Two Faces of Grace by Gangaji
May 18, 2012 by Gangaji
Filed under •-Feature, Enlightenment, Grief and Loss, Health & Well-being, Meditation, Personal Growth, Spiritual Retreats, Spiritual teachers, Spirituality
The experience of the gift of life, of the grace of life, is a mysterious blessing we celebrate and bow to. Grace is the answer to our prayers, and yet it is free of our bidding. How joyous to bask in even an instant of surprising good fortune. How sweetly humbling to be delivered from misfortune.
We most easily and delightedly recognize grace in its form of deliverance. Yet it has another, equally humbling, equally mysterious face. The horrific face of grace can fill us with dread and fear when it appears, but if we are willing to welcome it — as we welcome the good news of the grace of bounty — it too brings us home. In whatever form it presents itself, grace reveals home as free and at peace. Grace is the messenger of the silent core of us, regardless of any tumult on the surface.
Who can truly comprehend what we each have to experience in our lives? We know of horrible experiences, diseases, wars, loss and degradation that many have to go through. And we also hear from many of the surprising grace present with the loss and pain: grace’s horrific face.
This is not the face of grace that we want. We want grace that is easy and beautiful and flowing. We usually — at least initially — resist grace that is ugly and painful. You must have experienced certain events, however they have shown up, as unwanted. If you are still resisting some unwanted event in your life and are willing to open to it now, you can find the grace in that very moment.
Grace does not require you to want something that you do not want. What is required is that you tell the truth about what simply and irrevocably is. What is required is that you stop fighting and hiding from what is. When these utterly simple and deeply challenging requirements are met, the innate grace of your own consciousness naturally reveals who you are and what you can bear.
We have many ideas about what we can bear. These ideas are the reflections of our fear. We doubt our capacity to meet what life and the changes in life give us. But when the willingness to tell the truth in open stillness comes, capacity is discovered.
Part of the horrific grace of being a human being is the knowledge that non-existence is at the end of the arc of our lifetime. We avoid death — other’s or our own — but when death comes close, the possibility is just as close for the discovery of great horrific grace. We don’t want to die. It may sometimes seems dying would be easier than meeting the challenge of living, but you wouldn’t be reading this if you hadn’t chosen life. And yet death will come.
In the horrific knowledge that what we don’t want (death, loss) will come regardless of our desires, there is an indescribable grace that is available. The fact that you have the gift of a human life with reflective consciousness allows you to open your consciousness, rather than to engage in the usual habitual strategies of denial.
The Tibetans speak about this precious human life. I used to doubt the preciousness of a human life because it seemed that the cows, in their unconsciousness of inevitable death might actually have a better life. But what are the cows doing in the pasture? They are waiting for the slaughterhouse. Even the lilies of the field, though not doing anything, simply living and being beautiful, are dead soon enough. We too are headed for the slaughterhouse, we too will be dead soon enough. And because of the horrific grace of consciousness we can meet that inevitability.
If we stop at the horror, if we try to find something to cover it or fix it or distract ourselves from it, we deny ourselves the grace of it. When there is enough willingness to face what has been avoided, the preciousness of every moment of every limited life form is celebrated and welcomed. Facing the horror of changes and endings allows us to fully participate in both what is inherently transitory and what is changeless.
Precious human life. Precious life form. Precious moment of every life — the cow’s life until it is slaughtered or the lily’s life until it wilts — how precious it is to be conscious of being and not being.
This blog is adapted from a talk given by Gangaji at Kripalu Center, MA in September 2011. Gangaji’s new book Hidden Treasure: Uncovering the Truth in Your Life Story, was published in September 2011 by Tacher/Penguin. In this life-changing book, Gangaji uses the telling of her own life story to help readers uncover the truth in their own. Publisher’s Weekly said, “This gently flowing but often disarming volume invites readers to examine the narratives that shape them, and is a call to pass beyond personal stories to find a deeper, more universal self.”
