Where Are You Looking For Purpose?

You can see everything when you call off the search.

You endlessly see.

Because you are not looking for anything in particular,

Then you can see before your vision is conditioned by what you are looking for.

Hello and welcome.

This is Being Yourself,

Self-Inquiry with Gangaji.

My name is Barbara Denempont and I'm very happy to welcome you today to this podcast.

This is an opportunity for us to dive into the archives of the Gangaji Foundation and share some really relevant material with you.

And today we got our inspiration from Allison.

Allison wrote to us via email and here's what she said,

I was wondering whether you would consider covering the topic of purpose.

It is something that I struggle with.

I always feel as though I should be doing something meaningful with my life and I know that should is a clue that my thinking is not in the right direction.

But despite asking to be shown,

I don't seem to be getting closer to the answer.

Thank you for reading this.

Warm regards,

Allison.

Thank you,

Allison.

This is a great topic.

Gangaji isn't in the habit of telling people how to live their lives,

But rather I think the conversation we can have today about purpose is about what's driving that desire for purpose and what is our deepest purpose.

When I looked into the archives,

I discovered a meeting that was recorded in Maui in 1996 and there's actually two pieces from this meeting that I'm going to share with you today.

And the reason I love them is because I think they really speak to something essential,

Being a somebody and being a nobody.

And right after we play these clips,

I want to share a letter with you.

It's a letter that was written from a prisoner who is part of the Freedom Inside course.

I'll say more about that,

But for now,

Let's just take a listen.

Hi Gangaji.

Hi.

When you were talking about throwing all definition,

Since June last year,

I got to be suddenly on the road for six months on the mainland.

I didn't really plan it.

Just anything that I planned didn't happen.

And I ended up to go to Alaska and I was planning to stay two months there.

And so all those experiences,

I realized that there was something inside of me that I wanted to do things in a different way than I used to do them.

And I realized that when I was in Alaska,

It's so extremely different from Hawaii and desire to do things there.

And everywhere I was going,

I didn't use all those labels about all those great things I can do and all those things that people have been relating to me.

Yes.

You were nobody.

I was nobody.

And it brought me in such a deep place within myself.

Sometimes I was like in panic.

I have to do something.

I'm supposed to do something.

They have to know that I'm somebody,

Right?

And I really got one day to realize that,

I mean,

How the addiction to the non-existent problem and basically this is it.

Oh,

This is it.

Can everybody understand this with the accent and everything?

This addiction to the non-existent problem.

This is,

We could write a whole sutra about that.

The addiction to the non-existent problem.

This is the truth right there.

And it was freedom.

That's right.

It was freedom.

That's right.

And I got to that place by getting in touch to a part of my child,

A memory of an image that was kind of coming to me all the time.

And I realized that little child was looking at herself in the mirror naked.

And this was a picture that was kind of haunting me.

And she was looking for something she was missing,

Right?

She was looking out to find.

And this has been like a thread in my life,

Looking for that thing that I'm missing.

I'm super grasped,

Accomplished or whatever.

That's right.

And it was,

It's just like something shifted that time.

And now I'm in that place where I really don't know.

I really don't know.

Isn't this a place of openness?

Yeah,

It is.

It's wonderful.

I really don't know.

Yes,

People ask me all the time.

Well,

The Gangaji Foundation,

They said,

So we need a five-year plan.

All these people are telling us we have to have a five-year plan.

I mean,

This is a,

It's a foundation.

You have to have a five-year plan.

We get donations.

We have to have a five-year plan.

I don't know.

I don't know.

So of course you can make up a five-year plan.

But the truth is,

You don't know.

That's the truth.

Then yes,

You can play,

Okay,

Yes,

Next year,

Let's see,

I'll come back to Maui in the winter and I'll be here.

But I don't know.

If I think that I know for one moment,

I'm carrying something.

If I think I know,

Then I think I am somebody who will be someplace at some particular time and some particular result will come.

And that will give some particular experience.

And all of that's from the past.

And it is unnecessary.

