The Ultimate Universal Remedy For Suffering: I AM

It's a challenge.

It's not easy because we have conditioned minds.

But I guarantee you it's simple.

If you're willing to let it be simple.

We are intoxicated with the complications and there are complications.

Our minds are complicated,

Our emotional lives are complicated,

Our personalities are complicated,

Our work is complicated,

Our planet is complicated,

The cosmos is complicated.

But in the core of direct experience in your willingness to simplify.

You return home.

I am.

Hello and welcome to Being Yourself,

Self-Inquiry with Gangaji.

My name is Barbara Denipont.

In the last podcast,

I shared with you an exchange on the topic of projection.

That exchange was recorded in 1997.

Now I'm going to share an exchange with you recorded just last month.

Gangaji and I recently traveled to Vancouver for a public meeting.

As I sat in the audience and listened,

I thought,

Wow,

This exchange is the perfect follow-up.

The reason I say that it's a great follow-up is because projection is about how we see the other.

This exchange is about how we objectify ourselves,

How we become an object in our own minds and how we suffer as a result.

One of the reasons I love this conversation is because it has many facets like a cut diamond.

I've already listened many times.

You might want to try that too.

But let's just start where it starts.

It begins with fixing the personality.

Let's take a listen.

I'm really stripping over myself.

What does that mean?

Just my personality.

It's like really bothering me.

Aspects of your personality are bothering aspects of your personality?

Yes.

So really,

When you look,

What's being bothered?

What's bothersome about this annoying personality?

I want to be free and I just keep… And what does the personality got to do with that?

When you really look?

I don't think anything.

That's right.

In that moment of answering that question,

You weren't identified with your personality.

It was a personality.

It's like you weren't identified with your height or your color of your eyes.

Because if freedom can be stopped by any of that,

It's pretty weak force.

So if you're looking in your personality or for your personality to change,

I'm suggesting you stop looking there.

Let your personality be whatever it is.

Most personalities are annoying.

Isn't it a relief?

Where does that laugh come from?

Freedom?

Yes.

That's right.

To truly laugh in that moment,

You're free.

Because you don't even know what you're laughing at often,

But you're not identified with something right or wrong.

It's this mystery and confirmation of laughter.

You can't think when you're laughing.

So then you stop laughing and you start thinking.

What was the first thought just in this moment?

Wow,

It's Gangaji and it's you.

What about Gangaji and you?

Like almost like,

Oh,

I have like a story of how it should be.

How is it?

It's fantastic.

That's the end of the story,

Isn't it?

That's the happy ending.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Wow is like a laughter,

Isn't it?

It's like wow.

What words.

Why do I get so identified with this personality?

I forget again and again.

Because you think it's something that can be remembered.

See,

If it can be remembered,

Freedom or truth or peace or love,

God,

Whatever word you're using,

It's an object in your mind.

It has some kind of form or refers to some kind of experience or state of mind.

But then we aren't speaking about freedom.

We're speaking of some experience or state of mind or some subtle object in your mind,

Which may all be beautiful.

But freedom,

Can you objectify freedom?

I mean,

You try.

You get the word freedom,

But you can't really objectify freedom.

And if you can,

Forget freedom.

If it's an object,

Kick it out.

You want to be free of that freedom.

That's a false freedom.

So what are you realizing just in this moment?

There's no problem.

There's no problem.

This is what's so radical.

If my personality,

As good or bad as it is,

Is not a problem,

Where's the problem?

There's no problem.

That's right.

Right now.

Well,

That's got,

I go with that.

That's good.

Right now is really what we're talking about.

Because if we're talking about the future,

Well,

What will it be like when you sit down or you wake up in the morning or what was it like yesterday?

Then we're speaking of objects in the mind.

But really,

Right now,

It's not objectified.

I mean,

This is what our brains do and there's nothing wrong with it.

It's part of a survival technique.

We objectify the past and the possible future so that we can survive.

We learn from the past and we are prepared for the future.

