The unraveling of this great charade called "me and my life" happened through grace when I met an American spiritual teacher named Gangaji. A truly radiant being, she is from the lineage of one of the most respected sages of this century, Sri Ramana Maharshi. When we met in 1994, she welcomed me into her heart so completely that I was never to be the same again. In an instant the grace she transmitted cut through aeons of conditioning, exposing the spiritual Heart within me. This is not my physical or emotional heart; it is the source and support of all that exists. What my teacher's teacher, Papaji, calls, "the Heart of my Heart."nnYet I must also say that nothing changed. How can one put into words a silent encounter?nnDuring our first meeting at satsang her voice, gaze, and silence commanded my rapt attention. A most attractive aura of "needing nothing" emanated from her. With my own eyes or with my inner eye I saw a shining golden radiance illuminating the entire auditorium. The sun I saw ablaze inside her, was also ablaze inside me and inside the vast room. In the most mysterious way this fire of truth ruthlessly and completely burned up every layer of false identification I held with my mind. A secret portal to reality suddenly opened. My mind stopped. I saw and experienced myself as free of all thoughts. Free of all habits. Free of any "thing."nnMeeting Gangaji permanently dissolved the "me" I thought I was, and revealed that which is too elusive and too immediately present to be known or not known. The revelation of The Beloved is transmitted silently heart-to-heart. And as Papaji says, "leaves no tracks."nnGangaji showed me the eternal stillness of God that is always present and has always been present, yet is usually overlooked. Pristinely reflected in her, I saw my own infinite Self. The day we met, like the Beloved speaking to the Lover she said, "We called each other," giving voice to the longing of my own Heart. We both recognized that I was in the right place.nnI quickly discovered that the Love awakened in our meeting was without a doubt the most serious, the most precious, the deepest and most demanding Love I have ever known. There is nothing casual about this Love. It demands everything. That doesn't mean what you think it means. I'm speaking of non-abidance in the mind anywhere. I never wanted a guru, yet by some great blessing, I found Gangaji, who enticed me into her Heart. I never imagined I would ever be one of those willing to give everything to her guru. Nor did I imagine that in reality this is only about giving everything to no one other than Oneself. The term guru means "remover of darkness."nnIn being true to this Love I have had to give up all strategies which my mind had designed to evade an imagined black hole. The all-consuming darkness had to be faced. I thought my survival depended on avoiding this abyss of nothingness. But it was precisely this thought that kept me from what I really wanted. Who am I without my images, ideas or stories of myself? I thought I would be nothing, and then discovered that I am nothing. Not the nothing that the mind conjures up as an image of nothing, but the unseeable unknowable living presence, Awareness Aware of its Awareness.nnIn the Wachowski Brothers 1999 film, The Matrix, the two main characters speak about discovering who the Seer is.nn"I don't like the idea of not being in control of my life," Neo says to Morpheous.nn"You know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life — that there is something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there like a splinter in your mind driving you mad," Morpheous replies. "It's everywhere," he continues, "it's all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."nn"What truth?" asks Neo.nn"That you are a slave. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. No one can be told what it is. You have to see it for yourself" Morpheous says.nnThis is an invitation to open your mind to the freest breath of God and to close the door to everything except this flame of freedom. Gangaji extended this invitation to me and now I extend it to you. The peace that she revealed to me as Me is not a mental concept, but a direct experience of That which is always present. It is here, now. The core of my being, she showed me, is the core of your being.nnWho you really are is free, but this secret cannot be understood by your mind. The invitation is to check it out for yourself. Simply investigate this "I" thought. Look all the way into this "I" that you think you are and see the Seer. This grace is appearing in your life right now, to penetrate the illusion of separation. And this grace is endless. The resolve and continual willingness required to see the subtle ways the ego avoids annihilation need not be rare.nnTo all who are sick of the suffering of the separate self; to all who are tired of worshiping the same old story of who you imagine yourself to be; to all who are repeating the same habits over and over again, expecting different results even while indulging in the same old story; to all who have had glimpses of the radiant infinity in the heart of being; to all who feel a great longing to be free — I offer this account of meeting Gangaji. This is a true story of the Fire of Truth, of the burning up of the identification with the mind, of the end of suffering and the end of a sufferer.
www.caveoftheheart.com