January 1993, Lucknow India:

I had traveled a long way from Hamburg, Germany to meet this master and my expectations were high. I heard him say, "You are already FREE." "Well, if that’s the case, than why am I sitting on this cold floor feeling uncomfortable and out of place when I could be in Germany at the front of the room with this many people listening to me?"

A constant stream of similar thoughts continued to pulsate through my head. I tried to shut them out so I could pay attention to what was being said, but they would’t go away.

It was no accident that I was in India. It seemed as though a special envoy of Papaji’s had been sent to my home that fateful night just to tell me about him. I wasn’t looking for a guru. Nor did I have any interest in going to India. I had heard so many stories about India that made me cringe, the last thing I wanted to do was experience these things first hand. But as I talked with the young man who visited me that night, something happened that I could not ignore.

This man was not someone I knew well. He had come for a channeled reading about a year before and at that time it did not seem that we had much in common. But for some reason I kept running into him at unexpected times and places. When he called to see if I was going to be home that night, I assumed that he wanted me to channel for him again. I had been depressed for several months as a result of some problems that seemed insurmountable. I would never have guessed that this man was bringing me the solution to every problem I would ever face.

It was quite late that night when he left, and even though I was very tired, I couldn’t help but notice that the heaviness of depression had been replaced by bliss. There was nothing I could point to as the cause of this dramatic shift, but there was no denying that I felt very different. We had chatted about a lot of things. He had told me about his near death experience and, as part of that story, he mentioned being helped by an American woman named Gangaji who had "awakened" in the presence of an Indian master named Poonjaji. At that time I had no reason to believe that this information had anything to do with me, for I was quite satisfied with my channeled teacher, Saint Germain, and was not looking for another spiritual teacher.

About a month later I received another call from the same man informing me that Gangaji was going to be in Austria the following month. He asked if I would like to go see her. I had never been to Austria and it sounded like a good opportunity to see another part of Europe so I agreed to go. Two of my friends decided to join us.

Gangaji was giving evening satsangs in a beautiful mountain village overlooking a picturesque lake. It was summer, and during the daylight hours we thoroughly enjoyed the beauty that surrounded us. When we attended our first satsang I was struck by this woman who seemed to radiate love from every cell. But when she spoke, I had difficulty understanding what she was talking about. She was not using the New Age terminology that was so much a part of my thinking process. She talked about the Self, burning up inside, and was telling people to dive into their feelings. She looked at me for a long time, and even though I didn’t understand the words her mouth was saying, the message her eyes brought was very clear. I could see that Gangaji was a living example of what I was channeling about. I also realized that I had been brought to Austria for a much more important reason than enjoying the scenery.

I wanted to spend more time with Gangaji but she was traveling to other places and I was not in a position to follow her. I decided to go to India to see her guru, Sri Poonjaji. Three months later I was in Lucknow.

Sri H.W.L. Poonja, also called Papaji by those led to his teachings, told a funny story. As I laughed, all the questions racing through my head temporarily disappeared. Suddenly I was back in the present. Yet, when the laughter subsided, the thoughts returned.

"I know why I am here," proclaimed the next one, "to confirm that these feelings of bliss mean that I am already enlightened."

I had become a model of the teachings that were channeled through me as I traveled around the world fulfilling my spiritual mission as a member of the Great White Brotherhood. My work seemed to be making a difference wherever I went, but self-doubt was always present. Sometimes I would feel blissful and believed I was enlightened, but then something would happen that caused the bliss to disappear and the doubts to return.

"If I am not already enlightened," whispered the voice in my head, "than I am not leaving Lucknow until I am".

The voice replayed memories about things that had happened to me since I began channeling in 1985, the countries I had visited and the people I had met. I was also reminded of how committed I was to my calling because I had left my family, home and career to act on the guidance of my inner teachers. So what if my credit cards were at their limit and the last year was fraught with difficulties and disappointments. I was told by the voice that all of these situations were important to my spiritual growth. Frequently the voice assured me that I was in a good place and that everything was being taken care of by my unseen teachers.

Despite these assurances, questions remained. "How am I going to pay off my credit cards? With all my spiritual awareness, why do I still doubt myself? And, if I am already FREE like Papaji says, then how come I am not as clear as Gangaji?"

My attention intermittently found its way back to the present and the words Papaji was saying, but it was very difficult to remain focused. It was as if the mind knew that this visit to India was to facilitate its extinction. It seemed to be doing whatever it could to make sure this did not happen.

At the end of satsang newcomers were invited to a smaller meeting with Papaji. As we crowded into the room where he waited, I found myself wanting him to acknowledge me in some way. He looked around the room and then spoke to everyone individually. When it was my turn, he skipped right over me and talked to my friend instead. It was as if I were invisible. I wanted to say something to let him know he had passed me by, but the meeting ended before there was an opportunity. I couldn’t believe it.

While I sat there in stunned silence, my friend went up to Papaji and asked if the two of us could have a private meeting with him. He was very receptive to this and invited us to visit him at his home the next day. "He just made a mistake," the voice said. "When we see him tomorrow it will be different."