And we have been addicted to this non-existent thing.

This is a wonderful report.

Keep going,

Muenjie.

Yeah,

You know I have more.

What came also for me was,

One day I said to myself,

Let's face it,

I mean,

People look at you,

You are not making money right now.

You don't have a job.

You don't have a car.

You don't know why you're here.

You don't know where you're going.

And it really humbled me.

And I realized I have no right to judge anybody's process.

And it really brought everything into a perspective that just changed.

It was like something that was coming out naturally out of me,

Like a new part of myself where so many judgments drop.

This is beautiful,

Beautiful.

Let me interrupt.

I have to make my commentary,

You know,

On the sides.

This is very beautiful,

This humbling that you speak of.

This humbling is essential.

People run from humbling.

People are terrified of humiliation.

Anything but humiliation.

But this humbling,

This is the secret.

Whether you have the best car or no car,

The humbling is always right there.

When you simply tell the truth,

I am in truth nobody.

Nobody.

And I don't know anything.

That's what's run from,

That's what's feared.

And so,

So much is accumulated,

Philosophies,

Empowerments,

Tricks,

Definitions.

But for one moment,

Just to recognize I am nobody,

That is this divine humbling.

Yes,

It has nothing to do really with circumstances.

You could have had,

Come into millions of dollars and be absolutely flattened by the humbling.

You can lose millions of dollars and be flattened by the humbling.

It is really in your willingness to know truth.

And your willingness to stop running,

To stop pretending,

To stop doing,

To get something from that mirror that will fulfill you,

That will make you whole,

That will give you peace.

You stop looking to the mirror for that.

You stop begging the mirror to give you what you,

Since you lack.

And just in that stopping,

You overflow in that fulfillment.

Yes,

And I think it's very accurate what you say about a little girl,

A little child.

There is some point in childhood where innocence is sold for what the world or the mirror tells you,

You need or you should.

Or you must.

Are you a bad girl if you don't?

Are you a good girl if you do?

There is some kind of selling of the soul that in that moment when you recognize that,

That selling has taken place,

There is a possibility to stop.

To simply not be defined by the mirror,

To give up hope that the mirror will give you what you are searching for.

There is a very useful regression.

Then naturally your mind regresses back to before there was even the thought that you were that little girl,

Before you even defined yourself as human,

As person,

Before definition.

And the beauty of this experience you are in now,

Which is after definition,

Is that this before definition can make itself known.

So that it is not an amorphous void,

Ignorant of itself as consciousness.

Then this experience of incarnation is used,

The sensory experience is used as recognition of boundless self as consciousness,

Conscious of itself as that,

Experiencing itself as that.

I am so happy to hear from you.

I saw you right before you went on your journey.

You remember we met in some health food store or something?

And you were telling me you were getting ready to go off the island and you didn't know where,

What or how it could even take place.

Yes,

I understand that.

What a great feeling.

Then you are carried by this mystery called life,

Called your life.

Good experiences,

Bad experiences,

All serve that when you are nobody.

When you are somebody you fight bad experiences and you struggle for good experiences.

What a lot of work.

What a lot of work,

What a lot of difficulty,

What a lot of effort.

In the instant of simply stopping your struggle,

What fulfillment,

What mystery,

What grace,

What ease,

What challenge.

Yes,

What challenge.

I am not speaking that you are turning into a cow in the pasture.

Enormous challenge.

All of the latent tendencies and habits to struggle and fight and define,

As you said,

To do so that the mirror will see and reflect back you are something,

You are somebody.

Yes,

All of that must come.

And then all of that is your wind horse,

Is your ally for deeper surrender,

For calling deeper challenge,

Bigger challenge.

Excellent.

I am so happy to hear you speak like this.

Thank you.

I am also so,

It was wonderful because I saw you only one time in California.

I just heard exactly what I needed to hear that day.

One time is enough.

You say when you hear the truth then everything is simple.

And that went through.

And that is just what,

Where I was at to that new step.

And that was just like a wonderful,

That was like the new step for me.

