Welcome to satsang.

Today’s topic will bring greater understanding to a question that is asked very often, about the block to peace. Often we think of it as fear, but you will see that it isn’t - it is what causes the fear, and also what prevents us from growing spiritually. I have seen so many people on the spiritual path repeating the same problems and questions over and over again, never seeming to make headway no matter how much they study or read or practice spirituality. The solution is in the understanding you are going to receive today.

First of all, in order to understand the block to peace, let’s discuss peace for a moment. People usually immediately think of peace of mind when we bring up the topic of peace. Peace of mind is a misnomer. There is no such thing as peace of mind because the mind’s nature is to think, to figure out. It’s active, always dealing with yesterday and tomorrow. You cannot stop the mind. Peace is beyond the mind.

Here’s a way to understand peace that is very simple. Think of the word “attention”. You might wonder how I am going to link the two, “attention” with “peace”. See the simplicity of it, because the simpler something is, the more you are able to grasp it, the clearer it is, and the more you can embody it in your everyday life.

You are always paying attention. You cannot ever stop paying attention to whatever you are thinking about. If you think about something you want, longing becomes part of your whole makeup. It can’t be helped. If you think about how something is wrong and pay attention to that, then you will be imbued with the thought of wrong and negativity. That also can’t be helped. Whatever you pay attention to, you become. If at the moment you are worried about your health, you cannot think about anything else - you are totally concerned with it. If you think you are having a heart attack, you can’t pay attention to your kids or anything else, because your attention is totally on your heart.

So it’s very clear that you are paying attention to something all the time. All the time! And you are what you are paying attention to. But we never stop to ask, “Who is the one paying attention? What is attention?”

Now, if you understand what attention is, that’s peace. You are always paying attention to something, but attention itself beyond the object of attention is itself peace. If you can grasp the simplicity of this right now, you will understand what peace is. The one who is paying attention is clear, pure, and untouched by what is being paid attention to. But the attention is so powerful - so incredibly, staggeringly, potentially unlimited in its power, that whatever you pay attention to, you become. That is your power.

But you never stop to look at the power of attention itself. And it is only then that you begin to harness the tremendous energy that you are, only when you can detach from the subject of your attention and just be that attention. Then whatever you want to pay attention to, you become. Attention itself beyond its object is eternal. It is always present, always there.

Now, let’s talk about what is blocking our ability to be aware of that attention. Paying attention to attention is the crux of the matter. Those who have mastered this are the spiritual greats, Jesus and Buddha and Krishna. They were pure attention, pure peace, pure joy, pure love, pure heaven, everything, complete. Today we are going to talk about why very few ever become aware of this particular block.

But before I can mention that block, let us go back to what we covered before about the question without an answer, so we can better grasp it. To make it very brief, all of us have a question inside ourselves, and this question is always seeking an answer. This question is often felt inside as something missing, or feeling that you are not good enough, that there is something wrong. In the beginning, not only are we not aware that there is a question beating in our breast, we also don’t know that there is no answer. So we go around seeking.

The interesting thing about this, and the perfect mystery of life, is that this question has to arise because it is part of the evolution of consciousness. If it wasn’t there, we would never want to be better or improve, or seek something greater. So it’s part of the movement forward. It is the heart seeking itself.

Initially, we seek through the world, and we do this until we realize that the world cannot give us what we truly want, which is in the heart itself. So we go around in circles not knowing that we are seeking ourselves.

Every question you have inside you comes from this one primal question. It becomes a host of unresolved questions that translate into emotional pain and negativity. There isn’t one human being, unless they are awakened, who does not have this sense of incompleteness or discomfort. There is always a feeling in the background that something is missing. That feeling, if we begin to battle against it and take it personally, becomes many unresolved questions. These unresolved questions could actually lead to mental dysfunction.

So understand that every negativity is a question. Anxiety is wondering what is going to happen. Worry and anger are the same thing. All negative feeling is a question. “Why is this happening to me?” “ You don’t understand me!”

