(1942-present)

Antoinette Roberson Varner was born in Texas in 1942, and grew up in Mississippi. Her childhood was difficult, due to an environment clouded by alcoholism and emotional repression. She married young, and had a daughter, yet she did not find true fulfillment in these experiences. She moved to San Francisco in 1972 and immersed herself in spiritual seeking. Soon she found herself divorced, and after a time of political activism, she chose to take Buddhist vows. She practiced Zen and Vipassana meditation, and was involved in establishing a Tibetan Buddhist Center. Though she was an ardent seeker and a dedicated student, she did not feel fulfilled. Her deepest prayer was for a true and final teacher to appear and reflect her own true nature back to her.

In 1990 her prayer was answered. She traveled to India and met Poonjaji, affectionately known as Papaji by his students. Gangaji says, "The secret that cannot be taught, revealed itself." Of their meeting, she says, "I found myself being welcomed, open arms, and open-heart, and eyes from which radiated the love of the whole cosmos. I thought: here I can finally stop. Rest. Here's something that is bigger than anything I have ever seen." At that time Papaji named her Ganga, after the Holy Ganges River. Since 1990, she has traveled the world, sharing truth. Her message is simple, firm, and direct, and her words seem to flow from a deep source. She is well loved by those who attend her events.

From Gangaji:

"You are not who you believe yourself to be. Who you are cannot be devised. Who you are cannot be imagined. Who you are is before, during, and after all thoughts. Stop for a moment and realize who you are."

"Growth, progress, and evolution are inventions of the ego. Being is our True state. Denial of our true state doesn't change it one iota."

"There are many stories of difficulty. Be aware that they are stories to avoid the absolute ease of being. Nothing can be easier than being nothing."

"This is an invitation to shift your allegiance from the activities of your mind to the eternal presence of your Being."

"If you are willing to experience anything directly and immediately, whether good or bad, joyous or hateful, you will recognize that what you are running from does not exist, and what you are running toward is already here."

"I promise you there is undreamed of support for true and lasting fulfillment. All that is waiting is the YES from your mind to your heart."

"Any truth will be misused. All we have to do is look at history to see this. Every religion has been used so that the founders must be rolling over in their graves. The nature of mind is to take it, consume it, and own it. But we live in very interesting times, and it is critical that ordinary people wake up to their true nature, which is actually under that dark, ugly, evil creature that is kept hidden. The willingness to meet that, without indulging it, without following it, without worshiping it, welcomes all creatures home."

"The path you've been directed to isn't the path―there is no path. Give it up and be that which you already are."

"There is a great secret that beings throughout time have announced, the secret of an extraordinary treasure, the treasure of the nectar of eternal life. It is the nectar of pure beingness, recognizing itself as consciousness and overflowing in the love of that recognition. If you imagine yourself to be located in a body, then you will move that body from place to place, searching for this treasure of nectar. But, if you will stop all searching right now and tell the truth to yourself, you will know what is known in the core of your bones. You will know what these great beings knew and attempted to describe. You will know it with no image of it, no concept of it, no thought of it. You will know it as that which has eternally been here. And you will know it as yourself."

"When I say 'Be still,' if you hear that as a teaching, then you get busy learning how to be still. It is an attempt to imitate how we learn the things that must be learned and can be learned. Words, most sublime, most profound, most simple can be easily co-opted by the mind, by egoic thought."