Gangaji will be offering a free open webcast on Sunday May 20 at 11:00 AM pacific time. After that, you can join her for a Silent Retreat at Fallen Leaf Lake, South Lake Tahoe, CA, beginning May 29. Visit www.gangaji.org for more information about Gangaji and her upcoming events, including the monthly Webcast / Conference Series, With Gangaji, which is currently undergoing an in-depth study of Hidden Treasure.
Gangaji shares a simple message – “This is an invitation to shift your allegiance from the activities of your mind to the eternal presence of your being.” Born in Texas in 1942, Gangaji grew up in Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1964, she married and had a daughter. In 1972, she moved to San Francisco where she began exploring deeper levels of her being. She took Bodhisattva vows, practiced Zen and Vipassana meditation, helped run a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center, and had a career as an acupuncturist in the San Francisco Bay area. Despite her successes, Gangaji continued to experience a deep and persistent longing for fulfillment. She pursued many paths to change her life including relationship, motherhood, political activism, career, and spiritual practice, but even the greatest of her successes ultimately came up short. In the wake of her disillusionment, she made a final prayer for true help. In 1990, the answer to her prayer came unexpectedly, taking her to India and to the meeting that would change everything. There on the banks of the river Ganga, she met Sri H.W.L. Poonja, also known as Papaji, who opened the floodgates of self-recognition. In this meeting, Gangaji’s personal story of suffering ended and the promise of a true life began to flower and unfold. Today, Gangaji travels the world speaking to seekers from all walks of life. A teacher and author, she shares her direct experience of the essential message she received from Papaji and offers it to all who want to discover a true and lasting fulfillment. Through her life and words, she powerfully articulates how it is really possible to discover the truth of who you are and to be true to that discovery. Gangaji’s website www.gangaji.org
Read more from Gangaji:
The Point of Authentic Inquiry by Gangaji
Going Inside ~ Direct Experience Is Like a True Kiss by Gangaji
READ: If You Could Question God? by Panache Desai
April 18, 2012 by Panache Desai
Filed under •-Feature, Conceptions of God, Insights, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Spiritual Guidance, Spiritual Retreats, Spiritual teachers, Spirituality
I received a thought-provoking email that I would like to share with you… someone wrote and asked: If I could ask God three questions… what would they be?
My mind immediately jumped to questions like: Who killed John F. Kennedy? Did you really make Mickey Rourke in your own image? And do you think Morgan Freeman does a good job of playing you in movies?
Then, after spending some time getting in touch with the deeper meaning of what I was being asked, I came to a surprising conclusion… I honestly don’t feel compelled to ask God anything!
At first I was honestly and deeply surprised by this revelation. The conversation in my head went a little like this: “Come on Panache… if given the chance, you really wouldn’t ask the most omnipotent being in all creation about anything? No questions at all? ”
No, I really wouldn’t. Not about the past. Not about what is unfolding right now. Not about what is going to happen in the future.
The simple truth is this. The daily interaction I have with God has shifted dramatically as I have progressed along my vibrational journey. As my own vibrational density is lovingly integrated I’ve reached deeper levels of internal harmony. Rather than questioning how life is unfolding, I simply say “thank you.”
My daily practice is one of gratitude.
From my vantage point, I have humbly witnessed that life is about trusting in the experiences I am having. Rather than getting caught up in what ifs, I chose to focus on where I am right now. If this moment is exactly where God wants me to be then who am I not to embrace and accept what’s unfolding? It is all a Divine journey and in truth I’m just along for the ride.
When you reach the point where you can accept that all that is transpiring TODAY is leading you to a greater TOMORROW, something shifts. The profound recognition and loving acceptance that you are whole and complete is unveiled. And with this realization there is nothing more you need to know.
Indeed, at this level of conscious awareness the only question left to ask is, “What’s for dinner?”
Panache Desai is an inspirational visionary and contemporary spiritual master whose gift of vibrational transformation has inspired and shifted the lives of tens of thousands. He shares eternal truths, inspirational insights, and vibrational tools to create the life of your dreams. Panache is a modern-day avatar who acts as a direct link to Divine consciousness empowering people of all ages, economic and educational backgrounds to transform their lives by connecting them with their limitless Divine nature. Young, hip and funny, Panache brings his global community together weekly via LIVE webcasting.
