Being Yourself | Meeting Self-Hatred, DIscovering Freedom

"It's in fully seeing it all…that there is this undeniable yes in the core." What is unfolding before our eyes in the world—the violent aggression and heartbreaking destruction of war—reflects what occurs in our own minds. There is an inner war we can wage, often experienced as self-hatred. Self-hatred fuels self-destruction, and the consequences—both individually and collectively—are real. How do we meet this in ourselves? How do we end the war in our own mind? In this episode of Being Yourself, Gangaji speaks to the choice we have not to turn away from feelings of unworthiness, but to meet directly what is at the core of even self-hatred—freedom itself.    Continue the Inquiry If you feel moved to explore this more deeply: Read The Heart Can Bear It All Part 1 Learn about the Freedom Inside Prison Program Join a live online meeting with Gangaji Explore upcoming events and retreats New to Gangaji?

"The real healing of trauma is bringing your love and consciousness to it." In the wake of trauma, fear can take hold — in the body, in memory, and in the many ways we try to protect ourselves from feeling its pain again. In this intimate dialogue, Gangaji points to a deeper healing not found in escaping fear, but in bringing love and consciousness directly to the wound. She offers a powerful inquiry into what remains whole, innocent, and free — even after shock, loss, and disillusionment.   Learn more about Gangaji and her programs and 2026 events.  The next With Gangaji online global gathering is being held Sunday, March 15 @ 11AM PT.  Learn more to join the meeting here.  Gangaji is a teacher and author who speaks to people from all walks of life inviting them to fully recognize the absolute freedom and unchanging peace that is the truth of one's being. She shares the message that she received from her teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja: What you are searching for is already here.  Among other books, Gangaji is the author of Diamond in Your Pocket: Discovering Your True Radiance. 

"If you are really, hopelessly lost, instantly you are found." This month's episode addresses that moment on the spiritual path, where all striving for enlightenment, all seeking of peace and freedom culminates in feeling at "the end of our rope."   Gangaji speaks directly to the possibility that even a moment of despair or desperation has something to reveal. What if being "hopelessly lost" is actually a doorway to freedom?     What happens when the seeking falls away, and the hope of "getting something" dissolves?     If you'd like to explore further, you're warmly invited to: Learn more about Gangaji the With Gangaji forum and live meetings See upcoming meetings and events  Visit the website for more resources  https://gangaji.org

"Can you find a problem when the desire to attain anything is given up?"   In our search for happiness and fulfillment on the spiritual path, we usually imagine it will be found in some desired state or experience or circumstance that we apparently lack. We may tell ourselves many varied and different stories about who we are, but as this conversation reveals, it is only who we think we are. What is possible is to examine the stories you are telling yourself and recognize that true fulfillment can be effortlessly discovered in an instant of stopping, of conscious rest. Fulfillment is realized in "nothing happening at all."    Learn more about Gangaji and her upcoming events.   

"There is conditioning in our mind streams, but what we are drawn by, what has brought us here, is closer and deeper than any conditioning." How is it possible to penetrate the conditioning of our minds, the play of ego and superego, and discover our true identity? What if we just give up the game entirely? In this exchange, Gangaji deconstructs the egoic habits of judging ourselves and others demonstrating how an egoic trap can become the open door into consciousness.   You can support this podcast and other programs of the Gangaji Foundation with your donation. Learn more about what your gift will do to and the impact you can have in sharing this invitation to peace with men and women living in prison and seekers around the world. Learn more/Give Learn more about Gangaji, her complete schedule, monthly online program.

"The real challenge is to include all, every aspect of yourself. Even the aspect that hates can be loved." When we take a spiritual path, we may be seeking our enlightenment or our awakening. But perhaps what is truly wanted cannot be discovered in any spiritual technique or acquisition or achievement, but rather in surrender, in the surrender to love one another.  As Gangaji shares in this episode, "if we are beginning in love then there is really nowhere to go but here." Listen to more episodes of Being Yourself and learn more about Gangaji, her program for incarcerated men and women, Freedom Inside, and her schedule of retreats and online meetings at gangaij.org  Support Gangaji's podcasts my making a donation. You will be sending a message of peace to the world!

"We have overlooked what was actually innocent and was called stupid. We lost our stupidity and in that we lost our heart. Yet, we are haunted by the fear that we are still actually stupid." We fear being stupid or foolish and try to be brilliant and clever. It is an aspect of our human drive for survival. In this episode of Being Yourself, Gangaji speaks to the unnecessary suffering that can be created through the mind's power to distinguish, delineate, and classify with ever greater subtlety. Without making that power wrong or bad, what if for just one moment, we give up that power and embrace our "stupidity?" What might be discovered?

 "You cannot learn the Self, you cannot learn Consciousness, you cannot learn Love, you cannot learn Trust, but you can learn how you deny that." After an essential experience of self-realization, we can re-identify with the definitions and concepts we hold about ourselves in our mind. How do we resolve the paradox of recognizing oneself as pure consciousness and being human, living an ordinary life? In this lively exchange, Gangaji speaks about the ways we fall back into patterns of egoic identification.    Learn more about Gangaji  Gangaji's Event and Program Schedule About Finding Home and Gangaji's Media Library  

"What deepens is the mind's surrender because the mind's whole job has been to never surrender." Even in the midst of uncertain times, we can recognize that what is always at peace is, in truth, who we are. How is it possible for us to retreat for just a moment from our mental strategies rooted in survival to recognize what we are overlooking—the very spaciousness of being. Can you let go of what you're trying to get? Can you meet what you're trying to get rid of?     Learn more about Gangaji, her schedule of events, and monthly online program and media library.  This podcast is funded entirely by donations. You can support this podcast with your contribution here. 

"The way you can discover directly that your story is an illusion is to try it on as if it were real. The magic trick is exposed in that moment."   Rather than address the question "why do we suffer," Gangaji speaks to "how" we suffer, and how we perpetuate that suffering in our lives and in the world. In this exchange, we see a simple inquiry can lift our mental veils and offer the immediate opportunity to set aside any story of suffering we may cling to unnecessarily.   Learn more about Gangaji's monthly online meetings, forum, and media library. Access all the resources available on Gangaji's website at gangaji.org