Just Like You: An Autobiography [Paperback]

Gangaji (Author), Roslyn Moore (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 2003

After a difficult childhood in the deep South and with her marriage failing, Toni Varner arrived in San Francisco looking for happiness. Joining the counterculture, she spent two decades on a spiritual search. Then, in 1990, she met Papaji, an awakened master in the lineage of Sri Ramana Maharshi. She had never wanted a guru, and she certainly hadn't wanted an Indian name. But when she met Papji, he stopped her in her tracks. In meeting him, she discovered the source of true fulfillment.

Since that time, Gangaji, a beloved spiritual teacher, has been holding public meetings and retreats across the United States and around the world. In her autobiography, written with Roslyn Moore, Gangaji tells her story. It is a candid, inspiring, and often humorous account. "Just Like You" includes dozens of pictures, a section of penetrating questions and answers, and an appendix with letters exchanged between Gangaji and her teacher.

Gangaji says she is just like you and me, that she would be happy to tell us if she weren't, but she is. By sharing the experience of her life she is offering herself as living proof that it is possible for anyone to stop telling their endless story of suffering, to wake up to what is, and to live life truly and freely.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Do Pub Co (March 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964699923
• ISBN-13: 978-0964699922
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #580,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Walking in the mist with a great one, August 3, 2004

By 

A repeat reader (At large in California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Like You: An Autobiography (Paperback)

I've read this book several times now. Really. There's something about it that is working for me, or on me, and that is mysterious and intriguing. And positive and fun.

It's definitely not that the particulars of my life have been so much like Gangaji's. After all, I'm a man and didn't grow up anywhere near Mississippi. And while our life paths have some similarities, many of her experiences are completely foreign to me.

And it's not as if the book has such great explicit instructions, although there is wisdom, worldly and otherwise, gleaned from all the mistakes she made. The authors are careful to point out the danger of copying any patterns or methods to "get" something. Definitely the book is discouraging of following paths or copying anyone to achieve inner peace. "Nothing to be achieved, so stop trying, but do pay attention and do tell the truth."

It's more like there's a transmission here of something absolutely essential--call it wakefulness or peace or love--and it's changing me without any discernible effort, except the reading. And the way it's happening is comfortable, like walking for a while in a fine light mist. Eventually you discover you're soaked. I can't say I really know how this is happening, and I don't think it matters if I do know. But it seems I'm drenched, and loving it.

So I highly recommend that you try this book, open to the possibility that it may work on you also, and not to worry if it appears not to. It may anyway.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bullseye!, August 23, 2004

By 

Lark (northern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Like You: An Autobiography (Paperback)

What a fabulous book this is! Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. It's hard to believe that a book could be so jam-packed with exactly what I am interested in.

First, there's the autobiographical part. To me, it was fascinating to read about this woman's life. It evoked so much for me. The tenderness of childhood, the shift to status and popularity as an adolescent, the dissatisfaction with all that as a young woman and turning toward psychedelics and then spiritual understanding as a way to find happiness. No one speaks more articulately about the spiritual search and leaving it behind than Gangaji does.

Then there is the transmission of light and love that pervades the book. In her opening Gangaji says, "This is an invitation to shift your allegiance from the activity of your mind to the eternal presence of your Being." By the time I'd finished reading her story and by the time I'd experienced hours of being in her company, so to speak, I knew exacly what she meant by that.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating book, April 19, 2003

By 

Judy Sommers (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Like You: An Autobiography (Paperback)

In her newest book, Roslyn Moore brings to light the life and teachings of her teacher, Gangaji. In a skillful and graceful way, using interviews, dialogue and some of the letters exchanged between Gangaji and her teacher, Papaji, Roslyn brings forward a life, the life of a woman who professes to be just like you.

So it is. There is a story, yes. And to read it is to walk in memory with one's own story, one's own seeking. This offering, however, differs from other spiritual biographies. It is simplicity itself. In an utterly straightforward way the reader receives--both in words and through awareness--the ultimate question and its answer:

"The truth of who you are, right now, is already free. The truth of who you are is already at peace. The truth of who you are, at this moment, is already in bliss, in fulfillment. There is no need to search for anything, because you already are everything you are looking for. It is only the distraction of mind that keeps you from recognizing it.

Is Just Like You, only of interest to those on the quest for
realization? This reader doesn't think so. It is the heartfelt story of a western woman of our time who arrived in San Francisco looking for happiness. Hers is a tale of adventure, of doors opening and doors closing as life's opportunities reveal themselves.

It is a woman's story, full of the trials of a woman who joined
the counterculture in the seventies. And it is also filled with the insights and realizations of a woman who, in 1990, was directed to give spiritual teachings. At its heart is the revelation of universal beingness. Gangaji speaks the truth from her direct experience. She lives that truth. That makes this autobiography a treasure.