There is no way to attain Self-realization if you are identified with the mind

The approach you have in this space called Satsang is meant to show you the great illusion the mind has been living. As you have always been identified with the mind, you take it as your reality, as if it were the reality of your life.

If you discover how to explore the Real Nature of Consciousness, you will find out It does not have these objective interpretations. In other words, the way of conceptualizing life around you is the way the mind knows, classifying everything around itself. In Satsang, you are approaching Wisdom, you are in an encounter with the Truth. This is the meaning of the word Satsang.

In the mind, you carry several concepts, beliefs, opinions and conclusions, and you consider them real to you. However, here lies the illusion of this false “me,” of this "person" who, for example, seems to be listening to someone at this moment - someone listening to someone. These are the objective mind’s interpretations. Mind, in its illusion, makes everything objective around itself, placing itself as the subject. So, the mind is the subject, the "me," and everything surrounding it is the "non-me." This is the concept, the belief, the illusion of separation. This Consciousness is the Nature of the Self, is your Real Nature. It does not have these objective qualities. This is a sheer mind’s creation!

So, the way you are living within the mind is totally mistaken. It is a totally illusory life! What is known as "human life," "personal life," is similar to the dream you have at night. When you wake up in the morning, you notice there was no reality in it, it was just the mind creating images, producing experiences, and all of that was inside the mind. That world in the dream was not an objective reality. That sound-images-people experiences present in your dream, all of that was as unreal as you were in such experience. Everything in your dream was built through concepts and beliefs. So, objects, people, sensations, all these experiences were only within the mind. Everything was sheer imagination.

This world of yours, which is the mind’s world, is the same dream’s world you have at night, while the Truth of your Consciousness, of your Real Nature is beyond that. The purpose of this meeting is for you to find out the Reality, the Truth about yourself. If this is clear, there is no more illusion; the mind collapses!

There is no suitable name for this Realization. Some call it Awakening. This Reality is the Reality of Silence. All the mind knows are names and forms, they are experiences produced by the mind itself, but we are pointing out "something" beyond the mind, "something" beyond this illusion of the "me." The mind cannot apprehend the Reality, cannot reach That.

Mind always lies in the field of duality, which is the field of its own experience - subject and object. Everything the mind knows is within that duality. The mind splits itself between mind and body, mind and world. However, there is no subject and object; there is no thought and thinker. Thinker is just a thought creating the illusion of an entity responsible for thinking. There is neither thinker nor thought; this is just a thought’s belief. There is no mind, body and world. There is no vigil state, no dreaming state, no deep sleep, no death and no postmortem state. All this is only mind’s creation.

Every day you have the experience of talking to other people, having thoughts, feelings and emotions, but this is not true. This is only the mind in itself, by itself, experiencing itself. Even if you have an encounter of third kind, a contact with extraterrestrials, this will also be within the mind’s experience. There is nothing outside the mind and its experience. Ego is eager for mystical, esoteric, spiritual, extraphysical experiences. This is the mind’s search for extraordinary sensations. Ego loves this kind of flight of fancy.

Truth is the end of the mind and its experience; It is when the mind collapses, falls, disappears. The mind itself is made up of concepts, appearances, names and beliefs. So, every experience is mind’s projection. Actually, the mind itself is built by these projections, which are not separate from it; these projections are the very own mind.

When your history ends, the mind, the ego, which is the illusion of that sense of a separate "me," also ends. Then, there is no mind, there is no body and there is no world. Your Natural State is Being! This is Meditation, Consciousness, Freedom!

I have just one more thing to say to you: all this movement, this dream is just a dance of the Consciousness. The problem lies not in this dance, not in the movement itself. The problem arises when you try to assume the place of Reality. Therefore, you are - and will always be - facing a paradox. You cannot reach the Truth. There is no way to realize That identified with the mind, taking the mind as real.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on January 29, 2018 - First published in Portuguese on May 23, 2018. For further information about the meetings, click here.

Intelligence is the Blossoming of Consciousness

Satsang means being in good company, in Divine, Sacred company. That is an opportunity to deepen the Understanding of your Self. The commonplace is the internal psychological disorder, conflict, fear and suffering. However, Clarity, Intelligence, Wisdom are not like this. In these meetings, we are interested in observing That closely, in knowing That directly, in recognizing the Truth we are.