Read more from VividLife.me bloggers:
SCHMALTZING MY WAY TO GOD by Jeff Brown
On my spiritual journey, I searched for God everywhere: the yoga studio, the holistic workshop circuit, the shiatsu mat. A well-practiced head tripper, I hunted for God in my thoughts, somehow certain that God would arise in the form of a concept. During my materialistic phases, I imagined God a slick car, large house, a Hugo Boss suit, as though God himself wore Gucci. And for some time, I looked for God on the skyways of self-avoidance, mistaking the short-term benefits of the ungrounded bliss trip for enlightenment itself. I went down this road for some time, seemingly joyous on the outside, but a bubbling cauldron of unresolved feelings and memories in the deep within.
God is IN the People by Jeff Brown
At the heart of Soulshaping is a profound faith in the human experience, in the karmic significance of our personal identity. This stands in real contrast to some of the detachment models that are gaining favor in Western culture. These models present true-path as something distinct from the emotional body, as though our usual self-identifications are inherently inauthentic, as though our physical forms are inferior. At the extremes, they seem to suggest that God made a mistake when she placed us in human bodies. These models worry me and present an image of heightened consciousness that often feels more robotic than human, more heady than hearty.
READ: The Point of Authentic Inquiry by Gangaji
April 17, 2012 by Gangaji
Filed under •-Feature, Enlightenment, Health & Well-being, Holistic Living, Insights, Personal Growth, Spiritual Retreats, Spiritual teachers, Spirituality
There is a point that appears in a lifetime, regardless of chronological age, when healthy, true doubt appears. We doubt what we have been taught, and we doubt what others insist we must believe. This is the point at which true spiritual inquiry can begin.
Too often there is little support for the deep examination that this spiritually-healthy doubt demands. In my Episcopal confirmation classes — taken with other rowdy 12 year olds — the questions that we could ask with approval had little interest for us. The ones we were interested in, “What exactly is the devil? Where is hell?” were considered disruptive and impertinent. Although the point of the classes was to bring us into the church in a more mature phase, for most of us it was the beginning of the end of our churchgoing days. Something essential in us was denied. I have heard countless variations of this story from others who felt their right to sincerely question had no place in their religious upbringing.
We have sometimes found that we have to rebel against all we have known, since those who “know” are unwilling to allow inquiry to be an essential part of spiritual development. In our rebellions, we absorb new anti-beliefs, and when we dare to doubt them too, we again are branded as heretics. How many converted Buddhists scoff at the naive Christians who believe literal interpretations of the Bible while easily taking on the belief of reincarnation? How many fundamentalist Christians brand New Age visualization as the work of the devil and revile Hindus with their nirvana and multiple faces of God, while having personal conversations with their deity and continuing their own magical thinking about their version of God. Even proponents of inquiry often state what inquiry should reveal. In the “religion” of self inquiry, the concept of non duality takes the place of direct discovery.
Authentic spiritual inquiry reveals the joy of fresh insights and revelation, just as artistic or scientific inquiry does, but if we cling to the latest insight as a thing we know, that thing grows stale.
To be of real spiritual value, inquiry must be alive and fresh. Regardless of what we remember or have discovered from the past, each time we truly inquire, we return to not knowing what the outcome will or should be. No doctrine is needed for discovery. No concepts of multiplicity, duality, or non-duality are needed. In fact, we must put aside all of our doctrines and concepts for our inquiry. All that is needed is the willingness to be unattached to the outcome, conscious, and truthful.
Deep inquiry is not for the fainthearted or weak-minded. It is for those who are ready and willing, regardless of fears and discomforts. It is the challenge and invitation to mature. It is the invitation to give up past reliance on others’ discoveries while allowing those discoveries to encourage and even push us into our own inquiry.
