Gangaji Podcasts

“There is no problem with pain. There is pain. If you are seeking something to avoid pain, that’s the suffering. That’s the search that must be called off.”

It takes effort to avoid our emotional pain. We can try to avoid it, but ultimately the common strategies of withdrawing, protecting, and dissociating from feelings of hurt actually turn emotional pain into unnecessary suffering. This lively exchange taken from the Gangaji archives offers a clear demonstration of how we can recognize the strategies we use and then choose to give up the power to suffer.

Learn more about Gangaji, her in-person and online events, Prison Program, and more at gangaji.org. 

To make a donation to support this podcast or other programs that support the recognition of the inherent peace alive in all being and the ending of unnecessary suffering, please visit our giving page. 

With gratitude..

“If you stop thinking about how to get out of the body that may be painful or how to keep the body that is pain free, you get to experience the truth.”

Physical pain is an essential aspect of life that serves the survival and well-being of the body, but we can easily turn that necessary pain that alerts us to injury and illness into unnecessary suffering. What is the difference between pain and suffering? What can physical pain reveal to us when we meet it directly?

To learn more about Gangaji visit gangaji.org

Where is the life you want?

As much as we can fear death, we can also fear living a full and vibrant life. In this exchange, Gangaji helps a woman get to the root of what keeps her fear of vibrancy running. This conversation demonstrates how each of us has the capacity to discover how to live a true and full life.   

Learn more about Gangaji at gangaji.org

“The strategies and avoidance around the experience of “not being” or death are what keep you from the experience of eternal life.”

As a young boy of 16, Ramana chose to stop running from what he feared and turned to face death directly. In that moment of inquiry, he opened his mind asking, “Who dies?”  All of us share that same opportunity to stop running and inquire into what we fear most—the end of “me.” In the willingness to investigate death itself, we can discover what cannot die, we can truly rest in the peace that is present here and now.

Learn more about Gangaji at gangaji.org

“It was a fire. It was really a fire because it was a razor’s edge. All of sudden there are these huge groups. And if I identified even the slightest negatively or positively…I am sliced on this razor I am living on. It was really a necessary fire. I had to be quiet. I had to be still.”

This month we share the soundtrack to a special 30^th anniversary video honoring the community of volunteers and donors. The video begins with Gangaji’s first meeting with Papaji in 1990. After Gangaji speaks about her earliest experiences of teaching, we see what unfolded through community efforts in the years that followed. Includes featured music from Jami Sieber, Kirtana, and Amber Terrell.

To watch the video version or learn more about Gangaji and the Gangaji Foundation visit  gangaji.org. 

Gangaji speaks about the role spiritual practice plays in our lives and invites us to discover what we are practicing when we “get off our cushion and the chanting stops.” What do our spiritual practices give us? What do we hope they will give us? What can they never give us?

Learn more about Gangaji at gangaji.org

“Universal, absolute awareness is who you are."

How is it possible to be “certain” of who we are? In the wake of an essential and undeniable experience of our true nature as pure consciousness, doubt usually arises—“Did that really happen? Is it real?” Then, we often look to our thoughts for the answer. In this powerful dialogue, Gangaji helps us see past the efforts of the rational, conditioned mind to grasp to the doubtless recognition of what is always here.

 

 

Learn more about Gangaji, her events, and programs at gangaji.org. 

“The error is that you are not what can be thought, or perceived, or felt.  You are that in which all thoughts, all perceptions, all feelings, appear in.”

In countless ways, we search for a “better” identity to replace who we think we are. This month, Gangaji speaks to the trap of misidentification. How is it possible to see your true face? Where are you looking for yourself?

Learn more about Gangaji at gangaji.org

“Incarcerated for life in a maximum security prison in Alabama and not using that as an excuse, refusing to use that as an excuse.  In fact, using that as a vehicle.”

Gangaji reads a powerful letter of realization from a prisoner serving life without parole in an Alabama prison.

Learn more about Gangaji at gangaji.org

Support/Learn more about the Gangaji Foundation Prison Program here

“This is not psychotherapy. This is not anti-psychotherapy. This has nothing to do with fixing you. This has to do with discovering fully and completely what is always here and was always here in the worst moments, in the best moments.”

In this monologue recorded during a recent retreat at Fallen Leaf Lake, Gangaji delineates the crucial difference between psychotherapy and self-inquiry and the distinct purposes they play in our lives. 