When this seeking for an answer starts to come forth, we begin to verbalize these questions. This the next stage. This begins to release the questions that are pent-up inside. The first questions we ask are similar to these, “Why is this happening to me?” “Is something wrong with me?” “I want an answer!” “I want to know why I act this way.” “I want to understand myself.” This is how it usually starts.

But then, every time we get an answer, we say, “Oh, I see, interesting,” and we are temporarily satisfied. And the next morning the pattern will repeat, the same negativity and problems. So we raise another question, which brings a temporary answer that makes us feel good for a few hours, and the next day we start repeating it all over again. It can’t be helped. It is incredible how this pattern works. I have seen it in others throughout the years and in myself.

So a question leads to an answer, and the answer, in turn, leads to a deeper question. This deeper question leads to a deeper answer, and this answer leads to another question. Do you know that this never ends? It cannot end, because there is no answer. This is something that very few people are aware of. That’s why satsangs are important, because you can hear the truth in a direct manner. We are always thinking that there has to be an answer.

Finally, hopefully you are so interested in truth and want the answer so much, and you are so incredibly moved and touched by what is real and lasting, that you realize one very important thing which you never looked at before - that there is only here and now. The moment you realize this, you become intimate with the moment. This means that if I don’t experience what I am feeling now, I can never know the truth.

Intimacy with the moment also means that there is no more seeking, because seeking is always for tomorrow, for the answer in the future. So the next step is to stop seeking an answer, even though we still think there is an answer, and start understanding the questions. When we ask a question, instead of seeking the answer, we try to understand the question itself. This is called the inquiry approach.

When we go into this approach, questioning the question, we are doing something that the mind doesn’t want to do. What is the nature of the ordinary mind in its limited consciousness? It wants an answer. It desires an answer so much that it is not satisfied until it finds an answer.

But you have now come to the point where you know that unless you understand the question, you cannot break through it. So by questioning the question, you are defying your own mind, so to speak. You are going beyond the limits of where your mind can take you. This is what is meant when the teachers say that the mind becomes absorbed in the heart. The mind and the heart become one. It is through the mind that you can form questions, but through the heart is the only way to know the answer. Of course there is no answer, and we are now going to see why. It is very beautiful.

So when the mind is exhausted, you go into the heart. The moment you go into the heart and begin to feel the silence of the moment, that is the answer. But it isn’t a specific answer, only silence itself. Just like the Course in Miracles says, that the Holy Spirit is the only answer. What is the Holy Spirit? Holy means whole, complete; and Spirit is spirit. It means the silence of the moment, the totality of now, attention without an object. You go right into the source of what is making everything do what it does.

Here you begin to understand the most important thing there is to understand - that whatever you did in your life, whatever you thought or however you behaved, you never were the doer. It was your heart doing it all. The moment you move into the source, consciousness, the Holy Spirit, pure attention itself, you realize that attention did everything. When you felt negative, it was because you were dwelling on negativity. When you were a victim, you were dwelling on victimhood, limitation.

You begin to see that whatever you were paying attention to, you were acting from. It was attention doing it all through you, but you decided what to put the attention on. The only choice we have is to choose this or that, fear or love. Whatever we focus on, we become. But the very focus, the awareness itself, is who we are, consciousness. And that does everything. The moment you realize this, you realize peace. You realize that peace has no answer at all, it just IS.

Now we see that as long as you are seeking an answer, you can never have peace. Why is that? This is something that mundane psychology doesn’t even touch. Why does seeking an answer lead to lack of peace? Let us find out why.

The need for answers, first of all, creates a stuckness. We repeat the same things over and over again. “Why is this happening to me?” You are stuck because every time you seek an answer, it leads to another question, and so forth. And because it never stops, you are stuck. But more than that, it creates an unsatisfied longing which leads to greater problems. Because as long as you need an answer, you won’t be satisfied until you get it. But because there is no answer, you are left unsatisfied. What happens when you have an unsatisfied feeling? You reject the very thing you want most.

