June 10, 2019

Something beyond time and space

We are in Satsang investigating the Truth about ourselves. The word Satsang means "encounter with What is," "encounter with the Truth." Sat is a word in Sanskrit for "Truth" and sang is a word for "encounter." Another meaning for this word is "the encounter with The One who is living the Truth about Himself, Herself." So, what are we working on in Satsang? We work on this recognition of the Truth we are. This means discovering the Truth in yourself, at this very moment, here and now.

I can say something to you that will sound like a belief there, but your challenge is to investigate the veracity of this. For example, I can tell you the only present reality at this moment is this Consciousness. Right now, you hear this speak and there is a clear perception of this present sound here and now. This is something very evident. It does not require any kind of belief. So, what we deal with in this space called Satsang is something at this level of evidence, at this same level of reality. However, for you, it still can sound as a belief, and then I invite you to investigate it by yourself. God is a present Reality. It is not a concept, an idea. God is a present Reality just like this Consciousness that perceives this speak. So, when we use the word "God," we are talking about this Nature of Being, pointing out this Real Nature, the Nature of the Truth of each one of us.

This can be just a belief for you or a direct Realization. When this Realization happens, all illusion ends. Then, God is the most undeniable Truth. When Truth is present, there is no more the illusion of an entity in conflict, in suffering, attached to some kind of fear or desire. In Satsang you are meeting yourself, you Real Self, which is the Reality of God, the Presence of God. When there is this Realization, you are a Sage. When there is not this Realization, you are still worried about the result of the elections, for example. In this Realization, everything is seen in its own place, and there is no longer the illusion of the separation between you and God. All your problems are settled on fear. "Person" lives in fear. The nature of the "person" carries conflict, suffering, envy, ambition, desire, possession, insecurity, pain... At all levels, this pain of separateness is present. Do you follow it?

When you verify by yourself the Truth of your Being, which is the Nature of God, there is no more room for illusion. The Nature of man, of this so-called human creature, is Happiness, Love, Peace, Freedom. You were born to know THIS, to recognize the Truth about your Self. This cannot keep on being just a theory, a belief. "God dwells in me." Have you already heard this sentence? Since a child, you hear this, "we are the temple of God." Have you been in a church at some point? Perhaps you do not go to church anymore nowadays, but when you were a child, you have heard this somehow, or you have already read this in some book.

What I am saying is that Truth is something present. It cannot be a belief – a belief is not going to work. This Self-Realization, Enlightenment or Awakening, this Realization, is the clarity, the direct revelation that there is no reason to suffer, nor to live in this mistake, in this confusion. The "person" is afraid, in confusion, suffering, because he/she is an illusion, a fraud! The "person" is the misconception itself! My invitation in Satsang is for you to find out the Truth about your Self, to realize that, in fact, you are not what you believe to be. This is the end of your ignorance. Some call it self-knowledge, but as a matter of fact, it is the knower on his/her own Real Nature, which is the Knowledge itself.

However, this Knowledge is not a topic for study. You have no way to study this Knowledge, which is You, which is the very own knower. That is, you can awake to This, assume the Truth of This but do not know This the way you would know any other subject – seeing yourself separate from Knowledge. Therefore, This is not for the intellect. That is why in these meetings we deal with the importance of Meditation.

So, this Revelation, or this Clarity of the Knowledge about your Self, is not a thing as an object. The Truth is this Self-knowledge (let us use this word here) where there is no object outside to be known and, curiously, no one inside either. This is beyond object and subject, knowledge or ignorance.

Wisdom is a fascinating subject! We are dealing with something beyond time and space. We are dealing with the Truth of God, which is You in your True Nature, your True Being, your Real Being. That is why my Guru said, "To know God is to be God." Only God knows God!

What happens is always an opportunity for you to realize there is no separation between what is perceived and the one who perceives. This separation arises because you are unaware of this present experience, of its value and importance. This experience does not happen without this Consciousness, which is You. However, between this experience and You, as Consciousness, arises the illusion of the "thinker," of "someone" present, of an "experiencer," and when this happens, there it is the sense of separation.

So, everything that is arising at this very moment is a challenge. Something that can be an opportunity to provoke you to perceive that there is no such sense of separation in a real way. In this sense, everything that appears, or everything that seems to appear, within this experience, is there to provoke us, to awaken us. So if you can put your attention on it, abandoning this conditioning, it gets clear that this knower and this Knowledge are not separate; that the experiencer and the experience are not separate. That is, the nature of the knower is this Knowledge, and this is the end of duality, of the sense of separation.

To illustrate this speech, I will end it with a story that is told in India.

It is late and already dark when a man comes out from a river. As soon as he steps ashore, there is a very dense shadow at the edge of that river, and he has the clear sensation of stepping on a snake. In that moment, he feels a great shiver through his body and fear takes him completely. Those few seconds seem like a century to him, he is terrified. Immediately, he jumps up and looking at the direction of his feet, much to his surprise, he sees that there was no snake there, but a rope. Then his heart goes back to the normal beats, the breathing normalizes, and he is taken by a great relief.

Therefore, it is there for you. Realization of Truth about Yourself is the Realization that what you think is real life is not Real. All your conflict, suffering, terror and fear are in this confusion. You are mistaking a rope for a snake.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on October 10th, 2018. First published in Portuguese on February 10th, 2019. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

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