But freedom is not about the past or the future,

Or even about your survival.

It's closer than that.

So we don't have to make personality wrong or right.

I mean,

Some people worship their personalities and some people hate their personalities and then most people are on some part of that spectrum.

But that's a way that you just are,

In a weird kind of way,

Entertaining yourself by suffering.

You know,

We can sort of get off on our suffering.

Yeah.

It's a mystery,

Isn't it?

I almost was going to say sick,

Isn't it?

But I don't want to be… I'm just getting to know you so I don't want to lose you yet.

But it is a strange thing with human beings and it's part of our evolved brain that we can actually be the subject and the object and be entertained and suffer from our own drama.

It's a habit.

It is.

It's an addiction because it comes from power.

And it initially is quite pleasant even,

A sort of narcissistic pleasure of,

Whoa,

Me,

Me,

And then it bites you.

Yeah.

So it's beautiful to recognize that and to have insights about that.

It's wonderful.

But the direct discovery of freedom is closer than any of that,

As you just showed us.

And since we are addicted to our knowledge and since our knowledge is beautiful and wonderful and often does reflect past experiences of truth,

It's really a challenge to be willing to not remember anything,

Because that's the word you use,

To really forget everything.

That's the first thing I said,

It's we can be here forgetting all of our teachings,

Forgetting all of our past,

Forgetting all of our projected futures.

Just be here just for a moment.

And then the mind works in past and future.

So that's no problem because you have tasted the truth of yourself.

And in any moment you can just lose everything again.

That's the practice.

That's the secret practice.

Just take a moment and lose everything you have acquired,

Both your successes and your failures,

Your good personality and your bad personality,

Your freedom,

Your God,

Your truth,

Your practice,

Your enlightenment,

Your unenlightenment.

Just be willing to lose it all for this moment.

And that's self-inquiry.

Then there is the freed mind that can actually ask the question,

Where is freedom or who am I?

Am I?

The really,

A major,

Maybe the major part of my role in your life is to support you in simplifying your narrative so that you return to this very simple,

Profound sense of yourself as being.

Then you see what follows that is I am being good or I am being unenlightened or I am being enlightened or I am winning or I am suffering.

But just to simplify that this evening as an experiment,

Not as a teaching or a dogma or a practice,

As an experiment for yourself,

If you are willing to just simplify all of it,

The whole narrative,

What's left?

Well nervousness right now but… Is that all?

Nervousness is here.

What's under that?

What's closer than that?

Peace.

Peace.

This is what's hidden from us by our own intoxication with the power of our minds which are brilliant and are powerful and are intoxicating.

But finally our minds will not give us release,

Will not,

Cannot give us freedom.

And running to like want to keep this.

Yes and this is the secret.

Certainly we want to keep it.

And you have tried to keep it.

Does that work?

No.

So that's intelligence and maturity.

Okay I want to keep it.

I have tried everything to keep it.

I have affirmations,

I have written things,

I have a teacher or a therapist or a friend and we call each other up and we remind each other what it is we want to keep.

But I am saying in simplifying you lose everything.

Lose everything you want to keep in this moment.

And you see what can't be lost.

It's why we have missed it.

It's been right here all along.

Investigate for yourself.

Lose it all and see what you are unwilling to lose.

And then tell the truth.

Is that tied into suffering?

As beautiful as it may look,

Is there a trail that leads to suffering from that?

If it has anything to do with birth and death or relationship or change or whatever.

If it has anything to do with anything you know,

It leads to suffering.

You check it out though.

You don't have to believe me.

I don't want you to believe me.

I want you to check it out.

It's really what this is about.

It's an invitation for you to investigate for yourself.

That you have that capacity.

You don't need to take what any teacher tells you from this moment on.

We did need to take what all kinds of teachers told us and either accept that and reject that.

And that turned our lives in certain directions.

But finally if you are continuing that circle,

You are overlooking what all those teachings were about.

The ones that brought you here.