How does this happen? What is one thing we want most, especially in a relationship? Intimacy, right? But when you want answers, when you need answers because you haven’t realized that there is no answer, what happens when you want intimacy? You become afraid of it, because there is always a dissatisfaction there. So you become restless, which is also a fear of exposing yourself.

One of our fears, for example, is that when you get close enough to someone that they know the truth about you, they won’t love you any more. This is a result of rejecting what we want most because of the lingering dissatisfaction which comes from needing answers.

Similarly, if you crave material things and think that having enough things will make you happy, after you have bought everything the world can offer you, you still want more and more. Whatever you think will make you happy, when you have it happiness will elude you. As long as you want answers, you will never be satisfied. If you want success, same thing. So many people strive after success. But if you ask a successful person if he is happy with his success, you will find they always want more success. They can never be satisfied with the success they have. Even if they feel successful in the moment, there is something greater they want. You cannot be in the moment, because as long as there is the need for an answer, there is a need for more and more.

So now we come to the most important point. Can we stop seeking answers? No. So what do we do then? [waits for response]

Q: Stop asking questions.

A: Can you stop asking questions? No!

Q: Just let things be.

A: How do you let things be if there is a question inside you that is longing to be revealed?

Q: Look for peace, be content with the way things are.

A: What you are saying is true. But can you make it happen that way? You see, as long as there is a need for an answer, there is no way you can stop it. You’ve got to strive and work it through. Because it is not you who is doing it! It is the evolution process moving you, pushing you forward.

Q: As long as you keep on trying to figure out what the answer is and keep on delving, you can never have peace.

A: You can never have peace! Never.

Q: Caught between a rock and a hard place.

A: That’s right. So the point is, how can you satisfy that longing, how can you satisfy that lack of an answer and still reach a point of peace, without even trying? In other words, you can’t help seeking an answer, but what can you do to stop seeking answers and feel satisfaction in the moment?

Q: Usually an answer that you are searching for is beyond the now, so if you consciously live in the now, you should reach a point of peace and the answer should take care of itself.

A: Yes. Very good. The way we can do it is this. I discovered and started applying this a few years ago, and I wanted to scream to the world that it’s so simple, please try it. After I read every book you can think of on metaphysics, philosophy and psychology, I came to the point of realizing that they are all saying the same thing. I realized that words do not give you peace. They give you intellectual understanding, but they do not give you peace. They do not give you a feeling of satisfaction.

Then I learned something very precious. I asked myself what is it that I really know beyond a shadow of a doubt, not from what I have read or studied or from what people have told me, or even from what Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] has taught me. Apart from all that, what do I really know deep inside? And one of the things that I knew was that I exist, and I know that I exist. Truly, that was the most revealing thing. I think at that point things really began to change for me. I realized fully that I know nothing except that I exist; but that existence, that “I am” is everything and everyone. That was a revelation.

When you have a question, remember the question is not a simple one. Whatever you ask is never simple. It is always a very complex thing. Why? Because it carries a tremendous story with it, not only one story, but sometimes many stories, stemming from the subconscious, from childhood, and gathered from all that has happened to you since then.

There are two things that I recommend people do. You can do them with a tape recorder or through writing. If you like writing, then I suggest that. I always suggest to my clients that they write.

Write down the question that is bothering you, and keep writing. You might write a whole page, and you will find that you come up with all kinds of justifications, how you are going to fix it, and so forth. Keep talking to yourself on paper the whole time. After you have it all out of your system, please try this - it takes dedication, but it is really worthwhile. After you have written for a while on this question and you feel like stopping, stop. Read what you have written and ask yourself, “What am I trying to say here? What really is the question I am asking?” Then you start to edit. Go through all the justifications, all the reasons you gave, and throw them all out. Then throw out the story that goes along with it. “Well, because of this and because of that, and no wonder I am asking this question...” and so forth. Throw it out. What are you really asking?

