February 8, 2007
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Letting the World into Your Heart
By Gangaji
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 recognize 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 our religion, my color and your color, my gender and our gender.
Most anyone reading this book is extremely privileged to not face imminent starvation bombing, torture, or exile. That privilege can be used to stop the cycle of inner and outer torture. We each have the opportunity to stop the endless cycle of our personal stories &endash; "Yeah, I'm really lucky, but what about what I don't have? What about what I could have? Why did they treat me that way? Why doesn't he treat me the way I want him to? Why are they causing all this trouble?"
With direct experience, any habitual belief can disappear in less than a second. Yet the familiar habits, hopes, deflections, and distractions somehow mysteriously arise again and again. They may have a horrendous momentum, but that momentum is slowed and then stopped with the force of consciousness.
I am often asked, "Why, why do the old habits continue to arise? How is it possible?' The why and how are because the seductive power of hope is still present. "If I just follow it this time, it will be perfect, it will be just the way I want it to be. He or she will love me, I will love them, they will always treat me right, I will always treat them right, the world will be at peace, everybody will be happy, everybody will be fed. I will just follow this pattern one more time."
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 &endash; 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. In this very moment, you no longer have to try to figure out how to fix the world or your patterns. I am asking you to find the willingness to take the totality into your heart, to see if your heart has a limit.
What struck me after September 11, when the subsequent bombing began in Afghanistan, and then the U.S. went to war in Iraq, was that there were moments when people's hearts were broken so profoundly that they were open. There was a deepening of compassion, a deepening of the understanding of the absurd insult of the innocent being killed all over the world, in all cultures. Sadly, because these moments were so intense, and because people generally identify themselves as separate entities, most closed themselves off again from vulnerability and openness and went back to business as usual, the individual story of "me and my needs and who didn't meet them."
When you experience "other" as self, you experience deep pain and hurt. And you choose to either close to that or to open even more. When you recognize that there is no other, the pain of the world that you have denied is experienced as the pain of your own self. You can invite that universal pain into your heart. Then that very pain is revealed to hold the treasure, to hold the reality of the deepest, most profound truth. We think that the realization of truth is all about lightness, bliss, and ecstasy; but if that were so, realization would not include all. True realization is the doubtless certainty that you and all can never really be separated.
Are you ready to experience the naked, raw truth of the fragility of life forms and how quickly they can end, unexpectedly, even horribly, and the suffering that reverberates from that ending? To directly experience that fragility and suffering is to welcome the whole truth. To accept the invitation is to be still in whatever is arising and to tell the truth about what remains permanently here, in peace and in love.
In this moment in time, we can finally recognize how much is unknown politically, economically, culturally, and globally. We can seize the opportunity to meet that unknown-ness and discover the indefinable fulfillment that is forever unknowable.
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 recognize the sublime truth of who you are. This truth can always be found in surrendered unknowingness, but it is often covered by the concept of me or mine. The choice then is to be true to truth or to turn from it once again.
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.
The selection above is Chapter 49 from Gangaji's new book. The Diamond in Your Pocket, published by Sounds True, an extremely lyrical and precise guide to finding the truth of who you are.
Gangaji is a teacher and author who travels the world offering her teacher's invitation to fully recognize the absolute freedom and unchanging peace that is the truth of one's being.
The Cult of Society
Often, as self-recognition approaches and the heart begins to deeply open, terror arises. This is the terror of being misused during a time of such profound vulnerability. Of course, this fear is based on past experiences of having been misused when vulnerable, the fear that if you are really open, you could be brainwashed and steered into some kind of dangerous or cultish behavior.
The reason this fear can arise so strongly is that you already have a very strong experience of being brainwashed and used in cultish behavior. This cult is called "society," and its cult-ure gives rise to suffering. If you look closely, everything that is associated with cult behavior can likewise be found in society's behavior. The same means of control are used: the constant reinforcement that you are helpless without society, that you cannot survive without obeying its rules, and that you will go to hell if you don't obey the tents of its religion. This is the pervading societal condition.
The search for freedom often leads to a swing from one cult, family, church, or society, to another, smaller cult, subculture, church, or society. Eventually we recognize that the new cult is just the same old thing, the same play all over again. From that disillusionment, cynicism can arise. Yet, even in cynicism, most of us still don't notice that we are, in fact, being misused every day. Whatever your attention is focused on, that is what is using you. It is a revealing exercise to see where your attention is in a day. Obviously, since you are in a body, some attention must go to its survival. This is natural biological conditioning that provides for bodily survival. That's fine. There is no need to stop that. Providing food, clothing, exercise, and shelter for the body is a legitimate use of attention. It is an imperative for the human life form. But even after the body has been fed, how much attention is still put into feeding it more, or feeding it better, or thinking about feeding it again? How much attention is put obsessively on clothing, on exercising, on finding your place in society? How much attention is paid to conjuring up all possible threats to future food, clothing, and shelter? If this is where your attention is, this is how your life is being used.
It is also true that wherever your attention is, this is what you love. True attention is not separate from love. What are you paying attention to? What do you love? You know you love to feel good. You know there are people whom you love. You love beautiful days. You love peace. But, if you delve a little deeper, you can see where your subconscious attention is, and you can tell the truth that you also love that.
This kind of investigation can be shocking, of course. It can reveal some old story of pain or loss or abuse. But this is a necessary shock. The attachment, the love of your identification as someone who has something or lacks something, must be recognized. All distractions of past or future keep false identifications in place.