"The Silence behind the silence, the Music behind the music,
the Truth of who you are behind the impression or the experience of who you are
is already here, is already established, is already empty, is already full."

OVER THE YEARS of traveling around and speaking with people, I have seen that there is clearly a deep, strong, and true desire to "wake up," whatever that means to any particular individual. There is a true desire to realize God, to realize truth, to stop the violence, to stop the hatred, to stop the suffering, and to wake up to what is possible in this lifetime. If you want to awaken one hundred percent, if that has priority over everything else, then immediately you are awake. That's the truth. I stake my life on it. My life is a guarantee that if you want to awaken to your true nature, if you want that totally, you will awaken to your true nature.

The biggest obstacle to awakening I’ve seen so far is that awakening is actually wanted for something else. Awakening is wanted for feeling better, or so that you don’t’ have to be the same person you think you are now, or to get some recognition, or to forget all the bad things that you have done or that have been done to you. Awakening is wanted as a vehicle or a tool, and there is frustration that this tool is not given to you. This doesn’t work. Truth must be desired for itself, regardless of any consequences that might follow. This is a shocking truth. We are so used to wanting something to make our personal lives better, and God knows, we have tried. Luckily, most of us have become deeply disillusioned with the possibility of getting rescued; of getting something else that will fulfill this true desire to awaken.

I am asking you to look inside, to be ruthlessly, relentlessly honest and truthful with yourself, to see why you want to awaken. What will awakening give you? If your answer is something beautiful or grandiose or altruistic, such as peace on Earth or harmony among all people, put that aside for just a moment and see if truth, this unknown state of awakening, is desired for itself, regardless of consequences. I am asking you to tell the truth. We spend most of our lives lying in both gross and subtle ways. The lying gets very intricate, and the web gets tighter, and you know this.

There is an opportunity now, in this moment, to discover what it is you want for its own sake, without getting any comfort from it, without it taking care of anything. I can feel the fear that this evokes. This is not a usual consideration. It’s very easy to play in the drama of awakening, saying, “Oh, I’ll get it someday,” or “He has it,” or “She has it and I will just be in the aura of it, then I can keep my lies and my web.”

You are an adult. It is time to tell the truth. I am asking you to tell me what it is you want truly for its own sake, and if you still imagine that somehow you don’t have that, let me know what keeps you from it. Let’s examine it and see, Is that obstruction to truth real or is it part of the webbing, part of the fabric of your imagination?

The Edge of Surrender
A question that often arises is, “How am I to know when the command I’m receiving is coming from Self, from Truth, and not from my ego, from my mind?” This is a legitimate question, yet there is no formula I can give you for checking. This is the ruthlessness of freedom. The possibility of mistaking Self for ego, and ego for Self, is huge and constant. It is not a game for children.

Children are given very clear instructions about right and wrong behavior. These instructions are important for a child, otherwise the child just does whatever it wants, whenever it wants. You know this from your own experience of being two years old, or sixteen years old, or even thirty-five years old—If I want it, it must be right. Then in new age or spiritual circles this gets translated into, It must be right because my heart says so. But with some degree of experience, you discover that what can feel right, can feel good, can also cause huge suffering. Murderers often hear divine voices saying, Kill.

All religions will give you formulas, and you can go by those and cause no harm, cause no suffering. You can live a life that is relatively peaceful and harmless, and still it is not a free life. So the question is, is it possible to be free and cause no harm, cause no suffering?

I can’t say that there is no suffering related to me. There have been people who have stormed out of these meetings feeling assaulted, or feeling that they were not being honored. I am not happy that they felt assaulted or didn’t feel honored. But to make them feel honored, I have would have had to tell a lie about the truth of who they are. There is a command that I have been given to tell the truth regardless of consequences. Even though lying may be more comfortable at times, I cannot perpetuate the illusion of bondage, even bondage to the most sublime, elevated, and necessary codes of behavior.

I understand what a dangerous statement this is because I know the workings of egoic identification. I know how easily truth can be twisted into some justification for following egoic desires and pleasures and puffed-up proclamations of transcending normal codes of behavior.

This teaching of Ramana and Papaji’s is radical, and one of the greatest dangers of this transmission is this very issue—the issue of how easily the mind can take a realization such as, All is One, or Nothing exists, and make it serve the purposes of ego.

It is possible to be so ruthlessly honest that neither pleasure nor pain is the determining factor for action. Then if there is justification for re-identification and the following of egoic desires, it can be experienced and starkly seen. Then every persisting desire can be a vehicle for self-inquiry. Who desires? Who wants? In responding truly to that question, what can be revealed is freedom from wants, freedom from desire, that there is no one wanting anything, and that no one is yourself. If you are willing to love yourself, you see yourself everywhere. And what you love, you don’t harm. This is the finest edge possible. There is absolutely no room on this razor’s edge. There is no room for you on it.