Then you come up with one statement, only one. This one outstanding statement is your living question, uniquely yours. This is the question you have been asking all the time without realizing it, that was creating all your problems. It is quite a revelation to discover that. This particular question is totally unique, but the only way to discover it is to do a lot of writing. Now, when you come up with this one question, the mind immediately wants to give it an answer. Stop at that point and relax. Look at your question, your short statement, totally relaxed, and close your eyes. You can quiet the mind by listening to the sounds all around you. Then after ten or fifteen minutes of total silence and total relaxation during which you were not thinking about the question, when you feel that your whole body is smiling, open your eyes and look at the question again. Remember that in those ten or fifteen minutes you have not been thinking about the question.

At that point you can receive something very exciting. Either at that moment, or that night, or the next day, you will have an insight into the question. I guarantee it! I promise you that, because it has worked for me and with my dedicated clients, and when it does you will have a revelation into your true nature.

You might say, “Is that the answer?” No, that isn’t the answer. But you have understood the question through your silence. The understanding of the question releases it and brings so much insight that you will wonder why something so simple has never been told you. That, incidentally, is called inner guidance.

Are there any questions about why we get stuck? Because we simply cannot not seek an answer. And as long as you want an answer, you are going to get an answer. You have to keep going until you have exhausted it. Everybody has this, an unsettling feeling, something that nags you. If they don’t, they’re awakened spiritually. That’s what peace is, the absence of that unsettling feeling, when you don’t have a question any longer.

Perhaps there is something that you can’t even verbalize, something you’ve never asked anybody, something you’ve kept inside that is very secret. Maybe you’ve never even known it was there. But you want to release it. So take a notebook and write. Keep writing about this feeling. Keep writing and writing, don’t stop until you’re hand actually stops by itself. You might end up with one page, or three or ten pages. It doesn’t matter, just keep writing. This definitely takes dedication.

You might find yourself writing answers, too, which is another game of the mind. It doesn’t satisfy you, of course, but keep writing anyway. And after you have written a few pages or whatever, read it over again very carefully and ask yourself what were you trying to say through all this. Then it will start to formulate a little bit more. Edit all the stories, justifications, excuses, and games. The pages will be full of it. Do this until you come up with what you are really asking, one simple question made up of ten or fifteen words at the most.

At this point you might ask if that is an answer. No. The point is to stop. Stop all activity and just relax.

Q: Is it possible that after you’ve done all that and sorted it all out and put down what you thought was the question, and you go into this silence and come back and look at the question and you think, “What was the problem? There is no question.”

A: Yes, most of the time it is like that. But it could happen that you won’t have an immediate answer. Of course, it’s not an answer. It’s the understanding of the question. It can come so clearly, but if it doesn’t, just leave it and go about your business. You will find that it will come that evening, during the night, the next night, or the next morning. You could be driving, walking down the street, or in a park. You could be playing with your dog. It doesn’t matter. You could be doing anything and you’ll have an insight, and it’s clear, crystal clear! You might ask if that is an answer. No! It’s the understanding of what is happening. This is not an answer, but a clarification of what was bugging you.

Please understand that when we talk about answers, we are talking about a specific set of words, an intellectual understanding of a question. What we are aiming for is a question that is fully clarified, to the point where the question no longer exists and it does not raise another question.

Q: So is this like uncovering a core issue?

A: Exactly. There is only one core issue. Let’s discuss that. Everything we suffer from, everything, is a fear. It doesn’t matter what you call it. Anxiety, boredom, fatigue, frustration, depression, it’s all fear. To make it simple, all fears come from one primal fear. There is only one fear that creates all other fears. This is the fear of ego death.

Each unique expression of life has one core issue regarding the fear of ego death. It could be anything that you have suffered that means ego death to you. For example let’s say as a child you’ve been beaten severely and abused. So you’ve developed a tremendous fear of abuse, of being taken advantage of. Whenever someone abuses you, it triggers your core issue because it represents to you the death of your ego.