Learn more about Gangaji, her programs, and schedule of events at gangaji.org

Donate to the Prison Program here

“This is an invitation to stop. To not create who you are. To simply be yourself with no idea or memory of who or what that is. Just to be. Then to see, how vast this just is.”

Our lived experience in a human body gives rise to a wide range of phenomena that include thoughts, feelings, and images of ourselves. Thoughts, feelings, sensations, or memories are not a problem unless that is how we define or identify who we are. In this potent inquiry, Gangaji points to the complex subtleties of ego that perpetuate human suffering. She invites us to stop overlooking the source of all phenomena to discover our true face and “the absolute simplicity of peace.”

Learn more about how to support prisoners in their spiritual inquiry by donating to the Gangaji's prison program here. 

Learn more about Gangaji and all of her events and programs on gangaji.org. 

“When you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you are this stillness, that you are this awareness, then it doesn’t matter what is on the surface.”

 

Human beings have a profound desire to realize a lasting peace. The question is where are we looking, and what desire are we actually chasing? In this very relatable exchange, we see how recurring desires to avoid pain, end confusion, or gain clarity are simply the play of the mind. True and lasting peace remains undisturbed by any phenomena, and we can discover that in our willingness to simply meet what is arising.

 

 

 

Learn more about Gangaji and her programs at gangaji.org

Discovering the truth of who you are doesn’t require a certificate of realization. You don’t need to understand Sanskrit or Advaita to know the truth of who you are. The only requirement is the willingness to investigate the thought of who you are. This month on Being Yourself, Gangaji shares what she calls a “sutra from the streets”— a teaching story about the power of inquiry and what is possible for all.

PROGRAM NOTES

Learn more about Gangaji and her programs and events at gangaji.org

Learn more about the Gangaji Foundation Prison Program

Donate to the Prison Program here.

About Gangaji

Like many of her contemporaries, Gangaji searched for fulfillment through relationships, career, motherhood, subculture experiences, political activism, and spiritual practice. In 1990, Gangaji met her teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja on the banks of the Ganga River. Today, Gangaji invites people from all walks of life to fully recognize the absolute freedom and unchanging peace that is the truth of one’s being.

 She is the author of The Diamond in Your Pocket: Discovering Your True Radiance, Freedom and Resolve: The Living Edge of Surrender, Hidden Treasure: Uncovering the Truth in Your Life Story, and You are That Volume 1 & 11.  

 About Kenny Johnson

After living behind bars for over 20 years, Kenneth Johnson went through a spiritual awakening that changed his life radically and ended his life as a criminal. Released from prison in 1997, Kenny later founded This Sacred Space, a non-profit organization dedicated to self-discovery. He is the author of The Last Hustle.  Kenny@thissacredspace.org or 415-342-4807

This month on Being Yourself, we return to the summer of 1993 in Boulder, Colorado. Gangaji speaks about the opportunity to break the trance of fear by directly experiencing fear itself. “This is a kind of contraction against life. Direct experience is the medicine, the remedy. You really experience fear, and fear is not fear.”

A timeless message from Gangaji as we begin a new year. Plus an invitation to join her for an upcoming online gathering on Saturday, January 7 at 11AM PT. Learn more at gangaji.org. 

“For our purpose, which is the purpose of discovering the truth of who one is, let us forget why one is and discover who.”

We often are seeking answers to our questions of “why” and “how.” Gangaji invites us to turn our attention to the most important question we can ask ourselves on the spiritual path, the question that can lead to self-recognition and the endless discovery of the depths of who one truly is.

This month we are happy to share a selection from Jami Sieber and Kim Rosen's new album Feast of Losses. Their new album takes a deep dive into that sacred space where grief and gratitude meet. Their collaboration offers a transmission of such beauty that it stops the mind and opens the heart! This selection from the album features What the Living Do by Marie Howe, with music by Jami Sieber and spoken word by Kim Rosen. Read about their inspiration for this work on the Gangaji Commnuity Blog. 

Purchase a download of the complete album at jamisieber.com/feast-of-losses

“If your attention is on the story of how you do not deserve what is being offered, this is the continuation of self-denial.  There is an open door in this jail, in this prison.”

When we seek freedom on the spiritual path, it is often freedom from our mind or mental activity. In this podcast, we focus how we can lock ourselves up inside a mental prison, not recognizing the door that is always open.