The ones that turned you away from the life that you were conditioned to have or supposed to have.

The one that made you not as normal as you thought you should be.

Yeah that one.

It's what jumped you up here.

It's the,

I am.

That's the ultimate simplification and the ultimate universal remedy for suffering.

I am.

You know this Sanskrit phrase,

Sat-Chit-Ananda.

I am consciousness.

Aware of itself.

As being I am.

And then naturally overflowing in the joy of that.

That's your laughter.

So your assignment,

Give it a day and see is that the moment you try to keep anything,

Any object in your mind you lose it.

You let it just drop it.

Okay.

Or if you say I am not going to drop it,

I am going to keep it.

Then you see does it bite you or not.

That's what Papaji says,

If you keep it,

It will bite you.

Wait and see.

So you have to discover that.

I am just looking around and I see that you have discovered that.

And I am saying you don't have to keep discovering that.

You can actually drop it.

Drop your concept of yourself.

Drop your concept of other.

Drop your concept of what you need.

Drop your concept of what you got or didn't get.

Drop your concept of who you are.

We are so addicted to our concepts that we never consider that we actually have the choice of dropping them.

Yes.

It's amazing.

People have asked me what my experience was with Papaji certainly and I have shared lots of different things but when they asked me was there one particular moment and there was.

There was this explosive moment where I heard what he was saying and I felt his presence and that really supported it.

But I heard it and in that moment of hearing in it I also could recognize that's always been here.

That's what was always here.

I just never assumed to look there.

That's me.

But it wasn't the me that was being fabricated and made and polished and graduated or held back or judged.

It's such an ananda.

It is such an ananda.

Simple.

So simple.

It's a challenge.

It's not easy because we have conditioned minds but I guarantee you it's simple.

If you are willing to let it be simple.

We are intoxicated with the complications and there are complications.

Our minds are complicated.

Our emotional lives are complicated.

Our personalities are complicated.

Our work is complicated.

Our planet is complicated.

The cosmos is complicated.

But in the core of direct experience in your willingness to simplify,

You return home.

I am.

Sot chit I am and I am aware of being.

Oh my god that's enough.

And then the wonder that follows that.

Ananda just follows.

Oh I am so happy you came up.

Tell me your name.

Kara.

Beautiful.

Thank you very much.

So natural.

So honest.

So yourself.

Hey I don't have to deal with your personality and you don't have to deal with mine.

Yay.

Everybody wins.

When I was first with Papaji and even after I had this explosive self recognition I still had a very deep conditioning that was immediately came back on that that I should act a certain way.

Because this is how I first started my spiritual life is that I should be holy and spotless and good.

Always good.

Very good and gentle.

And it became apparent very quickly that I wasn't always good or gentle or spotless.

That the I that is subject to being spotless or spotted is all in my mind.

That's the object.

That was me running this movie about how am I doing now.

Okay am I being enlightened?

Okay uh oh uh oh I lost I am being unenlightened get back to enlightenment.

Okay I got it I got it.

So I was trying to practice enlightenment and Papaji was really so clear with all of us.

Stop whatever you are doing.

However it may have benefited you in the past.

In this moment have the courage to stop.

To be still.

Ramana said be still and recognize who you are.

So it's you know we have these minds and they are conditioned but the source of the mind and inseparable from any condition is this radiant truth of who you are.

Whatever your personality.

I really am amazed how an exchange recorded just last month is so perfectly relevant to an exchange recorded in 1997.

This is a big archive of material we are tapping into that is truly timeless.

So I always look forward to researching the next podcast.

If you have a topic suggestion please let me know by emailing me at info at gangaji.

Org that's info at gangaji.

Org.

If you are also interested in watching videos of Gangaji I invite you to check out Gangaji's YouTube channel and our on demand video library The Oasis.

You can find The Oasis,

Gangaji's complete schedule of in person and online events and information about her foundation programs on the web at gangaji.

Org.

This is Barbara Denempont until next time.