Or, for example suppose you’ve been abandoned as a child. Maybe your mother left you when you were a baby and now you suffer a tremendous fear of rejection. Every time a friend stops calling you or a neighbor stops talking to you, you suffer these pangs of rejection. This has become your core issue. It all relates to the fear of ego death, but the way it expresses in you is the core issue. The core issue relates to that primal question, the question that creates all the stuff that is happening in your life, all of it. It can lead to many physical and emotional problems as well.

We all have this core issue until we are spiritually awakened. To get in touch with that core issue is actually to get the point of facing your own ego death. That’s how spiritually uplifting it is, so beautiful.

Q: That’s the only way to be.

A: The only way to be. But the point to remember is not to seek an answer to that core issue. Merely understand it until it dies. Write about it and be very clear. Get it all out of your system. But many people when they write about it, it takes three or four times before they get to the core issue. They write continuously justifying their story. It takes a while to actually get to the core issue. Then, after you’ve written quite a bit, ask what you are trying to say.

You’ll find after you’ve written three or four pages that you are repeating the same things, the same justifications and stories. If you were to read a diary that you write every day, you would find a pattern, which is your core issue. What are you really asking? What is your major question? The moment you get in touch with that, stop without seeking an answer. Go into your total silence, your total essence. Go into the very source and it will be revealed.

Q: Can the question change?

A: The questions change but the core issue remains the same.

Q: That was my other question.

A: The questions change. It could be a hundred different questions, but you’ll find you’re always asking the same thing. You are always going back to the same thing. You can’t help it, and every one of us has that core issue.

Q: So in a sense, that core issue is the summary of your entire past as an ego.

A: Very good. You come to a point in your silence where the question itself becomes so clear, like “I am OK.” This is the feeling that will come. It doesn’t come as an answer, but you have to do it. It has to come through direct experience. This is the main point. If you just listen to me, I can only trigger you.

But when you do it, you will begin to find for yourself that actually there was no answer. You begin to feel that you’re OK, despite what you thought was happening, despite your fear and everything else. It was just stuff happening to you, just a story. But that is something that will come to you when you allow yourself to go into the silence beyond the answer. And then the question falls away. When it falls away, it will never come up again, and that’s a promise.

Q: Why is that important, to write it down?

A: To clear it. You see, the mind is full of stories, justifications, excuses, games and pretenses in order to keep itself alive. It wants to protect itself by keeping the ego alive because the story is the personal self. Without the personal self, there is ego death. My goodness, there is nothing!

Q: Emptiness.

A: Which is love - emptiness is love! That’s why we are afraid of love! Now do you understand why we are so afraid of love in our relationships? We want to be intimate, but the moment we start to become intimate, we start to shake. I have had men and women tell me that they want intimacy in a relationship so badly, but when they go into a relationship, they can only go to a certain point. They cannot go all the way. What’s keeping them back? They are keeping themselves back, afraid of ego death. They are afraid of that exposure, of being revealed, because they think they are that core issue. You see, this is who you think you are.

So until you expose it all through writing or talking about it, and I suggest writing because then you can go over it in detail and edit it, you begin to form it into just one question. The answer might be there for you, but stop seeking the answer. Just give it over to the Holy Spirit. Go into total silence. Then you begin to get insights.

This is what I do every week to get these scripts, and these things that I discuss every week or two weeks here, I have never read anyplace else. What I do is go and say to Bhagavan, “Tell me all about this.” And then it starts coming, and it becomes a flood. Sometimes it comes early in the morning and I have to get up early and start writing it down. And even as I write it down, the clarity and simplicity of it becomes a unique approach.

If there was one message that I would like to share with everybody during satsang, it is to please learn to listen to your own inner heart. You can listen to these talks, and they are beautiful and can be life-changing, but you can change your life even more by learning to listen to your own inner guidance. Nothing can replace that. Because once you know something in yourself, you know it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Nobody can convince you otherwise, no one.

Q: So basically we are all OK. It’s just the ego won’t let us be; it puts the barriers up. So we’re all OK.

A: Oh, yes, absolutely.

