Jun 26
Guest post: Gangaji & Eli in the UK
“In this time of global distress with the threat of terror and the actuality of war, individual awakening is increasingly urgent. It is not just a good thing to do, or an addition to our knapsack of experience trinkets. It is not even about some kind of personal pleasure or achievement. Awakening is essential if we are to recognise the patterns of hatred and blame that go on within our own minds, and which in turn are reflected into the world. We can’t wait for anyone else to stop. Our own projections have to stop.”
We each have the power to stop the cycle of war projected both inward and outward. We each have the power to stop any remnants of the battle between ego and superego, my religion and your religion, my colour and your colour, my gender and your gender. The invitation to stop is absolutely radical, and stopping is absolutely effortless. You can stop right now. You can take full responsibility for the recognition of what is already unconditionally at peace within you right now. Nothing is needed from the past, the present or the future to augment that peace. You can accept the responsibility to be true to that – not as a theory, an abstraction, or more mental punishment. Simply surrender the mind to peace. The possibility of surrender can be found in whatever emotion, circumstance, fear, or hope is appearing, without resorting to the habitual pattern of making war with it.
I invite you to take the world into your heart right now, not tomorrow when you have done something more, but now. Never in the history of the world have so many people been aware of what is happening on the other side of the globe while it is happening. Never have so many people been aware that the pattern of war is not new. And never have so many people been willing to say “Stop”.
Wherever you find yourself, you are invited at this moment to stop and recognise the sublime truth of what you are. You can actually experience the fullness of peace in this moment, here, right now, regardless of circumstances. You can discover the joy that includes pain, the love that includes hate, the peace that includes war.”
From The Diamond in Your Pocket, by Gangaji.
I have not met Eli, but have heard enough about him to know that I would like to. After all – it was he who introduced Gangaji to their teacher Poonjaji! These words have been written about him: “Sitting with Eli offers the opportunity to recognise the deepest truth of who you are and support in living a life true to this realisation.”
For all details of their imminent visit check here
Links for websites: www.gangaji.org
June 28th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Thank you for giving me the opportunity of reading, the full article written by Gangaji. I was fascinated by her journey, and am sure you are right, maybe the difference is, she is a woman. I myself was never too much in love with the Guru idea; the voice of Osho, was as close as it got. For me, that was good enough. I also took the path that many took, Christian Church, Spiritualist Church, Healer, masseur, Body worker, Teacher and now Hypnotist. All in the name of that spiritual search for myself. I was aware for many years, that the answer to life`s most important question, lay within myself. Even though the answer was always there, is always there. Not until you are ready will you find it.
One of the most frustrating conversations I ever had, was with one of my dearest and oldest friends, Tony Parsons. You probably know him, or of him (and remember this was pre Osho). One did not become enlightened then! One simply GOT IT! My next question was, “what is IT? and how do I get IT?” Every time I asked the same question, I recieved the same answer. ” You will know IT! when you get IT!” Many years later, when I stopped asking, what it was that I was looking for and did I find it; I found that the question to be not how it is. Finding IT! implies IT was lost. IT….. is that moment of coming home. I remember the begining of an article about Rebirthing ” We never cease our journeying, and in our journeying we return to the place from where we first started but recognize it for the first time ” . . . It is said so perfectly.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Oh, yes, I do know and love Tony Parsons. I don’t go to hear him much anymore – occasionally when I think it would be fun to be in that ‘space’ with him. Having said that – he has been pivotal in my life. The first one to really get through to me the fact that there is NOTHING I can ‘do’, or need to.
I have not had an awakening in the way your writing describes. However, I have stopped looking and searching, and, as a result my life feels mostly very peaceful and fulfilling. I am grateful for that. For an over-active, high energy Aries person like me – it is a gift.
July 11th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I was so happy to read in your newsletter that you have opened up again to spirituality for want of a better way to express it. It’s really opening up to your own deeper heart. I LOVE Gangaji!!!
I met her quite accidentally when a friend of mine, with whom I was staying in the Santa Cruz area, decided he wanted to go up to see her and we both flew in his little plane. Got there late but just in time and there was one seat with a back so although they were telling me to go there, he had back trouble so I sent him to that more supported seat. Then out of nowhere they found me a place on the floor right up front and in fact when Gangaji entered she walked right past me and her dress brushed my face.
I just love her! She is so true and so present and beautiful and no big song and dance. She just says it as it is. I remember with a shock when I opened up my eyes after her dress brush me, to see that she is a white woman and a Yank. I had no idea!!! Was expecting an Indian. And I thought, my God, she looks like me!!!
July 12th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Dear Tao, I have never closed to spirituality! It is not possible. For me spirituality is just a word to explain the wonder in everything. To try and put spirituality in a box that can be opened, or closed is a nonsense. I just don’t talk about it all the time. As far as my web site is concerned, I publish things that touch me at some level. I also publish most of what people send me. This site is not to proselytize my own beliefs – or lack of them. I really do follow where it leads. Hence publishing what I am writing to you.
Since leaving the commune I have done my learning, my opening if you like, by living my life. My own ‘deeper heart’ as you call it is just that – deeper and deeper. The darling faces of my grandchildren, conversations with my children, friends and loved ones, the sun on my windows in the morning, the sound of the wind and the sea – and most of all – the joy I feel at being alive, are more than enough. I am blessed to do work that is very meaningful, and my writing – when it happens – comes from a heart full with an overflow of words, memories and gratitude for all that I have experienced.
So, thanks for your first sentence – it made me think, as you can see! Hopefully it might make others think also.
Persephone