Inquiry is not a coping mechanism. It is not present in human consciousness to provide certainty or comfort, except the sublime certainty that one has the capacity to discover truth for oneself. It is a stretching mechanism. It calls on the mind to stretch beyond its known frontiers, and in this way inquiry is support for maturing and evolving the soul. It frees us from the need to define ourselves to experience being ourselves. It is both humbling and a source of profound joy, but it does not provide a neat package of new definitions and stories.
The challenge in inquiry is to be willing to directly discover what exists with no reference points. Inquiry is no small challenge, for it requires facing the death of the inner and outer worlds as they have been constructed with no knowledge of what will take their place. We have the experience of releasing our constructed world when we fall into sleep, and we cherish and need this experience for our well-being on all levels. The challenge of inquiry appears in releasing the constructed world while remaining conscious.
This blog is adapted from Hidden Treasure: Uncovering the Truth in Your Life Story, which was published by Penguin Tarcher in 2011. In this life-changing book, Gangaji uses the telling of her own life story to help readers uncover the truth in their own. Publisher’s Weekly said, “This gently flowing but often disarming volume invites readers to examine the narratives that shape them, and is a call to pass beyond personal stories to find a deeper, more universal self.” Gangaji will be offering a silent retreat in May at Fallen Leaf Lake in South Lake Tahoe, CA. Visit www.gangaji.org for more information about Gangaji and her upcoming events, including the monthly Webcast / Conference Series, With Gangaji, which is currently undergoing an in-depth study of Hidden Treasure.
Gangaji shares a simple message – “This is an invitation to shift your allegiance from the activities of your mind to the eternal presence of your being.” Born in Texas in 1942, Gangaji grew up in Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1964, she married and had a daughter. In 1972, she moved to San Francisco where she began exploring deeper levels of her being. She took Bodhisattva vows, practiced Zen and Vipassana meditation, helped run a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center, and had a career as an acupuncturist in the San Francisco Bay area. Despite her successes, Gangaji continued to experience a deep and persistent longing for fulfillment. She pursued many paths to change her life including relationship, motherhood, political activism, career, and spiritual practice, but even the greatest of her successes ultimately came up short. In the wake of her disillusionment, she made a final prayer for true help. In 1990, the answer to her prayer came unexpectedly, taking her to India and to the meeting that would change everything. There on the banks of the river Ganga, she met Sri H.W.L. Poonja, also known as Papaji, who opened the floodgates of self-recognition. In this meeting, Gangaji’s personal story of suffering ended and the promise of a true life began to flower and unfold. Today, Gangaji travels the world speaking to seekers from all walks of life. A teacher and author, she shares her direct experience of the essential message she received from Papaji and offers it to all who want to discover a true and lasting fulfillment. Through her life and words, she powerfully articulates how it is really possible to discover the truth of who you are and to be true to that discovery. Gangaji’s website www.gangaji.org
Read more from VividLife.me bloggers:
Letting go of old structures by Tony Samara
“In the world today people are saying to themselves, that we have had enough of the old paradigms and the old systems and we want to change. We don’t know what we want to change, we don’t know how to change but we want to change and that clarity creates a power that has a very real and powerful effect in the world. It changes what most people thought a few years ago was quite impossible to change and that is not even through conscious spiritual work, that is just through the intention being so strong that it changes and pushes away the old paradigms so that there is the possibility and the space that allows the birth of something new.
What Do You Really Want? by Gangaji
Gangaji asks the most important questions of your life – What do you really want? What is your life about? What is it being used for? How is your time spent? Where is your attention? Is your life meaningful? Are you happy? What is the longing of your heart and soul? Is it a longing for truth and freedom?
READ: What is Your Story? by Gangaji
January 20, 2012 by Gangaji
Filed under •-Feature, Enlightenment, Health & Well-being, Personal Growth, Spiritual Retreats, Spirituality
All creatures are born inescapably defined by their stories, yet if we remain limited by those definitions we live a life of inner bondage. When we recognize the stories that generate our definitions of ourselves, we are closer to the discovery of what is indefinable within us. That discovery reveals inner freedom and lasting fulfillment.
