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In 1990, at the age of 48, a former schoolteacher and acupuncturist from Mississippi travelled to India and met H.W.L. Poonja, known as Papaji, a student of Ramana Maharshi. He told her to stop searching, and at his urging she began to teach as Gangaji. Born Merle Antoinette Roberson in 1942, she has held satsang, a meeting in which a teacher answers questions from the room, ever since, and the Gangaji Foundation in Ashland, Oregon, publishes her talks and books. Her books are edited from those meetings or built around the single question at their centre: who am I? This guide covers her four key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 4 key books · 1995–2011 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Gangaji has published four key books: You Are That! (1995, with a second volume in 1996), Freedom and Resolve (1999), The Diamond in Your Pocket (2005) and Hidden Treasure (2011). Start with The Diamond in Your Pocket, which gathers fifteen years of her teaching into one book; read on for what each covers and the 2006 crisis around her husband’s foundation.
Where to Start with Gangaji
If you want her teaching in one book
→ The Diamond in Your Pocket (2005) — self-inquiry in the line of Ramana Maharshi.
If you want her own life story
→ Hidden Treasure (2011) — from Mississippi to Papaji in 1990.
If you want the satsang format itself
→ You Are That! (1995) — questions and answers from her early meetings.
If you want short chapters on daily life
→ Freedom and Resolve (1999).
4 Gangaji Books, in Order
You Are That!
Talks and dialogues from her first years of teaching, published by Satsang Press in 1995, with a second volume from the Gangaji Foundation in 1996. Each piece moves from a question asked in the room to her answer about the nature of mind, suffering and self-doubt. Sounds True reissued both volumes as one book in 2007 with a new introduction and photographs.
Freedom and Resolve
Short chapters on what she calls freedom, which she separates from comfort, preference or excitement, and on emotions, a quiet mind, surrender and serving others. First published by the Gangaji Foundation in 1999, it was revised and reissued by Hampton Roads in 2014 with the subtitle Finding Your True Home in the Universe.
The Diamond in Your Pocket
Published by Sounds True in 2005, it draws on fifteen years of her talks but is written as one continuous book rather than a set of transcripts. It is built on Ramana Maharshi’s question “Who am I?” and covers practice, delusion, not-knowing, enlightenment and compassion. Its central claims are that realisation is not a state and that inquiry means meeting whatever is present.
Hidden Treasure
Her most personal book, published by Tarcher/Penguin in 2011. She tells her own story, from a childhood in Mississippi through marriage, teaching and the counterculture of San Francisco to her 1990 meeting with Papaji in India, and uses it to ask readers to look at the stories they tell about their own lives. A teaching story from Papaji runs through it.
In What Order to Read Gangaji
Her books do not build on each other, and all of them return to the same point: stop, and look at who is looking. Publication order mainly shows a change of form, from transcribed satsang in You Are That! to the shaped, single-voice books of the 2000s.
Read The Diamond in Your Pocket first for the teaching, then Hidden Treasure for the life behind it. Go back to You Are That! if you want to hear how she answers real questions, and keep Freedom and Resolve for its short chapters.
A reading path
1. The Diamond in Your Pocket (2005)
2. Hidden Treasure (2011)
3. You Are That! (1995)
4. Freedom and Resolve (1999)
Other Books by and about Gangaji
Beyond the 4 key books: 4 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Reissues and a biography
4
4 books · 1996–2014
- 1996You Are That! Volume 2the second volume of her early satsang dialogues
- 2003Just Like Youa biography of Gangaji, written with Roslyn Moore
- 2007You Are Thatboth early volumes in one book, from Sounds True
- 2014Freedom and Resolve: Finding Your True Home in the Universethe revised Hampton Roads edition
The years · 1942–2011
Quick facts about Gangaji
- Known for
- Gangaji is known as an American teacher in the Advaita line of Ramana Maharshi and Papaji, who for more than three decades has taught self-inquiry through satsang.
