Another Gangaji Excerpt...

Choice

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(From the Meeting, Immovable Resolve)
San Diego, CA - January 18, 2001

Questioner: I know one hundred percent that this personal entity, this individuality, is in truth nonexistent. This is known. But sometimes I completely forget and get carried away, and I don't like the things that happen. Looking back, I wonder how I could have completely identified with my thoughts and my desires and forgotten what I know.

Gangaji: Yes, how did you do it? This is what you have to see, because there is a "how." For surrender, there is no "how." But there is a "how" to identification.

Is this identification also coming from Consciousness?

Yes.

So it's not my fault. (Laughter.)

It is your fault, because fault also comes from Consciousness. "It's not my fault" is the slippery way out. It is a trick of the mind.

How can I be vigilant to not re-identify and have it be effortless?

There is only effort to vigilance if there is a "you" doing vigilance. Then vigilance is still the property of the mind. But who are you? If you are not this individual, then who are you?

I don't know how to describe myself.

I will name you then. You are consciousness. You are awareness. Vigilance is the very nature of awareness. The moment that vigilance is effort is the moment the mind has co-opted vigilance. Then vigilance is bound to be dropped for identification of yourself with your mind activity. You are not separate from your mind activity, but you are more than your mind activity. All mind activity appears and disappears. But you, as you truly are, is always here. Always.

Take a moment now and look back to one of those instances when you got totally identified with the drama, with the movie, and then did not like the behavior that arose. Can you see the moment that you left the truth and identified with the drama? There were so many moments leading into it, but there was a particular moment when there was a choice. It comes with the speed of light. The ego, which is false identification, appears with the speed of light. But you are present as it appears. When you look back in your mind to that moment, what occurred?

It looks like identification just happened, and I...

I understand it looks like that, but I am asking you to look a little closer at the more subtle mechanisms. When you look from the outside, it is the wheel just started turning. But if you look a little closer, you see, Aha, the wheel didn't just start turning. There was this little thing here, and that little thing there, and then that other thing. . . and then the momentum kept it going.

I am asking you now to look deeper for some pattern, fueled by some emotion, accompanied by some thought.

It looks like a past tendency.

And what is this past tendency?

A habit that might have gained power through the years.

Ask yourself how this habit got chosen in this particular instant. Maybe it seemed to just appear out of some past momentum, but there was a moment. It seems like a sliver of time, but if you actually put your magnifying glass on it, which is consciousness, you will see in slow motion there were many choices along the way.

First, there is an emotion, which can be big. Then there is a choice to indulge that emotion or to repress that emotion. If you repress it, it will simply squeeze out in another time. If you indulge it, then it is dramatized. This is universal.

The behavior of re-identification seems to have its own momentum—I am just being who I am—but in the moment we are speaking of there is no questioning of who you really are. Instead, you are acting out who you think you are, and this thought has been built up by millions of years of conditioning. This thought of who you are has a force. It has a power. But you are consciousness. You have the ability to examine in minute detail the choices of acting out.

First, there arises a very familiar pattern. It comes in blowing horns. You know it is coming. You feel it in your body. You are starting to think those thoughts again. You are feeling either self-righteousness or blame. I don't know what your particular pattern is, but I will use a pattern of anger as an example.

With a pattern of anger, you may justified in doing whatever you do, right? Then in the looking back, you might think,....

...continued here (scroll to bottom of page to "Addiction and Choice" link.

~mu
 

A Dialogue

Q: What is enlightenment? And how do I find it?

Enlightenment is seeing through the illusion of enlightenment. There is nothing and no one outside of yourself that can guide you, show you, or teach you the way to ‘enlightenment’. There are many people who will tell you (or you will think that) they can guide you, show you, or teach you something that will ‘help’ you find the way. This is an illusion. It is ‘an inside job’. It is an individual ‘journey’ (though not a journey at all) to an understanding/awareness that nobody can experience for you except you. Nobody; no guru, ‘master’, or teacher can point you in the direction that is ‘right’ for you.

This goes for what I am telling you now.


Q: How will I know when I find it?

Stop looking.

It is not hidden. There is nowhere it is not. Do you see it now?

The great emptiness – the void inside the one who searches is what perpetuates the so-called ‘spiritual’ search or whatever one wants to call it. The paths and details differ, but ultimately it is the same search. It is an attempt to fill the apparent void inside oneself by seeking outside oneself. (When the illusion of the ‘void’ is realized there is nothing to fill.)

The search itself is a distraction that can temporarily fill the void. The key word is temporarily. Then the search continues, or is perhaps eventually aborted, unless what I am saying here has been realized – either by a flash of awareness or otherwise, and then it is over as well.


Q: I have heard I need to find “my” teacher.

It is fine for those who choose it, but it has nothing to do with ‘enlightenment’. The search for the perfect teacher or teaching is a distraction, but one that also helps fill the void. And unless the void is seen as the illusion that it is, filling the void is like finding that ‘fix’ – that ‘high’ that will hopefully take the 'pain' away. It won’t. If it does, it will only be temporary. Teachers and their teachings can also be a crutch or even a hindrance to the experience of Awareness. The teacher is an intermediary that is ultimately unnecessary and irrelevant. You 'have' it and 'know' it already. Be still. Listen. Observe. Pay attention. There.

You want to be free? The key to your ‘freedom’ is with you now. It always has been. Nobody is holding it for you. Nobody can set you free. Simply free your mind. There is no great teacher or teaching to find or follow. The teacher is you. Just as the student is you. Recognize this and you recognize you were always free.


Q: It seems too simple.

It is simple.

We make it hard because we have been conditioned to believe that so-called Great Mysteries are not easy to solve. That anything worth having must be painful or difficult to achieve. That other people know better than us. There must be more to it and so on. All illusion. The ‘secret to ‘enlightenment’: is that there is no secret to ‘enlightenment’.

You don't need to go anywhere, or do anything to 'find' it.

Just Stop where you are. You are ‘there’ already.  ~