In our particular age, we are still experiencing a reaction to an earlier era where there was generalized, consensual repression so that everything could appear okay. People were nice to one another, and society did actually function well for certain groups. But the repression eventually became unbearable, and there was a huge reaction in the sixties and seventies that we as a subculture largely reflect. This reaction was built upon telling the truth, but unfortunately it wasn’t the whole truth. The eighties and nineties have seen further refinements of repression and reaction.

Now that we are interested in self-inquiry and in telling the whole truth, we see that reaction no longer works. Repression/reaction has generated a huge amount of suffering and misidentification. Perhaps it is that very repression/reaction that has given rise to the possibility of deeply asking oneself, What is it I want? What is it I really want? Is it just another fulfilling sexual adventure? Is it just keeping the lid on so there is no discomfort? Is it just another possibility of the promise of survival? Is it just another way of promoting myself through status and position? Is it just a way to deny myself through belief in worthlessness?

These are the areas where desire is the most subconscious. These are the areas that have kept the organism moving forward, sexually preserving itself, and finding its rank in the herd. These are the issues that will give rise to the strongest impulses to listen to the mind.

You will certainly make mistakes. That is the nature of this Leela1. That is the nature of there being no room for you on this razor’s edge. The willingness to meet the mistakes and the suffering, the willingness to die to issues of survival, sexual pleasure, or social ranking, reveals the possibility of recognizing what needs nothing, wants nothing, is nothing. It is a bonding with everything in love and compassion and empathy. It is a most ruthless task. It is the edge of vigilance and surrender, and no one can do it for you.

What was seen as correct in one generation is realized as incorrect in the next generation. Within every generation is a huge blind spot. When you look back at slavery, you cannot help wondering how it is possible that this horror could have occurred, and it occurred with the acceptance of good people! We have to be willing to see what is occurring in our own lives, just as horrible as slavery, that we have been blind to. In the willingness to tell the truth, it is possible to see where we are denying or ignoring some aspect of our own being, and in that denial, causing great harm.

The mind searches for a formula, a code of living. The truth is that you have plenty of formulas, plenty of codes, and the absolute truth is free of it all. Freedom is free.

How Will Your Life Be Used?
How is your life being used? It is obvious what the common uses of a lifetime are — accumulation of both worldly and spiritual things, in the hopes of being saved from death — and none of it works.

You are all very familiar with your own practices of accumulation and how much of your life is used for that. Whether the practices are subtle or gross, they all come under the heading of trying to make your life fit your image. Either your image of who you think you are, or who you think you should be, or who you think God is, or who you think the perfect person is — and then the constant activity of letting those around you know how they don’t fit this image. This is the usual, isn’t it? How much time is spent looking to see how others are not conforming to what you think they should be doing or how they should be doing it?

The greatest challenge is surrender to Truth. Of course, if you have any image of what truth is, that is not truth. No image is separate from Truth, but Truth remains independent of any image, any concept, or any thought. The deepest, most profound challenge is to surrender to what is untouched by any idea, evaluation, or conclusion, past, present, or future. It is to discover who you are, closer than any image of yourself, any sense of yourself, and deeper than any experience you have ever had or could ever have of yourself. The challenge is to be true to that, to be true to the source of all thought, the source of all sensation, the source of all imagination, without understanding it, without grasping it, and without getting it.

I invite you to discover that source and to be true to it. If you have not discovered it, be true to it anyway and let it discover you. You are irresistible when you are being true, rather than just continuing to live the life that was passed on to you based on images, concepts, and ideas, or rebellion against those images, concepts, and ideas.

This is a precious time, this whole lifetime. It is a lifetime where you can at least hear the call of freedom. What a precious lifetime! How will this preciousness be used?

1. Leela: The cosmic dance; the game, sport or play of the Creator, the Self. Through this play, the entire universe is created by the Self out of itself, and the Self experiences all the forms of its own manifestation.

© Gangaji 2004

Most all of this material comes from Gangaji's book, Freedom & Resolve - The Living Edge of Surrender which can be purchased by clicking here. Please join us next month as The Master's series continues, featuring the magnificent work of Eli Jaxon-Bear.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gangaji, born Toni Roberson, grew up in Mississippi. Like many of her contemporaries, she carried on a life-long search for personal happiness and fulfillment. Seeking to fulfill the longing she felt in her heart, Gangaji pursued many paths to change her life including relationship, motherhood, political activism, career, and spiritual practice. But even the greatest of her successes ultimately came up short. In the wake of her disillusionment, she made a final prayer for true help. In 1990, the answer to her prayer came unexpectedly, taking her to India and to the meeting that would change everything. There on the banks of the Ganges River, she met Sri H.W.L. Poonja, who opened the floodgates of self-recognition. In this meeting, Gangaji’s personal story of suffering ended and the promise of a true life began to flower and unfold. Today, Gangaji travels the world speaking to seekers from all walks of life. A teacher and author, she shares her direct experience of the essential message she received from Poonjaji and offers it to all who want to discover a true and lasting fulfillment. Through her life and words, she powerfully articulates how it is really possible to discover the truth of who you are and to be true to that discovery. For more information about Gangaji and her teachings visit www.gangaji.org. To contact her Foundation in Novato,CA, send an email to info@gangaji.org