to stop thinking about it. To stop trusting the cognitive aspect of your mind and to trust the other side of your brain which is already open, which is already just free intelligence. And in that there is a balance that is created where thinking is not the leader and discovering is the leader and discovery is endless.
I appreciate your question and the root of it is really willingness to trust yourself.  The truth of yourself, not who you think you are, or who you name yourself but that which is at the very bottom when all the names are gone, when all the history is gone, when all the past is gone, the future is gone. What is left is who you are. And that is what got you on the spiritual search. It is such a moment of grace. It is a sacred moment when someone must discover the truth, or must find peace or as you said, must be free of what is haunting you and that is a beautiful moment. And what gave rise to that moment is in the core of yourself right now in this moment. And you can simply open your attention to it.

Participant Question: You talk about dogma and diagnosis and religion. I wonder if you also think about diagnosis limiting human healing potential and how one can go beyond the diagnosis to discover the truth of the body?

Gangaji: Bodywork can really assist the mind in opening.
Diagnosis is very useful but it is a starting point and it can point to where there is dysfunction or malfunction and then from that deeper discoveries can occur.
Certainly I always advise people to take medication if they need medication, to really consciously choose what treatments they are going to use but if we are bound by the diagnosis it is like being bound by a name we are given.  A name is a starting point but it is not who we are.  We can change names and diagnoses change but what is left is what was here in the beginning and it is whole.
For me the healing of bodywork and all modalities is really to discover is whole, what is already true regardless of the diagnosis.
Right now my husband has cancer and a couple of years ago he almost died with cancer, but he is actually living a very healthy life. He is swimming everyday. We happen to be in Hawaii right now and he is actually healthy with cancer.  And it is a deadly blood cancer. But for me it was so important to see what I had done with the word “cancer” and unless it was in remission you were doomed was to realize that of course we are always doomed.
None of us know when we are going to die. And the diagnosis we always have, all of us, is that we will die. So that diagnosis of cancer for him and for us was a magnifying glass on the truth on the limitation of the body and what is free of the diagnosis, what is free of death?
I support you in your bodywork and knowing that for yourself so that that comes through your hands when you touch people or when they walk into your room. 

Participant Question: Over time will we evolve into more spiritual beings?

Gangaji: I know from my own interest in history which I have had most of my life that there have always been horrible times. We can see lots of our times, our present time, that is horrible but always throughout the history of the world from a particular perspective it has been pretty rough. Also always there has been this spark of recognition, self recognition, maybe we know it most from the East and it has now come to the West, but it is also true in Marcus Aurelius and great western thinkers like Plato, that there has been this deeper questing for what is bigger than what we see and experience and also a recognition that what we see and experience is not the totality. I would say both have been here and I am not a prophet so I really don’t know what is ahead of us, but I do know what is here now and it is endless and it is not affected by past or future. For me that has been the fulfilling discovery of my life and that is really what I offer people. Whether we as a species discover that in time to save us as a species I really don’t know. It looks good some days but some days it looks hopeless, but that is just the nature of form--going on and off. 

Participant Question: The word fulfillment for me started out by meaning something I could access and create in myself and then as time went on it felt more like waves of energy giving fulfillment out and erasing me. Then recently I kept experiencing aspects of my being which I also saw were aspects of everyone else’s being which brought up guilt. I found myself backing off from giving of myself in certain ways that I used to do naturally, seeing so many lies, inherent lies, in any system that I could create or be part of.

Gangaji: Really the truth is free of all the systems. Each of the systems whatever we are talking about whether it is a particular practice or a particular way you speak or with people, any of those systems is a lie if we think of it as the truth. But each of those systems whatever form, you could be a doctor, a lawyer, anything, and the truth could be coming through you so that the system is not bigger than the truth, the inherent limitation of the system. Even our language is so limited because it is predicated on duality and it is predicated on limitation and that is very useful. That is the system of language. So we have it to make distinctions. Distinctions are extraordinary. They are part of the evolution that we have as human beings as a species, so there is nothing wrong with it. It is just that they aren’t the truth, the whole truth. To recognize the truth then and to let that infuse your language while recognizing your language itself continues to fail to capture the truth of course. Then you are free. You are free and this guilt is a particularly human emotion and often it is guilt of being free. When you are being fulfilled, recognizing the energy waves of fulfillment there is so much suffering in the world and we recognize that suffering and somehow we know we don’t deserve to be as fulfilled as we are because we are ordinary human beings who have somehow been graced and have found such great love that we have discovered what is extraordinary and are profoundly fulfilled by that discovery.
I would invite you to open to the guilt without figuring out what caused it and discover what is at the root of it. Not as an analysis but as an energy. What is at the root of guilt as energy?  Then even guilt itself can’t stop the truth of yourself from being communicated from living itself.

Participant Question: You have changed my direction and my life completely. One thing that has stayed with me is the realization to cease everything and that is what I have been doing. I cannot find a truthful reconnection to things that I was involved with from my past, like being an artist, my history, my travelling, and my motherhood. I am more present than I was before. I don’t have to try anymore.

Gangaji: It is a mystery. Everything falls away. And then certain things come back. As I was saying my relationship with Eli fell away and then it came back or my habits or things that I liked fall away.  And then what comes back comes back. Its no problem unless you are identified with them and what you are seeing is that you can’t make these things that gave you pleasure once give you pleasure again because they aren’t the source of your fulfillment. The source of your fulfillment is being unidentified with particular roles that are played to being yourself. You are being yourself.  And to me that is very good news.

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