Edited from her Public Meeting in Mendocino,
CA October 7th, 2001 AM The day the bombing began in Afghanistan
"We meet in hell as well as heaven"
One of the dangers of a spiritual life is the ego¹s use of
the concept of spiritual life as a means to escape heartbreak, to
escape difficulty, to avoid the horrors of the repetition of the patterns
of hatred, revenge, and war. To escape hell. Often the desire for
transcendence becomes bigger than the willingness to let the heart
open in the full meeting of all. All, all of it-- the full human calamity
as well as the full human beauty.
I have often said in meetings that the invitation from Papaji
and from Ramana is to stop. What that stop requires is the willingness
to see that there is no escape. To recognize no escape is to be stripped
naked of comforting beliefs and concepts. To be willing to be naked
to oneself is to recognize the impulse of mental activity‹worldly
or spiritual‹concerning escaping, running, hiding, or fighting. All
of us must know these habits of escape personally, and we can see
now that we all know them collectively as well. To attempt to escape
flames or bombs is natural and right.
To attempt to escape repeatedly, throughout our lives, throughout
any one day, the hatred, the fear, the human animal aggression, the
tribal, religious, natural instinct to control, to conquer, and to
direct is to keep the power of these primitive impulses hidden and
extremely dangerous to all. To attempt to escape hatred is to act
out hatred. To attempt to escape fear is to live a life revolving
around fear.
For each of us to be willing to stop now, (as Ramana stopped
in the face of death) is for each of us to take responsibility for
the truth that we are one Self. To stop the fantasies of future escape,
whether those fantasies take the form of an infantile image of heaven
or an infantile image of enlightenment. To actually be willing to
be here, where you are, in the midst of it all. This stopping is the
possibility revealed through true investigation, true meeting. And
the greater that willingness, the greater the capacity for being even
more fully here, in the midst, in the center, of it all.
Finally there is without a doubt the realization that there
is no need to escape‹whatever appears here can be borne here. Can
be met. In that meeting, in this meeting, and every full meeting,
there is the deeper unspeakable, undefinable, un-teachable revelation
of Truth. In a world instant like this one, it is possible to recognize
the emptiness and absurdity of our personal stories and to meet the
bigger story, the collective repressed emotions and indulged emotions
that arise from identification of one versus another.
The attempt to jump into the cosmic divine story to avoid the
horror that is appearing in the world story, is the ego¹s use of the
spiritual life. The truth that can be learned, memorized, and pulled
out in times of need is not the living truth. It is at best a beautiful
reminder to stop now, and tell the truth here.
For some the apparent truth may be emotional, for others it
may be mental, for others a numbness. Whatever is appearing, in whatever
form, is a vehicle for true investigation, for true meeting, for true
self-inquiry. True self-inquiry is not escape and does not produce
comforting platitudes. True self-inquiry is the invitation through
what is known (mentally, emotionally, physically, circumstantially)
into what is unknown. The result in either action or non-action is
then not a result dictated by the familiar habits of escape.
Now. Here. In this moment of time." --- Gangaji