In fact, I did think (ha!) that it seems silly to put these two against eachother. I am also willing to look at the nature of comparison, and whether it takes us out of presence as much when we do it to others as it does when we do it to ourselves.
But on the one hand you have Gangaji saying stuff that seems to me to be incredibly based around martyrdom. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it sounds incredibly negative to me: this idea of being 'nailed to the cross' of your suffering, and not trying to change it, giving up all hope, not trying to reach beyond it - that in fact any reaching for anything is the workings of the ego, denying what already is. We will cease to exist, and yet we Are, so just accept everything and anything, totally as it is, and if you go into the core of your suffering there you will find the true resurrection. Which, I hasten to add, is still (as Phil would be wont to point out) reaching for something.
Then you've got Sanaya, channelling the Higher Being Orin, who tells us that everything we could possibly want in the world that is for our highest good can be ours. That life is a dream, and we can change it effortleesly to support what is the very best and most blissful life for ourselves. Our creativity and our imaginations were given to us for this - not just to create art or new ideas, but create a work of art of our life. And that working with the medium of living energy, the effects are limitless.
I have had Sanaya's books for years, but I could never really believe them. It just sounded like feelgood 'buy this book and the world will fall into your lap' lip service. But recently I have tried a couple of the exercises. They worked. All the time I am listening to Gangaji, and then doing these exercises to change things, and they have worked. I don't succeed with the Gangaji teachings. In fact, at best it gives me this serene kind of depression. But despite the fizzy feelgood quality of Sanaya Roman's books, I find they actually seem to be promising that we CAN change things, and we CAN make things better - not just for ourselves, but for everything. Yet, Orin still allows us to 'consciously' pre-plan, to project forward in a deliberate manner, in meditation, in perfect presence of mind that we are doing that with intention. There is no time line in the higher dimesions, so anything we imagine is always happening now.
How, for that matter, does this work in with Mr Tolle? And I wonder what he would have to say about the idea that focusing so much on keeping present, and that being renegated to only focusing on our three dimensional now, limits us to not consider that in fact everything we have been, are and will be, are all one eternal moment.
Which reminds me of the intro from author Clive Barker, from his metaphysical fantasy novel The Great and Secret Show:
"Memory, prophecy and fantasy - the past, the future and the dreaming moment between - are all one country, living one immortal day. To know this is Wisdom. To use it is The Art."
Well, that kind of morphed into a whole branch of discussions already! Oops!
I wont edit, unless Heidi makes me, like the wicked moderator she is
Love, Clare
