About the Book

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Freedom and Resolve
Finding Your True Home in the Universe
By Gangaji

About the Book

This slim volume challenges readers to discover their place in the universe. In it, teacher, author, and spiritual leader Gangaji offers the radical invitation to:

1. Examine one's own life.
2. Choose to wake up from the trance of who you think you are and experience the truth of who you really are.
3. Resolve not to go back into the trance by turning away from that essential experience of waking up.
4. Freshly inquire anew as thoughts or feelings of separation arise.

Gangaji's invitation is radical in part because it is not based upon a particular philosophy or religion. There are no prescribed practices or rituals, unless one considers self-inquiry or self-observation a practice. Most radically, it calls into question the very structure of who we've believed ourselves to be. Who you are is not separate from God or Love or Truth or Freedom or Peace or Silence, whatever one chooses to call it.

Therefore, there is nothing you have to do to "get there." No merit to be earned. Who you are is already here, has always been and will always be. The invitation in this book is to wake up and be Yourself.

"My life is given to what I have received,
which is the truth of living peace, fresh
fulfillment. My life is given to serving that
truth, that fulfillment in you."

About the Author

Gangaji shares a simple message: This is an invitation to shift your allegiance from the activities of your mind to the eternal presence of your being.

Born in Texas in 1942, Gangaji grew up in Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1964, she married and had a daughter. In 1972, she moved to San Francisco where she began exploring deeper levels of her being. She took Bodhisattva vows, practiced Zen and Vipassana meditation, helped run a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center, and had a career as an acupuncturist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Despite her successes, Gangaji continued to experience a deep and persistent longing for fulfillment. She pursued many paths to change her life including relationship, motherhood, political activism, career, and spiritual practice, but even the greatest of her successes ultimately came up short. In the wake of her disillusionment, she made a final prayer for true help.

In 1990, the answer to her prayer came unexpectedly, taking her to India and to the meeting that would change everything. There on the banks of the river Ganga, she met Sri H.W.L. Poonja, also known as Papaji, who opened the floodgates of her self-recognition. In this meeting, Gangaji's personal story of suffering ended and the promise of a true life began to flower and unfold. Today, Gangaji travels the world speaking to seekers from all walks of life. A teacher and author, she shares her direct experience of the essential message she received from Papaji and offers it to all who want to discover a true and lasting fulfillment. Through her life and words, she powerfully articulates how it is really possible to discover the truth of who you are and be true to that discovery.