Each life form has a beginning, an arc of a life story, and then an ending. Most of our internal and external attention and communication circle around the particulars of how we define ourselves as collective life and how we define ourselves, or others, as particular life. Other animals, trees, flowers, butterflies, spiders, rocks, planets and solar systems also have their stories, and the broadcasting of their stories is both our greatest entertainment and our inevitable humbling. We can find ourselves, or parts of ourselves, in all stories and we can separate ourselves through our stories.
We all come from life-giving energy, are infused and animated by life energy to become a particular life-form, and we all end in returning to formless life. Along the way there are small and great dramas, crossroads of destiny and surprises both wondrous and horrific. Some life stories end very quickly and some go on and on. There are countless dramas within this bigger, incomprehensible universal story. Stories are sung, put into sacred books, memorized, dramatized and consulted generation after generation. Our collective cosmic story is a teeming theater of lifeforms appearing and disappearing. Forms are born, live through many stories and then die. Before any form appears, life is here. During the lifetime of any form, life is animating that form. After any particular form dies, life — while withdrawn from that form — remains here. Life is true. It is always here.
Most of my life was spent at war with the characters — including the lead, me — in my story. They weren’t good enough, or smart enough, or deep enough. At one point in the story of me, none of us were rich enough. At another point, when material possessions were disdained, none of us were poor enough. It was never right. It could always be better. Sometime in the future, I could make my story turn out to fit my latest idealization, or so I hoped. For four decades I worked at building a story that would fulfill me. Periods of happiness and peace came and went. Lasting happiness remained out of my grasp. It took some time to realize that the lasting fulfillment I was seeking couldn’t be captured by any story I told about myself. The fulfillment I was seeking in my many attempts to tell a story of victory couldn’t be captured because it is free. It took more time to realize that my story was mysteriously appearing in that which is already fulfilled. It was a beautiful and wonderful shock to discover that freedom and fulfillment were never absent whatever the latest rendition of my story. My story was an individual display of the search for the living free consciousness already inhabiting each character. When I recognized the silent fulfilled core in all versions of myself — and all the others in my story — I could rest. In the spaciousness of rest, I could begin to live my life from fulfillment, rather than continuing to search for it.
What is your story? You discover your story by noticing what you are telling yourself over and over. Notice what you tell yourself about your past, your present and your future. In order to have any lasting impact, our stories have to be told and retold. All stories have a narrative. Your narrative is what you tell yourself through thoughts and images with accompanying emotions. What is your narrative? You can check right now. It is bound to be familiar. It is natural as human animals with developed cognitive abilities to generate and follow the narrative of our stories. It certainly is not wrong to do so. But it is limiting. It limits attention to events that are forever changing. To discover how your attention is being spent, discover what you habitually say to yourself. Listen to your narrative while suspending belief in it.
All definitions and stories arise from the silent core, and in surrender all are then pointers to where they come from and where they return at their end. In surrender all is transparent from the luminosity of your naked self.
This blog is adapted from Hidden Treasure: Uncovering the Truth in Your Life Story, which was published by Penguin Tarcher in 2011. In this life-changing book, Gangaji uses the telling of her own life story to help readers uncover the truth in their own. Publisher’s Weekly said, “This gently flowing but often disarming volume invites readers to examine the narratives that shape them, and is a call to pass beyond personal stories to find a deeper, more universal self.” In February and March Gangaji will be teaching in Maui, HI, offering a Silent Retreat with Eli, and Small Group Weekend. Visit www.gangaji.org for more information about Gangaji and her upcoming events, including the monthly Webcast / Conference Series, With Gangaji, which is currently undergoing an in-depth study of Hidden Treasure.
