One World Wisdom

 

ARTICLE BY GANGAJI

Edited from her Public Meeting in Mendocino,
CA October 7th, 2001 AM The day the bombing began in Afghanistan

"We meet in hell as well as heaven"

One of the dangers of a spiritual life is the ego¹s use of the concept of spiritual life as a means to escape heartbreak, to escape difficulty, to avoid the horrors of the repetition of the patterns of hatred, revenge, and war. To escape hell. Often the desire for transcendence becomes bigger than the willingness to let the heart open in the full meeting of all. All, all of it-- the full human calamity as well as the full human beauty.

I have often said in meetings that the invitation from Papaji and from Ramana is to stop. What that stop requires is the willingness to see that there is no escape. To recognize no escape is to be stripped naked of comforting beliefs and concepts. To be willing to be naked to oneself is to recognize the impulse of mental activity‹worldly or spiritual‹concerning escaping, running, hiding, or fighting. All of us must know these habits of escape personally, and we can see now that we all know them collectively as well. To attempt to escape flames or bombs is natural and right.

To attempt to escape repeatedly, throughout our lives, throughout any one day, the hatred, the fear, the human animal aggression, the tribal, religious, natural instinct to control, to conquer, and to direct is to keep the power of these primitive impulses hidden and extremely dangerous to all. To attempt to escape hatred is to act out hatred. To attempt to escape fear is to live a life revolving around fear.

For each of us to be willing to stop now, (as Ramana stopped in the face of death) is for each of us to take responsibility for the truth that we are one Self. To stop the fantasies of future escape, whether those fantasies take the form of an infantile image of heaven or an infantile image of enlightenment. To actually be willing to be here, where you are, in the midst of it all. This stopping is the possibility revealed through true investigation, true meeting. And the greater that willingness, the greater the capacity for being even more fully here, in the midst, in the center, of it all.

Finally there is without a doubt the realization that there is no need to escape‹whatever appears here can be borne here. Can be met. In that meeting, in this meeting, and every full meeting, there is the deeper unspeakable, undefinable, un-teachable revelation of Truth. In a world instant like this one, it is possible to recognize the emptiness and absurdity of our personal stories and to meet the bigger story, the collective repressed emotions and indulged emotions that arise from identification of one versus another.

The attempt to jump into the cosmic divine story to avoid the horror that is appearing in the world story, is the ego¹s use of the spiritual life. The truth that can be learned, memorized, and pulled out in times of need is not the living truth. It is at best a beautiful reminder to stop now, and tell the truth here.

For some the apparent truth may be emotional, for others it may be mental, for others a numbness. Whatever is appearing, in whatever form, is a vehicle for true investigation, for true meeting, for true self-inquiry. True self-inquiry is not escape and does not produce comforting platitudes. True self-inquiry is the invitation through what is known (mentally, emotionally, physically, circumstantially) into what is unknown. The result in either action or non-action is then not a result dictated by the familiar habits of escape.

Now. Here. In this moment of time." --- Gangaji