What is the real impediment to happiness?

After all, what are we dealing with in Satsang? What is Satsang about?

Here, we deal with what I consider the most important thing ... I deal with what I consider to be fundamental. We are here exactly proposing a direct answer to your permanent search, which is the search for happiness. This art of being fully aware, aware of yourself. This is what happens when you are completely free from the egoic mind. Free from the sense of an experiencer present in the experience. Either you are entirely free from all this well-known agitation, which is the agitation of the mind, or you are in the mind, in its restlessness.

This awareness, which is in fact an art, is Happiness. Happiness is this. It is this awareness, this art, something possible, but for us it seems to be quite complicated. However, to live without the sense of the “I,” without identifying ourselves with all this madness thought produces inside our heads, is something incredibly simple. Is that so or not?

Observe what thought produces inside your head, the conflict, the present contradiction, all this madness. The beauty of Satsang lies in not mistaking yourself anymore for all stupidity of the mind, which is pure confusion. Satsang means the encounter with the Self, the encounter with Reality, the encounter with the Truth. The human mind lives in confusion. It is a burden, a permanent contradiction. It is this chaotic movement of thought producing desires, fears, anxieties, attachments, beliefs, prejudices, concepts, and imaginations of all kinds. This, which does not end, is a real "cloud" of confusion and torment. This is the real blockage, the real impediment to Happiness.

Are we together?

Inside us, inside you, in the innermost, in the deepest of you, below that layer of confusion, of restlessness, of noise, of imaginations, that never ends, there is a Point that is not touched by this confusion, which is prior to thoughts, to any and all thought. This remains hidden and veiled. It remains there, even when that dense cloud of mental unrest is present. Happiness is at the deepest center of our Being, as our Real Nature, True Identity, as what we are. However, we are not aware of this.

This work [in Satsang] is proposed to allow you to directly perceive this awareness ... This awareness or Art of Happiness is to live in your Natural State, aware of this power of Consciousness, of Presence, of Reality, of Truth that dwells in each one of us... that is you.

We believe that happiness is the result of the contact with objects which produce some kind of pleasure in our body/mind, in our senses. From the interpretation of the mind, happiness is pleasure, is to have comfort and pleasure. From mind’s interpretation, when comfort and pleasure are lacking, pain appears and happiness goes away. What the mind knows as happiness is this permanent search for fulfillment it gets from pleasure. This is what in the ego, in that sense of a separate "me,” you have been experiencing as happiness, searching as happiness. That is, every experience of comfort and pleasure that objects offer. This is sought in objects, places, and people.

For the ego, this matter of pleasure, of the importance of pleasure, is directly associated with the contact with objects, places and people. Here is this tremendous dependence, whether it is emotional, physical or psychological dependence, which the ego calls as love and by which it fulfills itself, gets attached to.

Do you follow this? Is it very strange to listen to that? For those who are here in the room for the first time, or second, third time... Who is the crazy in this story? Where is the madness in all this? Is it crazy this approach we are talking about, or is it truly insane this model of life stuck to these so common patterns, attached to this model of repetition, continuity?

Happiness is this Freedom, which is this Present Love, in the innermost place, in the depth; What dwells in the Center; What remains silent and present there as your Being, your True Nature. You are here to recognize That, to assume It, and to go beyond the somnambulistic, hypnotic, unconscious, and general state. You are here to go beyond this whole conditioning pattern. This is what we are talking about in Satsang: the awakening of Wisdom, the awakening of the Truth about ourselves.

Is that clear?

We are talking about this State of Being, purely... about this Awareness, about this Art, which is this ability of purely Being, which means going beyond the dream state, the common waking state and the deep sleep state. We talk about this clear state of full Consciousness, free from duality (duality here is the sense of separation in this belief of an "I" in the experience of the world), free from all this agitation of thought, of action, of feeling, of emotion. To live in this most direct experience is the pure experience of Being. This direct and clear experience of Being is not an experience with the external world. It is not "someone" in the experience with something outside.

We are That. We are that Being. We are that Consciousness. Our being is Consciousness Itself, the Consciousness... It is Consciousness itself. It is our Being. This is the essential grace and ability of Being. This is the Truth about ourselves. All that we live or experience in a direct relation with objects is within the duality of this confused mind that judges and interprets every experience, separating itself from it as a separate entity. In this duality, there is suffering, conflict, unhappiness. We are talking to you about the Truth of Happiness, which is Consciousness.

Is that clear?

It is enough today, and on Wednesday we will be back. Namaste. See you on our next meeting.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on September 19th, 2016. First published in Portuguese on October 13th, 2016. Online meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm Local Time: Brazil BRT, except during retreat periods. For more information about Paltalk app and how to participate, please access: http://mestregualberto.com