Gangaji shares a simple message – “This is an invitation to shift your allegiance from the activities of your mind to the eternal presence of your being.” Born in Texas in 1942, Gangaji grew up in Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1964, she married and had a daughter. In 1972, she moved to San Francisco where she began exploring deeper levels of her being. She took Bodhisattva vows, practiced Zen and Vipassana meditation, helped run a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center, and had a career as an acupuncturist in the San Francisco Bay area. Despite her successes, Gangaji continued to experience a deep and persistent longing for fulfillment. She pursued many paths to change her life including relationship, motherhood, political activism, career, and spiritual practice, but even the greatest of her successes ultimately came up short. In the wake of her disillusionment, she made a final prayer for true help. In 1990, the answer to her prayer came unexpectedly, taking her to India and to the meeting that would change everything. There on the banks of the river Ganga, she met Sri H.W.L. Poonja, also known as Papaji, who opened the floodgates of self-recognition. In this meeting, Gangaji’s personal story of suffering ended and the promise of a true life began to flower and unfold. Today, Gangaji travels the world speaking to seekers from all walks of life. A teacher and author, she shares her direct experience of the essential message she received from Papaji and offers it to all who want to discover a true and lasting fulfillment. Through her life and words, she powerfully articulates how it is really possible to discover the truth of who you are and to be true to that discovery. Gangaji’s website www.gangaji.org
Read more from VividLife.me bloggers:
Rediscovering Your Natural Curiosity by Gangaji
The primary concern for all life forms is survival. In the case of humans, the basis of everything we think is somehow about our survival. Everything we feel is related to our survival. Even everything we understand is about our survival. What we understand is what we can categorize. A category presents us with a version of reality we can live with. If we can live with it we can survive. Read On…
Walking On The Moon And Moments That Change Your Life Forever
Imagine walking on the moon and then returning to earth in Apollo 14? That’s what Edgar Mitchell, the 6thastronaut to walk on the moon, talked to us about for our radio show and in our book, Be The Change. Few of us ever get to see the earth from outer space, but it was entering the vastness of space that led Mitchell to a deep, personal transformation, one of those moments that change us forever: Read On…
EXPERIENCE: A THREE DAY SPIRITUAL SURVIVAL RETREAT
November 26, 2011 by VividLife Editorial
Filed under •-Feature, Arts & Entertainment, Classes and Workshops, Events, Journeys, Personal Growth, Spiritual Retreats, Spirituality, Travel
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We would like to personally invite you to a 3 day Spiritual Awakening retreat like no other at the Award Winning Grail Springs Retreat Centre
Everyone has a story, a journey and an inner truth. Join myself ~ Shayne Traviss and Sharon Quirt as we present an inspirational weekend of workshop which could catalyze a personal awakening like no other…
A three day journey in Surviving the human experience as a spiritual being with the inspirational Shayne Traviss, Yogi and creator of VividLife.me and Spiritual Coach, Hay House Author and radio host Sharon Quirt!January 27th to 29th 2012
We look forward to meeting you, Shayne Traviss & Sharon Quirt |
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Spiritual Survival
A journey to surviving the human experience as a spiritual being
Experience this three day journey into surviving the human experience as a spiritual being at the award winning Grail Springs Retreat Centre in the mineral capital of the world ~ Bancroft, Ontario
Using the three R’s of Spiritual Survival, best-selling Hay House author and Spiritual Counselor, Sharon Quirt and Yoga Instructor and founder of VividLife.me , Shayne Traviss will guide you on a journey of Revisiting , Reframing and Redesigning your life so that you can live a life with true Spiritual Happiness.
Spiritual Survival is about learning to use the three R’s in recycling in a new way. You will learn to Revisit, Reframe and Redesign your life, to step out of the darkness of your story and into the light of your spiritual truth. Using the lessons learned you will be able to redesign a life filled with spiritual happiness.
All of us have a story, a journey and an inner truth. This retreat will provide you with the keys to true healing and offer you the wisdom to learn from your story and redesign the life you were born to live!
RETREAT PACKAGES STARTING AT JUST $485 A SAVINGS OF 25%
INCLUDES…
Entrance to Spiritual Survival Workshops PLUS
Spa Included: Classes & Activities:
Facilities:
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