Q: And when we get to that point, the ego is dead and finished, and we can be at peace. So what’s the problem?

A: There has never been one!

Q: The only problem is that we don’t feel OK.

A: We don’t feel OK because the core issue has not been cleansed, released.

Q: We can tell ourselves we’re OK, and all kinds of religions tell us that.

A: We can repeat to ourselves, “I’m OK, I’m OK, I’m OK,” and it does help up to a point. But you have to learn to live it, and the only way to learn to live it is by knowing it through direct experience.

Q: No matter how many times you read it or how many people tell you, it doesn’t work until you know it.

A: That’s right, until you know it.

Q: So if you are of the Catholic persuasion, is the core issue like original sin?

A: You can say that. Let’s discuss that because you see, if you accept your imperfection, you are perfect at that moment. That is the game, the paradox. God did not make us imperfect. God cannot even think imperfection, because God is attention. God IS. God is consciousness, awareness, the heart.

We have to talk about it in the sense of evolution. Consciousness, in order to know itself, has to create a form, and that form then gets to know itself. God can only know Himself, Itself, through His creation. Consciousness IS, it’s collective. But when consciousness manifests in a given form called a human being, that human being can elevate himself to the point that he realizes not only is he conscious, but he is aware that he is conscious. He can even know he is that consciousness itself. That is called cosmic consciousness. That is the evolution of consciousness.

Now, to come to that point is the whole purpose, the whole movement of life is to know itself. So imperfection is just like a child learning to walk. It has to fall a few times, get hurt, get up, and finally start walking. Just like everything else. There is a certain amount of pain and suffering within the learning process. But eventually you must realize that nothing was imperfect. It was just perfection not seen in its totality, striving for itself. Imperfection is perfection.

Q: There is only perfection?

A: When you say imperfection, give me an example and I’ll show you the true perfection of it. Give me any statement at all.

Q: Being caught in the illusion of being the body.

A: OK, being caught in the belief that we are the body. We are not even doing that, either, because that is the instinct of survival. So that is not imperfection because we need that sense of survival in order to know our individuality. But when we begin to know our individuality, we realize there was never an individual. Just like the egg is needed for the chicken to hatch, but the chick has to break it to live and grow. You don’t call the egg imperfection, because it was leading to perfection. You find the same with every imperfection, every fear.

Study every fear that you think is imperfect. Get to know a fear and you will find that it is just a need for love. All fears are the same, all of them. Every fear is a craving for love. So imperfection is our way of getting back to our perfection. The opposites are one, but there is only one.

Q: It is the fears that move us back to love.

A: Yes! There is nothing wrong with fear. It is resisting the fear that moves people into the insane asylum. The moment we have a fear, you say, “This is wrong. I shouldn’t have this fear.” That is how you judge yourself. The moment you start judging yourself, you start hating yourself. Now it starts compounding because fear is a chain reaction. What we are causing is a cycle of suffering. So we need to stop. There are no answers. There are no answers to life. There is only understanding the perfection of the moment. And the perfection of the moment means the imperfection is included in it.

Say I am here now, experiencing tremendous fear. The moment I become intimate with it, I begin to realize that it is life craving to know itself. through fear. The moment I get in touch with it, I realize that the imperfection is really the need for perfection. This is how opposites become one. A human being is made up of opposites, human/limitation/imperfection, and being. The two have to become one, one cannot deny the other.

It is true that the human cannot exist without the being. Like for example, I ask, “Who are you?” If you are the average person, you may say, “Well, I am George, a teacher.” This is natural and normal. The imperfection is always, always dealing with the past. The past is suffering.

But now see it this way. Say you are suffering from amnesia, total and absolute. You don’t even know who you are. You don’t even know your name. Are you still you? Of course. But take away the now from you. Where are you? You never existed, which is absurd and impossible. You can take away the past, you can suffer from amnesia and everything in your life will disappear, and you are still you. But the you who is now cannot be taken away. You cannot disappear. What is left is you - that is perfection.

