September/October 2003 Featured Stories
Already Immortal

by Gangaji

"Most of human endeavor is directed toward attempting to keep what will eventually be lost."

Whether consciously or unconsciously, most humans are actively endeavoring to keep whatever it is they like—their youth, their health, pleasure, understanding, power, lovers, bliss, and so on. Of course along with attempting to keep are the attempts to keep away aging, illness, confusion, helplessness, loneliness, misery, and so on. In all the mental effort to keep whatever is subject to loss, there is suffering. In fact, the attempt to keep what will be lost is the basis for most suffering. Ultimately, there is the attempt to keep away death or to "keep" eternal life.

In the interest of discovering real freedom, it can be very useful to investigate what it is you are trying to keep or what it is you are afraid to lose. Self-investigation is the act of finally meeting the force that drives all of one’s thoughts and strategies of the mind. That force is the fear of loss.

If there is within you some degree of maturity or spiritual ripening, you can easily recognize the futility of trying to keep what will surely be lost. It is not difficult to remember that you have had moments of health, pleasure, understanding, power, romantic love, and maybe even ecstasy—and any particular moment has always been lost. When desired events are lost, usually the search begins in the hope of getting something even greater, something that possibly cannot be lost.

By the time I met my teacher, I had finally recognized that all my accomplishments and all my powers were still subject to loss, and the attempt to keep them was the basis of my suffering. I saw that a continual level of effort was needed to maintain what I thought I had, to strive to get whatever I hoped I might still get, and to keep at bay whatever I thought might take away what I thought I had. This effort takes a surprising amount of attention. Much of the mental maintenance of the supposed status quo goes on subconsciously—monitoring, evaluating, ranking, comparing, and judging, over and over, day and night. The tragedy in all of this effort is that what gets overlooked is what is already eternal, what can never be lost, what is already here.

You may have heard certain spiritual statements such as, "Silence is always here," "Awareness is always here," or "Awareness is who you are." And you may have experienced at least a glimpse of these truths. But any glimpse of truth will also be lost because it is still an experience. All experience appears, exists for some time, and then disappears. Usually then the mind scrambles to get that experience back or to attain another, better, bigger experience.

Once this mental cycle goes around many hundreds or even thousands of times, a certain disillusionment can set in. This kind of disillusionment is very necessary because it allows the maturation of mind. In a mature mind, there can actually be the willingness and the fortitude to tell the truth. And the truth is ruthless. It is relentless. The truth is that you will lose your youth, you will lose your health, you will lose your pleasure, your understanding, your lovers, your husband, your wife, your children, and finally your senses and your body. You will lose everything. And because deep inside you know that this is true, there is usually a subconscious, desperate grasping at the hope, "Maybe not me. Maybe not!"

Any glimpse of truth will also be lost because it is an experience.

All experience appears, exists for some time, and then disappears.

Eventually, all will be lost. At some point, unknown in time, your life will come to an end, and with it all your relationships and experiences, defeats and victories, accumulations and attainments. Everything will be gone. This is true for everyone.

In the past, it was a great rarity when someone stepped forth to speak of what is eternal, of what cannot be lost, of what is already the truth of who one is. In general, these great, rare beings are all misunderstood because the way that most people hear them is based on the hope: "If I get what this great being is saying, then I will have what this great being has, and it can never be taken away from me, it will be irrevocable." Then, one’s energy becomes directed toward trying to get something, or trying to figure something out. I invite you to do neither. I invite you to simply investigate directly within to see what is true.

If for one moment you will allow the experience of losing everything, really losing everything, you can tell the radical truth of what is always present. You can understand directly, for yourself, what those great beings were pointing to. You will understand the scriptures and the sutras as an overflowing of your own experience, not as something to get or to remember or to work toward, but as a song of what is eternally present.

Eternal life is present for you now. You have the capacity to realize this because you are this that realizes Itself. What was rare in the past need not be rare now. It is a horribly limited superstition to believe that since it has been rare, it must continue to be rare. This superstition is a thought-form that keeps your mind encased in denial and hope, encased in the continual overlooking of what is already immortal, what is present in this moment, now and always. This immortality is what your body and personality and character traits appear in and disappear in, yet what remains eternally present as the core of your being. The truth of who you are is both one and all. All form is appearing in you. All emotions are appearing in you. All phenomena are appearing and disappearing in you.

The attention, energy, and time that have been spent trying to "get" something can be released, set free. This freed energy can be used for deeper self-exploration. Your mind can be used for a deeper exploration of the endlessness of what is already immortal, already presently here, already the truth of who you are—Eternal Life.

[The above article is an excerpt from a public meeting with Gangaji on Maui, Hawaii, November 11, 2000. It was recently produced as a segment on a new video compilation of selected monologues and interactions with Gangaji entitled: Untouched By Any Power.]

Gangaji, a teacher, author, mother, and grandmother, travels the globe responding to the deepest spiritual questions of our times. She offers the rare and profound opportunity to immediately discover the truth of who you are. Welcoming you into the very core of your own heart, she extends an open invitation to simply, consciously, and effortlessly recognize yourself as that which you have been seeking throughout time.

Gangaji will offer public meetings in Ashland, OR, at the Windmill Inn, 2525 Ashland Street on Oct. 18 & 19, 4:00 p.m.; and in Portland on Oct 21 & 22 at the Kaul Auditorium, Reed College, SE 28th & Woodstock; and a Weekend Intensive on Oct. 25 & 26 at the same location. For further information about Gangaji or to register for the Intensive, contact The Gangaji Foundation, 800-267-9205, or visit her website at www.gangaji.org.