zoofence.com

Someone mentioned Gangaji - has anyone had the pleasure of meeting this woman face to face? And if so, what did you come away with? And is she still living? And where? Just interested.

I first met Gangaji in person in the summer of 2000 at a week-long silent retreat near Lake Tahoe. I had the opportunity to sit with her for a few moments in front of about 300 people. Our second meeting was in the winter of 2002 in Santa Monica. At that time she and her husband Eli Jaxon Bear were giving a five-day retreat called "Uncovering Self Betrayal."

They are currently making their home in Ashland, Oregon. They are both still doing Satsangs, but think they are simply calling them Meetings, and holding retreats and/or "intensives." They are doing these events individually and together. Eli's foundation is called Leela. You can find much information about them on their respective web sites.

It was an incredible experience for me to sit with her. Although I must admit, at that time in my life I had elevated her to star status. Nonetheless, what has remained more than anything was something she said to me during our brief meeting. "In a true moment of not knowing, you know."

What did I come away with? Well ... something indefinable ... nothing I could hold on to, nothing I could let go of. Yet completely rock-solid.

I have seen hundreds of her videos, and lots of Eli's. They are both (in my opinion) incredible teachers. I'd say I was a pretty heavy-duty student of hers for about three years - but no longer follow - but believe that's because they had pointed me in the "right" direction and I had gone as far as I could go with them.

About a year or two went by and recently I stumbled upon a much "lower profile" teacher and somehow really finally got the message. As in really finally. The search is over. There is an inexplicable chemistry required.

So now I'm awake. So now I'm enlightened. Its everything I've always wanted, the only thing that ever mattered. It is complete emptiness and fulfillment. But most of all - so what - who cares?

Honestly ... there really isn't anybody here to be awake. Here is awake. Here is aware.

Lets go chop some wood and carry some water.

It takes a lot of courage to say openly that "one" is enlightened. The next question would be: WHO is saying that WHO is enlightened?

What ... I'm supposed to hide?

There is no courage involved; no belief in myself. What is here to be afraid of?

"WHO is saying that WHO is elightened?" ... I don't know, really.

I don't mean that you should be afraid or ashamed or something like that. The point is ( the way I see it): The "One" we really are doesn't need to become enlightened, in fact doesn't need anything at all. It just IS! So the way I see it, we are all "enlightened"! ( to use that WORD)...
And the one we THINK we are can never become "enlightened", cause this one is playing his/her role in the Big Dream or Play.
So WHO is getting "enlightened" then. But it's all words again, and thoughts and experiences and they all appear in this wonderful Play or Dream we call "Life", so perfectly directed by....ourselves, the One and only One!

So now I'm awake. So now I'm enlightened.

Honestly ... there really isn't anybody here to be awake. Here is awake. Here is aware.

Slight correction, there isn't anybody here to be awakened, though i think that's what you meant. There is somebody here awake, and that somebody IS, as you say, Here/Now. It's so simple, so clear, so tangible, so touchable, so real, yet it demands an honesty that can listen to a whisper in a hurricane, but it's the only Truth there is. Bravo for saying that I am that.

Perhaps we need to define terminology here. The way I see it, to be enlightened is different from being realized. Being enlightened is knowing truth and understanding its ramifications. Being enlightened brings an end to suffering, but does not bring an end to birth and death. Being realized, which is basically being a conduit for God, or getting out of the way so that God can function unencumbered through the vehicle called a body, is actually a non-sequiteur, because no-body is ever realized, because realization is the state of non-separativeness, and there is thus no one to realize anything. In other words, to be realized, there must be no longer identification with a body/mind, and, incidentally, it seems to me that that does not happen through effort, that happens only through "Grace" and at God's will.

The way I see it is that nobody can ever become fully realized, because to become fully realized is to die as a separate individual and to become a "mouthpiece for God" in a fleshly body, or if you don't like the use of God, to become unencumbered with the state of separation. The great beings (Jesus, Rumi, Ramana, Nisargadatta, Ramakrishna, and any number of silent "individuals" who chose or choose not to announce their realization to a doubting world that they are "realized" - understandably so, since they are often persecuted because of it)-- who spoke "as God" were no longer individual, because if they insisted upon being individual, they surely would not be universal or "as God". In other words, one can't speak as God, while at the same time, isolate oneself from "others" who are "not God", since God is everything and everyone of us, whatever else we may choose to think about God. Or another way to state this, is that God speaks clearly only through those "persons" who no longer identify with their own minds, thoughts, body or world. (Of course, then we need to define God - is God universal, is God love, omnipotent, all seeing, all knowing, infinite? - or is God defined by limits? Is the act of defining limiting?!)

I have found in my own life that the objections made by others about a person's thoughts, say most about the objecting person, and not a whole lot about the person who stated the thoughts. That might explain why there are people who can hear the same thought expressed, and some will agree with it, and others will disagree. It is ALWAYS the hearer who determines the interpretation - there is no "objective truth" in any statement made by any person, including words uttered by God realized individuals or those who profess to be, but only the interpretation by the hearer of the statement, which, of course, includes the speaker, because she heard it first within her own head before subsequently stating it verbally.