So the imperfection, which is past, memory, and all the experiences you have had, is always leading you towards now. Well, the moment the now explodes, there is awakening. You will find imperfection never existed. It was simply a way to perfection. The two have become one. And you begin to see that love and fear are one. All emotions are one. There is nothing but joy. Put fear and love together, and only love remains.

The same with joy - joy is the very nature of peace. Peace and joy are one and the same thing. You cannot separate the two. Peace is not just not having anything to think about, it is not being attached to thinking. You could be in peace and love thinking and be very creative. Peace is something that nobody can touch, nobody can take away. Because the moment you realize the moment, you are forever.

But when you have not realized the moment, you always think about the future. “What if this happens, what if that happens?” You live in fear all the time, and you don’t realize you’re living in fear. But when you live in the moment, everything changes. When you’re in the moment you know that everything’s OK.

You know, one woman approached Gangaji and said, “I am afraid of the truth because what if I followed the truth and I became a bag lady and had to live in the street?” That was her greatest fear. Gangaji never says that if you trust, nothing will happen to you, giving them instead the worst case scenario so that they want only the truth. So she said, “So what? So what if you become a bag lady? What’s so bad about that?” When you can face the worst, you can come back to the moment, but only then.

I remember once a woman with breast cancer came to see me. At that time, she thought she was going to die. She was so afraid of death. All she could talk about was death. “What if I die? What if this happens?” So I asked Bhagavan how to approach her, because she didn’t want to experience her fear. So I asked her, “OK, so you’re going to die, so what? You cannot fight it - if you’re time is up, it’s up!” So she looked at that and reached a very high level of recognition. She really found peace. She had her operation and now she’s happy and healthy, not body conscious like she used to be.

So sometimes we have to face our greatest fear and say, “So what?” But we have to really mean it. What if the worst happened? The truth is the truth. You cannot run away from it. And the truth is, nothing is real except this moment. If you don’t face that, you will always be in turmoil, always worrying, always thinking this or that might happen. But if you live in the moment and you trust it, you are going to be OK no matter what happens. That’s peace.

Q: You were talking about the ego that is damaged from childhood abuse. The damaged ego does the seeking - is that seeking to justify its existence?

A: That’s right, to justify its existence, to keep the story going, and to always want an answer to justify its own personal story. “I want to feel good, and I want a reason why this is happening, because if I have a reason, that will justify my story and I will feel OK.” But of course, you never feel OK. It just keeps raising another question, and another question, and another question. It serves to keep the ego alive, but it doesn’t work, because the personal never existed.

We are not individuals at all. We are unique expressions, yes, but we are not individuals. And until we get that very clear, peace will always evade us. It doesn’t matter what you study or read or do. It just won’t matter.

What I love about Gangaji, and the reason I keep mentioning her, is that she has brought so much help to mankind. She has gotten rid of age-old ideas about enlightenment, that only masters can get it. Anybody in this particular lifetime with a certain level of consciousness can wake up spiritually if they want to enough. You have to want it more than anything. And if you want it more than anything, you want the truth.

A woman wrote me an email saying, “What if I don’t deserve the truth because I am not good enough?” I said, “During the day when the sun is shining, is the sun there whether you admit it or not?” She said, “Yes, it’s there.” I said, “That’s the truth, isn’t it? It’s the same with you. Truth has nothing to do with deserving it or not deserving it. Truth is the truth. It’s not something you deserve or not deserve, there’s no such thing. You’re not bad, there’s nothing wrong with you. The truth is the truth. And the truth is that you are the everlasting being here now.”

Q: I think for centuries we’ve been taught that the truth is connected to worth. That’s where it comes from. It’s hard for so many people because it’s been taught to us that truth equals being good. So since I know I’m not always good, I can’t qualify.

A: Exactly. Trying to be good is one of the greatest stumbling blocks. The nature of consciousness is goodness.

Q: Of course, the harder we try to be good, the more we are coming from badness.

A: Of course.