That simplifies everything even more out of the illusion.

Simplify.

This is such a secret,

You know.

Such a secret.

Such fear of simplifying.

And I am not speaking of simplifying your house or your car or your material things.

You can if you like.

But that is immaterial.

That is not what I am speaking of.

This simplification.

Basically for complication you need thought.

For simplification you need peace,

Rest.

Rest and see.

You rest but don't go to sleep.

You see?

If you rest but don't go to sleep,

You are awake.

Wonderful.

Thank you,

Munjay.

Thank you Gangaji.

I love you.

Thank you.

Yes,

In the back.

Hi Gangaji.

I have been going along and going along waiting for this lightning bolt.

And finally last week some time I walked by this table and just quietly stacked among these books and pictures was a book that got Papaji's face just gently beaming and says call off the search.

And fairly small letters.

And I saw that and it hit me.

Very good.

And it hit me later on just kind of doing the most quiet things in this gentle call off the search,

Call off the search.

And I realized I looked back and it is like I have had so many lightning bolts as a joke.

It is like this idiot proof sadhana here.

But in every one of those lightning bolts I was at every one looking for something in it.

Instead of just seeing the lightning bolt there and now I can see that having called off the search for something in that.

You can see everything when you call off the search.

That's right.

That's right.

You endlessly see.

Because you are not looking for anything in particular.

Then you can see.

Before your vision is conditioned by what you are looking for.

Even if you don't know what you are looking for but you are looking for something.

You cannot see then.

You may have hallucinations.

You may have glimpses.

You may have specs.

But when you finally stop looking for anything,

You see.

I can't tell you what you see.

It is unspeakable.

You see and then you tell me.

It is very good because Papaji sent me out to speak what cannot be spoken.

So I am waiting on you to speak what cannot be spoken so I can send it back to him and say it has been spoken.

So you let me know.

From pure seeing.

Not being somebody,

Seeing something.

Just seeing.

Because to search you have to be somebody searching for something.

This is called samsara.

Illusion.

A non-existent something searching for a non-existent something.

What a joke.

Yes,

Yes,

You are the butt of the joke.

You only mind that if you think you are somebody.

If you recognize you are nobody you are quite happy to laugh at yourself.

And all the guises,

All the pretenses,

All the self-importance,

The righteousness.

Yes,

Call off the search.

Small enough that it could get in.

What a depth charge then.

Now as promised I want to share a letter with you from Matt.

Matt is a member of our course for prisoners called Freedom Inside.

Gangaji's had a prison program for over twenty years.

And now we have a course that's designed specifically for prisoners.

And every month we have a newsletter going out.

And Matt shared with us a piece that he wrote on the subject of purpose.

I'm going to just share a few bits of it with you.

What is the purpose of life?

You can ask a hundred different people and get a hundred different answers.

Common answers may include live and let live,

Eat,

Sleep and play,

Work hard to make a living,

Love God and others,

And the list can go on and on.

We put so much effort into our outer purpose of life.

But how much effort is put into the inner purpose of life?

When we look deeply and truthfully within to our true nature without judgment and condemnation to ourselves,

Then we can fully experience the purpose of life.

Stop and sit still in the silent awareness of life.

There's nothing wrong in pursuing the outer purpose of life.

Just don't forget the inner purpose of life.

When you rest in your awareness,

You see consciousness dwelling in all things and every person.

When this happens,

A new purpose of life dawns,

Love.

Well,

I'm very grateful to Matt for this piece that reminds us of our deepest purpose,

The deepest possibility of our lives.

So thank you,

Matt,

And thank you to all the prisoners,

All the volunteers,

All the donors that make this program possible so that I can bring this back to you from behind the prison walls.

As we come to a close here,

I just want to invite you again to write to me,

Barb,

At info at gangaji.

Org.

That's info at G-A-N-G-A-J-I dot O-R-G.

And if you want to find out more about Gangaji's prison program,

You just visit the website,

Gangaji.

Org.

Thank you for listening.

This is Barbara Denpont.

Until next time.