Gangaji

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Spirituality Expert

Quick Facts

Main Areas: Spirituality; Self-Inquiry
Career Focus: Author; Spiritual Teacher
Affiliation: The Gangaji Foundation

Gangaji is a spiritual teacher who shares the path of freedom through simple and direct self-inquiry. Born Antoinette Roberson in 1942, she searched for personal happiness and pursued many different things to change her life, including political activism and a career as an English teacher. However, her longing remained, and she made a prayer for help.

In 1990, her prayer was answered. Her husband, Eli Jaxon-Bear, went to India and discovered a teacher named Sri H.W.L. Poonja, also known as Papaji. Eli invited Gangaji to India to sit with this teacher, who was a disciple of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Gangaji’s suffering ended upon meeting Papaji, and she discovered the source of true fulfillment.

Since that time, Gangaji has traveled the world, holding gatherings and retreats with spiritual seekers of all faiths. She tells her story in her autobiography, Just Like You. Gangaji has many video groups worldwide. The Gangaji Foundation offers many scholarships, and her teachings are available free of charge on public access television in various cities throughout the United States.

Other Programs & Highlights

Gangaji first appeared on public access television in Hawaii. Today, she is on TV in over 70 communities. Her nonprofit organization, The Gangaji Foundation, was established in 1993 to make her teaching available to anyone interested. It began with a small group in the basement of the first executive director’s home, and today it is a worldwide network of volunteers.

Favorite Quotes & Thoughts from

• Recognize the power of mind, respect the power of mind. And also recognize the power behind the power, the ocean holding the wave. Recognize yourself as the ocean, with your stories, your feelings, as waves. Waves can be beautiful or terrifying, but always they return to the ocean. Every wave always is made up of the ocean. No wave can ever be separate from the ocean. Waves of thoughts, waves of emotions, waves of sensations, waves of events, are all made up of consciousness. And all return to consciousness, while never being separate from consciousness. And if this becomes another story, let this go, and see what is true.

• You are here. However you imagine yourself to be, you are here. Imagine yourself as a body, you are here. Imagine yourself as God, you are here. Imagine yourself as worthless, superior, nothing at all, you are still here. My suggestion is that you stop all imagining, here.

• Revelation is beyond doctrines and belief systems. It is beyond everything imaginable. It is beyond because it is so close. Revelation is more direct than every word, for it arises out of the truth of who you are. This truth is all you have ever longed for, all you have ever needed.

• Be still and know yourself as the Truth you have been searching for. Be still and let the inherent joy of that Truth capture your drama and destroy it in the bliss of consummation. Be still and let your life be lived by the purpose you were made for. Be still and receive the inherent truth of your heart.

• The most sublime truth of all has never been stated or written or sung, not because it is far away and can’t be reached but because it is so intimately close, closer than anything that can be spoken.

• I want to make sure you know you are not who you think you are.

• What I have to offer is very simple. It has nothing to do with acquiring any special powers or any state of mind. It is about recognizing what is already permanently here, in every moment, every situation, and every state of mind, and yet is ungraspable by the mind.

Getting Started With

The best way to get started with Gangaji is by watching or listening to her. She offers a wide variety of video and audio programs on her website (www.gangaji.org), where you can listen to samples of her programs before you buy them. Go to the site, click on “Reading Room,” and then choose “Listening Library.”

The first program that I would recommend is titled The Invitation, which is available in either an audio or video version. This and many other of Gangaji’s compilations can be purchased through the website by clicking on “Bookstore” and choosing “Compilations.” The Invitation is best described in this section of the site. The description is as follows:

Have you looked everywhere for fulfillment? In relationships, spirituality, health, self-image? Have you found what matters most? At the very heart of Gangaji’s message is the simple yet radical invitation to stop looking outside yourself for resolution and simply be willing, just in this moment, to see what is already here. This compilation of crystalline monologues is the encouragement, the support, and the inspiration to finally accept the invitation of your soul’s deepest longing. Beyond any belief about yourself, closer than any joy or sorrow, more immediate than either sickness or health, is the endlessly fulfilling truth of who you are.

While at www.gangaji.org, also go to her “Reading Room” and check out her work in print. Gangaji offers an array of inspiring articles, poems, letters, and book excerpts.