A disciple asks, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (John 6:60)
In the Sacred Awakening conference call with Gangaji, she described her profoundly deep prayer for a teacher. A few years later she received a miraculous answer to her prayer when she met her teacher, Papaji, on the banks of the river Ganga in India. At that time she thought he would give her some spiritual practice or mantra, but to her surprise he asked her to do nothing, to be still, to stop everything and inquire into the depths of herself. It was the last thing that she had ever considered and her moment of stopping was the beginning of a profoundly deep discovery that led to lasting fulfillment. What is this fulfillment that she discovered? How do you attain fulfillment in life?
Jesus responds, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” (John 6:63) Life moves fast. It is very rare for you or anyone to stop even for a moment to contemplate the nature of life—What is your life? What is the Spirit that gives life? What is this deep longing? During the call Gangaji explained, “In all of the traditions everywhere whether they were religious or secular, that doesn’t even matter, there is this deep desire in the human being to discover something that is bigger, something that is more. Whether you are a scientist, artist, or a spiritual seeker, that desire is a very natural part of us.” Gangaji realized and Jesus points to something bigger, something astonishing, something so close to you it is closer than your breath. This teaching of Jesus is not the teaching supported by the world—as one disciple realized, it is a hard teaching, hard to understand and harder still to apply. On Saturday March, 2010 at 2PM Pacific Time USA (please see next page for registration info) I will be hosting a conference call that will begin a global conversation, a conversation that will contemplate the question—What offers you lasting fulfillment and how can life itself help you to understand the teaching of Jesus on an even deeper level?
If you want to participate in the global phone call with me please register by clicking the Maestro Conference image below. To keep the cost reasonable for international callers I suggest that you use Skype, which will allow you to make international calls at very low rates. For more information please visit http://www.skype.com. Please register with Maestro conference now and use your full name and location, for example, John Smith – Billings Montana or Deepak Gupta – Calcutta India.
Please note that due to the significant time difference this call might be occurring on Sunday in the morning where you live. For example if you life in Australia the call will be happening on Sunday morning at 9AM. If you are not sure what time this call will be in your local area please use this time conversion calculator: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
I am looking forward to the call and we will discuss this article during the call. Please continue reading…
Gangaji said during the call, “After I had left being with Papaji that first visit, there was a moment where there was a clap of thunder that just went through my brain or my cognitive processing that flipped my mind inside out. I knew without a doubt that I am the ground of being, that there is no separation between this person, this name, this personality, these functions and the ground of being; that what appears as dualistic is not. I knew that solidly. That was twenty years ago.”
She continues, “Over time, especially in teaching and working with people and meeting people where they are and meeting that in my own mind, there is always a deepening. That is excellent news. When Papaji was asked is there an end to this, he said, ‘What ends is your preoccupation with your suffering? What is endless is your discovery of fulfillment?’ I discovered this to be true….That is really good news, endlessly good as far as I can see.”
The word Gospel means good news. And as Gangaji points out, knowing yourself or recognizing the spirit of life within you is the end of suffering and the opening into an endless deepening into true fulfillment. As Jesus illuminates, “The eye is the lamp of the body, if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22) How do your eyes become single? When you stop everything for a moment and look into your heart, don’t your eyes become one? Can you find an end to light?
Your life is always evolving, changing, flowing. It is a series of circumstances that once retained in your memory transform into the story of you and your life. Naturally this can be a good story, bad story or a hopelessly tragic story, but have you stopped and asked yourself—does the story of your life have any real purpose or meaning? How can your life story exactly as it is right now, without moving to fix or change it, lead to unending fulfillment?
The life and death of Jesus has been called the greatest story ever told simply because it reveals the Truth of life itself. Your life story has the same intrinsic power—it has the power to reveal the Truth. It has the power to show you what is eternal, what is always present, what is eternally peaceful. By its very nature it has the power to reveal that which offers lasting fulfillment.
Jesus says, “Know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) What does it mean to know the Truth? Usually this teaching of Jesus has been interpreted to tell the truth and the truth will set you free and that is very true—understanding truth begins with telling the truth. Still there is a deeper message here. It lives in opening to your story, opening to what you are avoiding, opening to what you are afraid of and when you are willing to open there is an opportunity for the Truth to reveal itself to you.
Truth lives in recognizing what never changes. Your story is always changing evolving. You might be laughing right now, but an hour from now you might be crying. Your emotions change, sensations change, circumstances change, but what is constant in your life that never changes. What is present when you are happy and also present when you are sad? What is present when you feel good and also when you feel bad?
Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread, which(comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” (John 6:48-50) It was this teaching that many of Jesus followers felt was too difficult and many left him as a result. What is the bread of life? And how does this miraculous bread offer you eternal life? If ‘I am’ is the name of God, and God is the bread of life, where does this life exist within you. Do the words ‘I am’ point the way?
Stop for a moment and contemplate this more deeply. The name of God is ‘I am” and when you refer to yourself you naturally say ‘I am John’ or ‘I am Sally’ the pronoun ‘I am’ is how everyone refers to himself or herself. When you point to yourself where are you pointing? Where does everyone point when referring to him or herself? This is a very big clue, which reveals the location of the living bread of life within you.
What is the living bread? If Jesus is not here how do you eat this bread? Eating the bread of life that Jesus offers you simply is ingesting or merging with the source of life within yourself, it is mind falling into heart. When you stop and inquire into the source of yourself you have an opportunity to recognize that you are one with the source of life itself. Jesus illuminates, “Neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)
This is the true purpose of your story. Any pain, fear, joy, or happiness that you experience as you move through life points directly to that which is unmoving, still, and silent within you. It is that silent stillness that all thoughts, emotions and sensations emerge from. It is stopping to recognize this source that you have an opportunity to recognize that you are freedom itself—a love so vast it can never be described.
Only you can stop. Only you can inquire into the deeper meaning this offers. It can be a frightening exploration. What do you see when you look inside yourself? It is the emptiness or nothingness that causes most people to freeze in their tracks. But I promise you this, it is the opposite of what you might think—it is the doorway of true happiness and fulfillment.
Jesus explains, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
Most people on the planet are following their desires outward to the world. They are lost in their story of me and mine—the path of destruction and disillusionment. These are the Christians that stare at the finger of Jesus and forget to look where he is pointing.
Why is it that so few people find the narrow gate that leads to life? Where is it? It is in the very last place you would think to look—Your own heart?!
What do you discover when you look deeply into the source of life?
What do you discover when you look deeply into your heart?