The next day we were Papaji's guests for lunch. He was very warm and welcoming but throughout our meeting most of his attention was focused on my friend. Not to let this opportunity pass me by, I asked what he thought of channeling and handed him a message I had received the night before from Saint Germain. He briefly glanced at the paper and said, "Wherever there is a channel there's a dam." He illustrated this point on paper and then told me it was time to remove the dam. He said that he would teach me a new way to channel. I don’t know if it was his words or just being in his presence, but all of a sudden my mind was totally confused.

At the end of the meeting he gave us both a big hug and for the next six weeks we regularly attended satsang and followed his advice to "Keep quiet."

It was customary for visitors to write a letter for Papaji to read during satsang. The letter writer would then be invited to the front of the room to have a dialog with him. As I watched this procedure repeat itself I was amazed at how often people would "wake up" as Papaji spoke to them.

"Just a glimpse of the Self is enough to know the truth of who you are," he said, and it was evident that he was revealing this truth in a way that other teachers were not. I desperately wanted him to reveal it to me.

This was the reason I was in India, but whenever I tried to write a letter to Papaji it was not possible to complete even one sentence. The mind just wouldn’t work. What did he do to my mind?" I kept asking myself. "He barely even looked at me."

I had visited several "third world" countries, but Lucknow India was the worst. Things we took for granted in our typical western lifestyle were very different here. Going into town from the small apartment near satsang hall was a dreaded ordeal. The air was so polluted that we covered our faces while riding in the open taxis that wove their way around cows, pigs, horse drawn rickshaws, humans and cars that crowded the roads. Dealing with local shopkeepers was always a challenge because of language and cultural differences, the local restaurants were dirty and their food was too spicy to eat. I suffered with frequent bouts of digestive problems caused by amoebas.

The apartment I shared with my friend was directly above a restaurant, and when the cooks began work in the morning the banging of pots and pans was accompanied by a radio that blared rock music at its highest decibels. The water supply was frequently interrupted, and our garbage, including toilet paper, was disposed of by putting it out on the street for the cows and pigs to eat. Beggars, with the most horrific deformities, accosted us for handouts wherever we went.

Our senses were constantly being assaulted with the unfamiliar and the formerly unacceptable, but for some unexplainable reason, these things no longer mattered. It was as if the love flowing from Papaji cast its reflection on everything around us.

One morning during satsang I suddenly realized that I was Papaji. It was not just a thought like all the others. In that moment I knew that Papaji and I were the same and that my body was just another container for his laughter, wisdom and awareness. Then, just as suddenly, a doubt arose and this glimpse of truth was negated by the voice.

There was nothing to do and nowhere to go. I kept quiet and asked myself "Who Am I?" while the cool temperatures of January were replaced with the intense heat of February. All the questions I had brought to India began to dissolve. So did the thoughts that had been running non-stop prior to that meeting in Papaji’s home. Intermittent streams of thought I called ‘mind attacks’ would appear from time to time, but eventually they became shorter and less frequent. As the mental chatter stopped, visual images took their place, but then they too disappeared. Emotions were stirred but they were experienced without thought. The body pulsated with feelings of bliss.

The actual moment of realization happened while I was having dinner with some Papaji devotees who had been with him for some time. I was telling them how blissful my body felt and how my mind just wouldn't work well enough to write Papaji a letter. In a soft and gentle voice the man sitting across from me said, " The bliss you are feeling doesn’t mean a thing. It will eventually leave. Go to the source of your thoughts and you will know who you are." I focused my attention inward to find that place where my thoughts were coming from. Suddenly I knew, without a doubt, that every thought I ever had was only my imagination. It was so clear. In that moment the whole story of "me and my life" disappeared into silence. All that remained was Papaji’s laughter.

Several days later this letter wrote itself:

Dear Papaji.

It has not been possible to write you a letter during the six weeks this body has been in Lucknow because the mind has not been working and the Self had no need to say anything. All questions have been answered. All doubts have been removed. All that was ‘I’ has disappeared into stillness.

Your gifts have come as direct experience instead of words. Who is free? It isn’t ‘I’ because ‘I’ doesn’t exist. All the joy and love that is Papaji co-exist in this body. Gratitude is not to one’s own Self, but divine love for this part of the dream called Papaji will always live inside and outside of this body. Another flower has bloomed in your garden. It will be spreading the fragrance of love from the one heart to all that are open to it. We will be leaving soon to bask in the presence of Ramana at Tiruvannamalai.

Your devoted daughter,

Rea

This letter was not a creation of mind. It was Self writing to Self. There was no longer a separate ‘me’ seeking acknowledgment. The fantasy of a separate identity had ended. All remnants of a separate ‘I’ had dissolved into nothingness. When Papaji read this letter in satsang he compared it to the writings of Kabir and then gave this body a new name. The name he chose was Aruna, after the mountain that does not move. He said that this name means light, wisdom and the sun that is the Self, reflecting light on the hearts of all beings. It is a beautiful name, but to me it means "  ".

Receiving this name was the beginning of a new life; a life free of fear, doubts and suffering regardless of circumstances. It is a life without choice because there is no chooser. Peace, joy and bliss are present in every moment, but this bliss is very different from the physical feelings that led this body to India. This bliss does not come and go because it is a component of "emptiness." It is who we really are.