- 1942
- Born; grows up in Mississippi
- 1972
- Moves to California
- 1990
- Meets Papaji in India and begins to teach
- 2011
- Hidden Treasure
- Born
- Merle Antoinette Roberson, 1942; raised in Mississippi
- Education
- University of Mississippi
- Teacher
- H.W.L. Poonja (Papaji), whom she met in India in 1990
- Tradition
- Advaita, in the line of Ramana Maharshi
- Husband
- The teacher Eli Jaxon-Bear
- Based
- Ashland, Oregon, home of the Gangaji Foundation
The red mark is 2005: The Diamond in Your Pocket, the book that gathers her teaching into one volume.
How Gangaji Writes: From Satsang to the Page
Most of what Gangaji has published began as speech. You Are That! keeps the format of satsang: someone in the room asks about fear, relationships or a spiritual practice, and she answers by turning the question back on the person asking it. The books read as dialogue because they were dialogue.
The Diamond in Your Pocket marks the change to a book written as a whole. Tricycle’s reviewer noted that it integrates fifteen years of talks instead of presenting them one by one. The method stays the same: Ramana Maharshi’s question “Who am I?”, asked until the questioner stops looking for an answer in the mind.
Hidden Treasure adds the one thing the earlier books leave out, her own story, and uses it as an example rather than a credential: the book asks readers to examine their life stories as she examines hers. For other teachers of non-duality, see the guides to Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj and Rupert Spira.
Watch
Gangaji on silence
From her own YouTube channel: Gangaji speaks about silence in her opening talk in San Rafael, California, on 15 February 2009.
Frequently asked questions about Gangaji’s books
How many books has Gangaji written?
Four key books: You Are That! (1995), Freedom and Resolve (1999), The Diamond in Your Pocket (2005) and Hidden Treasure (2011). You Are That! had a second volume in 1996, and there is also a 2003 biography, Just Like You, written with Roslyn Moore.
What are Gangaji’s books in order?
You Are That! (1995), Freedom and Resolve (1999), The Diamond in Your Pocket (2005) and Hidden Treasure (2011). Revised editions followed: both volumes of You Are That in one book (2007) and Freedom and Resolve: Finding Your True Home in the Universe (2014).
Where should I start with Gangaji?
The Diamond in Your Pocket (2005). It brings fifteen years of her teaching together in one continuous book. Follow it with Hidden Treasure if you want her own story.
What is Gangaji’s most famous book?
The Diamond in Your Pocket: Discovering Your True Radiance (2005), published by Sounds True and built around Ramana Maharshi’s question “Who am I?”.
Who was Gangaji’s teacher?
H.W.L. Poonja, known as Papaji, a student of Ramana Maharshi. She met him in India in 1990, and he encouraged her to begin teaching.
What is Gangaji’s real name?
She was born Merle Antoinette Roberson in 1942 and was known as Toni. She has taught as Gangaji since meeting Papaji in 1990.
What is satsang?
From the Sanskrit for “company of truth”: a meeting in which a teacher sits with a group and answers questions. Gangaji has taught mainly in this form since 1990, and You Are That! is edited from those meetings.
What happened between Gangaji and Eli Jaxon-Bear in 2006?
In October 2006 the Ashland Daily Tidings reported that her husband, Eli Jaxon-Bear, then head of the Leela Foundation, had admitted a three-year sexual relationship with one of his students. He told Gangaji in October 2005; they separated for three months, reconciled in January 2006 and merged their two foundations. The Leela Foundation’s own letter called it a betrayal of the teacher-student relationship, and Jaxon-Bear stopped teaching.
Is Hidden Treasure a memoir?
Partly. It tells her life from her childhood in Mississippi to meeting Papaji in 1990, but she uses that story to ask readers to look at the stories they tell about themselves.
Is You Are That! one book or two?
It first appeared in two volumes, in 1995 and 1996. Sounds True published both together as one book in 2007, with a new introduction.
Footnotes
- Gangaji — Wikipedia
- Spiritual leaders’ split leads to consolidation of groups — Daily Tidings, 2006
- The Diamond in Your Pocket — Tricycle review
- Stop the Search: An Interview with Gangaji — Psychology Today, 2017
- Hidden Treasure — Spirituality & Practice
- Freedom and Resolve — Spirituality & Practice
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“What I speak about makes no distinction between Hindu, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, male, female, you, or me.”
— Gangaji, The Diamond in Your Pocket (2005)
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