The person’s suffering is just one thing: to not accept what is presented here and now, to come into conflict with what is. What is, is! This is greater than this “me” and its desires, volition, intentions, motivations, imaginations… People are in suffering all the time because they are imagining all the time!
If you go fishing, you imagine catching a big fish. So, while this fish does not come, you suffer! Then, when the fish comes, you suffer too, because it is not what you expected. If you catch a bigger fish than you expected, you can say you do not suffer for it, but I tell you have suffered until this moment. The bigger fish has just come, you have a peak of satisfaction (you can count in the clock how long this great peak lasts, the great moment of satisfaction, of accomplishment), but when this moment is over, thought says: “Now, I have to catch one bigger than this!” But sometimes a smaller one comes, and then an even smaller one…
So, the movement of the mind is always for acquiring and then getting tired of. It was like this in your marriage, it was like this when your son was born… You had a moment of great joy, but today you see it is not the same thing anymore. The movement of the mind is always of winning and losing, of searching for sensation. This is the movement of the “person.” The “person” lives in this condition of psychological story, of imagination, in all aspects of this so-called person´s life. Whatever it desires, it is not enough! The mind always wants that and a little more. It suffers until it gets that, and after getting that, it finds out it was not exactly what it needed. Or apparently, it may have achieved the wish and felt satisfied for a moment, but then the movement of the mind comes to say that it needs to be different, it can be better, it is still bad.
So, the movement of the mind is always dissatisfaction. It never fulfills itself, is never complete, because if this happens, it stops, loses importance, and imagination stops running. That is why you, in your Natural State, do not live in imagination, you are not in this “flight of fancy,” in this identification with the psychological movement of “me” – “me” as an object and a world outside to be achieved. Everything is present here, now. So, if you go fishing, you just go fishing…
I notice that the surprise is the element that has been assuming the place of imagination in my experience. So, you go fishing and the surprising element is such an interesting entertainment that it casts out the imagination element. “Let us see which fish will come!” So, there is no pain. Pain would be installed in an expectation, in the demand for catching a fish that might not come. So, this element of curiosity and surprise is very interesting!
Life with the element “surprise” instead of the element “imagination” is much more interesting, because the conflict is not needed, the pain of a frustrated expectation is not needed. This pain is always present for this unreal element, maintained and sustained by imagination, in this mechanism called “me.” So, you may have fun and, in fact, everything becomes surprisingly funny when there is no need to create an imaginary expectation about the next moment. Thus, the surprise, the unusual, the unexpected element, is much more interesting. This is present when we do not know, when we do not search for knowing, when we are not interested in knowing, when we have no psychological need of knowing; that is, when there is no imagination.
To live without expectation is to live without anxiety, without psychological future. People suffer because they are not here and now! They are in the past, in the future, and this is nothing but imagination. They have what to gain and what to lose. What can be lost causes fear and what can be gained is in the fantasy of a fulfillment of eternal happiness. This is the world of “me”: suffering! You won, caught the big fish (and this big fish may be anything: marriage, child, the own house, car…), “accomplished” it, but you did not realize Yourself! It is the nature of the mind! In its imaginary movement, it is natural to be dissatisfied, unhappy, and miserable. This is only possible when there is the illusion of time.
There is never Joy outside of the Now! You have the illusion of being able to be happy in a few minutes or within a certain time. Until then, you are sad… You are sad just because you are not happy yet! The mind is stupid! Joy is now! If Joy is not there, it is precisely because you want It to be here! For you, a goal needs to be achieved so Joy can be present, and this is pain, desire, anxiety, expectation, conflict!
So, everything you expect is frustration. I did not say that what you are going to find is frustration. I said that the movement of waiting is already the movement of frustration, for it has already placed you in the idealism outside of the present Reality, here and now.
If you do not find what You are, you are going to imagine what you are not! All you can do is to imagine what you are not! Actually, you are looking for Yourself, but you do this by moving in the imagination of objects, whereas what you look for is here and now, in what You are! But the mind does not know this, because it has been moving outwards for millennia, towards the senses, towards the experience, and not towards That what is out of the experience.
However, if you are Here, in your Being, the experience is beautiful! But if you are absorbed in this experience, you are completely alienated from Consciousness, which is Meditation. So, you live in frustration, because you live in expectation. If you discover what is to be Here, it does not matter where you are, you are always Here! Otherwise, you remain in this illusion of psychological time, always waiting for Joy, without ever asking yourself: “Who is this one waiting for?”
*Online meeting transcription, originally held on December 9th, 2019 - First published in Portuguese on March 08, 2020. For more information about online meetings and how to participate, click here.
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