Top 60 Quotes & Sayings by Gangaji

I could see that everything I had identified as really me, was not really me, but was just a pattern of strategies to avoid some kind of abyss or emptiness.

Self is not liberated. It was never bound. What gets liberated are the demons as well as gods of your mind. Set them free. You are sick of playing with the game. Be willing to not play the game. This takes huge resolve.

We have tried everything to get rid of suffering. We have gone everywhere to get rid of suffering. We have bought everything to get rid of it. We have ingested everything to get rid of it. Finally, when one has tried enought, there arises the possibility of spiritual maturity with the willingness to stop the futile attempt to get rid of it and, instead, to actually experience suffering. In that momentous instant, there is the realization of that which is beyond suffering, of that which is untouched by suffering. There is the realization of who one truly is.

There's great release, really, in not seeing into the future.

Pure no-thing-ness is conscious intelligence.

The love that you search for everywhere is already present within you. It may be evoked by any number of people or events. But finally, you must realize you are this love. The source of all love is within you.

Who you are, in truth, who everyone is, is whole and perfect and beautiful. And if that can be recognized, then it is possible that self-torture can stop!

Fear is about survival. When you drop under that and experience the fear without trying to change it, just letting it be, then it becomes still. When you open your heart to fear, rather than trying to fight it or deny it or even overcome it, then you find it is just energy.

Safety is knowing that when this particular life form is finished, what it has served remains.

You have the freedom, ability and authority to love your life. Just be you, then wait.

Finally all that is trustworthy is this immeasurable silent awareness that is the truth of who you are, that is love.

Trust yourself. At the root, at the core, there is pure sanity, pure openness. Don’t trust what you have been taught, what you think, what you believe, what you hope. Deeper than that, trust the silence of your being.

I'm a student of history and know that civilizations get lost - they are born and die - and so I recognize the tender mortality of our civilization. I'm not saying I'm separate from the despair of that, but I'm not controlled by the despair of that.

Time is a very useful concept in terms of survival. It's extraordinary that we can delineate a day into segments so that we can actually look at those segments, examine them, and see what worked and what didn't' work. We get very attached to time because it's a power, this invention of time is very powerful, and we like power.

Even in the running away from hurting, there is hurting. In opening unprotected to the experience that is enslaving you with its torment, there is the willingness to be free.” Are you willing? Or do you just want towait until the world finally gets it and does it your way?

I am inviting you to discover that deeper than any pattern, deeper than personality, deeper than success or failure, deeper than worth or worthlessness, there is a radiance that is undeniable, always present - the truth of who you are.

If you will stop all searching right now and tell the truth to yourself, you will know what is known in the core of your bones. You will know it with no image of it, no concept of it, no thought of it. You will know it as that which has eternally been here. And you will know it as yourself.

I'm not suggesting that you have to overcome your fear of death. But we have to be willing to recognize at any moment, death could come.

The choiceless truth of who you are is revealed to be permanently here permeating everything. Not a thing and not separate from anything.

Need nothing and then see what happens.

I invite people to just stop and be still. And in that you discover who you are, because once you discover who you are, you can stop fragmenting into pieces. I know that in any one day there are moments were there is nothing going on, but we link up what is happening from thought to thought without any space. We overlook the spaciousness that it is all happening in.

Revelation is beyond doctrines and belief systems. It is beyond everything imaginable. It is beyond because it is so close. Revelation is more direct than every word, for it arises out of the truth of who you are. This truth is all you have ever longed for, all you have ever needed.

If you're laughing, you're healing.

Love has nothing to do with another person. Love is Truth. Love is Beauty. Love is Self. To know yourself, to surrender to the truth of yourself, is to surrender to love.

Be still. it takes no effort to be still; it is utterly simple. When your mind is still, you have no name, you have no past, you have no relationships, you have no country, you have no spiritual attainment, you have no lack of spiritual attainment. There is just the presence of beingness with itself.

When you are willing to stop looking for something in thought, you find everything in silence.

In a sacred moment, when attention is pulled inward, rather than continuing in its usual outward direction, silence is realized.

When all mental activity around who you think you are or what you need for happiness is stopped, there is a crack in the authority of perception, in the structure of the mind. I invite you to enter through that crack. Come in through that opening. When you do, the mind is no longer filled with its latest self-definition. In that moment, there is only silence. And in that silence, it is possible to recognize absolute fulfilment: the truth of who you are.

To be truly happy you must recognize who you are with nothing.

My responsibility is simply being who I am and not buying into any projection as real. No projection is finally real, but projection does play a very important role.

You cannot truly express yourself until you first discover who you are.

