How Can Your Life Be A Beacon Of Peace?

Many have taken a spiritual path to escape the pain of human suffering that flows from war and injustice. But the truth is, we are never separate from it all. Where can we discover the strength and the capacity to bear that pain? How can our lives be beacons of true peace?

Transcript

I'm interested in what is always here regardless of your mind stream,

What is before creation and after all destruction,

And not as an esoteric escapism,

But as the willingness to bear the reality of the injustice that's in the world,

All over the world,

In your own heart,

Your own neighborhood,

Your own country,

Your own continent.

Hello and welcome to Being Yourself,

Self-Inquiry with Gangaji.

My name is Barbara Denempont.

Very often,

Actually usually,

I bring you recordings from years past,

But this monologue was recorded just last Sunday during Gangaji's March online meeting.

And it was a beautiful gathering.

I felt so privileged to be there with people from all parts of the world,

Far and wide,

Coming together and just connecting through the internet,

Through the gift of the internet,

Which right now feels important.

And what Gangaji shared in the opening monologue,

It also felt important to me.

And so of course,

Of course I want to share it with you.

Is it possible to recognize the horrors that go on,

The injustice that goes on,

The victimization that goes on,

And recognize that we are not separate from that?

Many people come to spiritual endeavors as a way of transcending that,

And many religions and movements teach that transcendence.

But in the invitation to open,

To open your own heart,

To be still,

To allow your mind to still,

There is the capacity to discover that truly everything is included.

Not that it's all right,

Much of it is wrong,

Not that it's all good,

Much of it is bad,

But that it's included.

There is the inclusion of the polarities at the center.

And when we take our few minutes to be still,

We are the center in that moment.

And may our speaking together reveal that that center is never absent.

You know,

I've been around for a while,

I'm almost 80,

So I've seen different movements and I've read about different movements,

Spiritual movements,

And I know that quite often the motivation of those movements is to escape.

Whether it's a movement of,

If we can just get enough meditators then there will be peace,

Or if we can lift the Pentagon,

As Allen Ginsberg wanted to do in the 60s,

There will be peace.

If we can protest enough there will be peace.

And we finally have to come to terms with that we're not in control of peace,

Which is also heresy for some new age and create your reality believers.

That really we're not in control of reality.

We can be in control of our experience of reality.

Only if we have a negative state of emotions or a negative mindstream,

Negative thoughts,

Our experience will be negative,

Even in positive situations.

And if we have a positive mindstream,

My experience may be positive.

But I'm not interested in your mindstream.

I'm interested in what is always here regardless of your mindstream.

What is before creation and after all destruction.

And not as an esoteric escapism,

But as the willingness to bear the reality of the injustice that's in the world,

All over the world,

In your own heart,

Your own neighborhood,

Your own country,

Your own continent,

And all the other continents and countries and hearts.

To bear that without going to sleep on it or without trying to escape it,

Which is just another form of going to sleep on it,

Without painting it in some gloss of pseudo-spiritual relief.

To be still,

To open,

Even to open to hopelessness.

Hope is spoken about a lot now and,

You know,

It was Obama's campaign slogan.

And I appreciate hope.

Hope is beautiful.

There's still this possibility of a new day.

But what I'm speaking about and what I'm inviting you to is what's before hope and before hopelessness so that you don't have to keep hopelessness away because it's dangerous and because it's negative and because if you're hopeless you will then despair and live a life of misery.

That's not true.

There is that which is before hope,

Before hopelessness,

That already lives your life in the face of all that is right and all that is wrong.

When that's turned to,

Which in the invitation to sit quietly together,

To simply be home,

Then there is a strength that's available,

A strength of character,

A strength of person that you can bear anything.

And then your life,

Whether you never move from your room or whether you become a social worker for justice,

Your life is a beacon.

It's a light shining.

It's a spaciousness where there is no war,

Where there's no aggression,

Where there's no victimization,

Where there are no victims.

And that spaciousness of your own being,

Which is easily discounted since there's so many billions of us,

That we overlook the capacity for one billionth of humanity to be a beacon.

That beacon maybe shines on your immediate family,

In your neighborhood,

Your town.

Finally it shines all over the world without your doing anything and without your not doing anything.

You may be fighting,

You may be resisting,

But in the heart of the matter there is this shining silent beingness that includes both victims and victimizers,

Both aggressors and those who are victimized by that aggression.

So may we recognize and be awake to the troubles of our world without being afraid to open to that.

May we not be escaping their spiritual endeavors.

May we be opening.

There is a time for escape.

Escape is not wrong and we are seeing stories of that every day as people rush to get out of the Ukraine or to get out of Russia or to get out of multiple places where they are being victimized,

Every continent in our world.

The spotlight now is on Ukraine and Russia,

But it's happening everywhere,

Bigger degrees in some places,

Smaller in others.

So to recognize that and recognize that there may be action that you're called to take,

But whatever is occurring in terms of action or no action,

There is this light of beingness when you are still,

Not resisting,

Not denying,

Not ignoring,

But still even in the face of everything,

Your emotions,

Events.

Wellness includes,

Has room for,

Everything and everybody.

So may our time,

Our conversation be a support for that so that as Papaji would often end his meetings,

May all being live in peace.

Even you don't need hope or hopelessness.

You have committed yourself throughout eternity to be this beacon of light without knowing how to be,

Simply to be.

And we will see,

We will see.

We don't need to project a future and we don't need to deny a future.

Just this willingness at least to hear the invitation and then to freely choose,

Yes,

That's what my life is given to.

Or at the very least,

Yes,

That's what this moment is given to.

And then we will see how big is a moment in a lifetime.

I absolutely love sharing these recordings with you,

Old and new.

So thank you,

Thank you for just listening to this podcast.

And before I sign off,

I want to invite you to join Gangaji for her next online public meeting on Sunday,

March 27th at 11 a.

M.

Pacific Time.

It's offered with a suggested donation and it's a wonderful opportunity again to simply be together with the world and discover the depths of who we truly are.

You can visit gangaji.

Org to learn more.

That's g-a-n-g-a-j-i dot o-r-g.

I hope to see you there.

And again,

To share Papaji's words,

May all beings know peace,

May all beings know happiness.

Om Shanti,

Shanti,

Shanti.

Reviews

Thank you for giving words to my prayer.
Yes.
We shall see 🙏🏻🌿🕊️

Beautiful clear and loving teaching from Gangaji, thank you🙏🏼

🙏🏼

I will revisit this. Thank you.

So beautiful 🙏😍

Excellent! Simply be. Thank you.

Sooo true and w♡nderful again !

What I needed to hear today. Thank you for your timeless words of wisdom and peace🙏🏼

Gangaji this was very incredible and thought provoking. Thank you for sharing. Looking forward to digging into additional content from you.

Peace within, peace around, peace everywhere.🙏