The most sublime truth of all has never been stated or written or sung. Not because it is far away and can not be reached, but because it is so intimately close, closer than anything that can be spoken. It is alive as the stillness in the core of your being, too close to be described, too close to be objectified, too close to be known in the usual way of knowledge. The truth of who you are is yours already. It is already present.

You are here. However you imagine yourself to be, you are here. Imagine yourself as a body, you are here. Imagine yourself as God, you are here. Imagine yourself as worthless, superior, nothing at all, you are still here. My suggestion is that you stop all imagining, here.

Recognize, you ARE Home. Not, you are 'at home'... you ARE Home. Not, you have 'come home'... you ARE Home. You are that which IS Home.

True, absolute silence and true, absolute love are not different. Absolute silent awareness overflows with simple, fulfilled absolute love. Objects - people, nature, emotions - may or may not appear. Objects are not needed and they are welcomed. The joy of this full silence is uncaused and unlimited. Always here, always discovering itself. It is the treasure, and it is hidden only when we refuse to keep quiet and find out who we are.

I don't mean to say that you shouldn't take care of your body, or want to keep it from dying. But it doesn't have the same hold as when you totally identify yourself as the body. To recognize the tenderness of mortality, the fragility of your life form and all life forms, including cosmic life forms, is to be humbled in a deep way that is actually enlivening.

You cannot be happy unless you are serving the truth of your being, however that service looks.

The secret gem of truth has been hidden in the core of your own heart all along. My invitation is to stop all movement of your mind away from truth so that you can discover directly, for yourself, this jewel that is alive within you.

Be open. And then the truth follows.

What ever we embrace eventually reveals the place we have been seeking.

Surrender all thought, emotion, and circumstance to that which is bigger and deeper. Surrender your identity. Surrender your suffering to that which is closer than identity, deeper than suffering. Do you discover victory or defeat in this surrender?

But somehow in identifying myself as the healer, there was still a seed of both self-righteousness and defense from a kind of emptiness.

I support people if they are called to be active and protesting, resisting, working for restoration or, for more just political conversation. I also support everyone in listening to each other. We're at a very interesting and disturbing time in terms of our civil discourse. And yet always, in disturbance, things are shook up and that shaking can lead to deeper maturity and a deeper discourse. May it be so.

The meaning of your life depends on which ideas you permit to use you. Who you think you are determines where you put your attention. Where you direct your attention creates your life experiences, and brings a new course of events into being. Where you habitually put your attention is what you worship. What do you worship in this mindstream called your life?

Be still and know yourself as the Truth you have been searching for. Be still and let the inherent joy of that Truth capture your drama and destroy it in the bliss of consummation. Be still and let your life be lived by the purpose you were made for. Be still and receive the inherent truth of your heart.

The truth is you really are nothing, but this nothing is full, whole, infinite in everything and everywhere. This nothing is conciousness itself. It is already whole, complete and fulfilled. This is the amazing irony.

Be naked in the splendor of the truth of who you are.

Trusting yourself is realizing yourself. Trusting life is realizing yourself as life. This is an invitation to our thinking minds to open in trust. We can trust that there is a knowing that is out of the realm of thoughts or emotions or circumstances. When we deeply trust, our minds open to discover what is true, regardless of what we are feeling. The deepest trust is a by-product of this true realization.

All of the searching, all of the struggling, all of the efforting to find your true self is naturally revealed in open, relaxed simplicity.

Meditating is not a matter of saying i am going to meditate. It is, just for a moment retreating from the need to do anything and instead just be.

Fufillment has nothing to do with circumstances.

What will happen in your life if you accept the invitation to stillness cannot be known ... what can be known is you will have a larger capacity to truly meet whatever appears.

Fulfillment has nothing to do with circumstances.

If you are willing to take an instant to withdraw attention from whatever your internal dialogue is, to withdraw energy from whatever the latest point of view about your suffering is, it is immediately obvious what is here: the fullness, the richness and the love of oneself as conscious life.

When you are free enough to stop searching for freedom, you recognize that freedom is always here, it's your nature as timeless presence. That doesn't mean the circumstances are always free, of course.

Under the obsessive thoughts and plans, under the emotions, positive and negative, there is an ocean of peace.

True forgiveness and love arise naturally, effortlessly, from the silence of the heart broken all the way open.

There is nothing more potent than thought. Deed follows word and word follows thought. And where the thought is mighty and pure, the result is mighty and pure.

If you are willing to experience anything directly and immediately, whether good or bad, joyous or hateful, you will recognize that what you are running from does not exist, and what you are running toward is already here.

The word God, to me, is like the word enlightenment. It's become so corrupted by our ideas of what God is.