However, this kind of meeting is pointless to those not read yet to this moment. Here, evaluation, judgment or comparison of any type sound very strange, as it is not about listening to a subject from knowledge viewpoint. Knowledge only distorts what is being said.

Another important thing here is that we are not interested in words, in hearing or in knowing words, as Truth cannot be reveled through them, but rather through straightforward experience. You live That when you directly feel what is being pointed out here; it is not about verbal, analytical, philosophical, intellectual understanding. So, be a little patient and find out the meaning of listening without a knowledge background. You do not need knowledge here.

Truth cannot be nourished like a plant in the garden. Truth is not like that; It is not cultivable. In other words, there are no steps or levels to reach That; it is not Something you acquire step by step. So, this sounds completely strange in relation to everything the mind knows, even because it does not concern the mind’s knowledge.

Generally, you live in inattention, and Satsang is an invitation to Conscious, Intelligent Life, to the Freedom from all confusion the mind knows. You know all the mind knows is the experience of confusion. In the mind, life is confusion; you are in confusion, that is lack of clarity, lack of silence, lack of peace.

Thoughts produce confusion. Within yourself, images, beliefs, values, motives and reasons are leading to confusion. Seeing the world, seeing yourself and life through thought lens is pure confusion. Nevertheless, this has become the normal state in people’s lives, entangled with every kind of confusion - psychological, financial, emotional, familial, political, social, and so forth. Confusion is the way of living when there is no Intelligence. When there is no Freedom, what you call as “your life” is in disarray throughout different aspects and areas, producing more and more suffering, conflict and, of course, more disorder.

On the other hand, Intelligence is the Blossoming of Consciousness, present when you leave the disordered, confused, conflictive, fearful mind circuit. Consciousness is the Source of all manifestation! It entails a huge and extraordinary power! It is the Source of everything; it is the inexplicable and extraordinary Intelligence!

You cannot enjoy this Intelligence living confined into the mind’s limitations. Scientists say the brain has great potential, being a great part not used. I do not know what they exactly mean by that, but I know what I am saying to you here: there is a huge Intelligence potential within Consciousness, beyond the brain itself, beyond brain’s capabilities.

Awakening, Enlightenment or God’s Realization is the blooming of that Consciousness, this supreme and powerful Intelligence. You cannot learn That from your parents, from society or by following politicians, as there is no "political intelligence." Political science is not intelligent. Politics is the absence of Intelligence, since it is the mind on agreements. When there is Intelligence, there are no agreements but rather a clear Vision - "what it is" and "what it is not". It is simple like that!

Therefore, you cannot learn this from politics, from your parents, relatives or society. If you love this movement of culture, society, politics, if you love to be a militant of these things, to voice your opinion, to analyze, to study agreements, that is, if you love the mind and its movement, all you have is limitation. You cannot know Reality by being stuck within illusion. You cannot discover the Divine Truth while attached to these patterns of mediocrity. In this space called Satsang - the encounter with the Truth - it is possible to find out this clear Vision of Life, when everything the mind builds (all this culture, this humanistic, social, political, religious, philosophical vision, and so on) does not matter anymore. When you find out your Real Nature, your Divine Nature, you see yourself in your Being and out of this “mind’s game,” beyond this imaginary story, this imaginary concept of being “someone” in the world living this so-called “human history.” That’s when all the confusion, disorder and suffering end.

Satsang means being vulnerable to this Blooming, to this Intelligence. This is what I have called as Meditation. Meditation is neither reflection, nor a silence imposed by some technique or method. I am not talking about a meditation technique with a starting and ending point. I am talking about the absence of the mind and all the movement it is able to do, including the movement to be silent, to be still, to slow down.

Meditation can reveal That, and there lies the “end of the game”. When I say "end of the game," I am not saying it ends, but rather that You are beyond it. Therefore, the “game” goes on, but since you are currently beyond it, You enjoy it, without mistaking yourself for it. In reality, when you see yourself in your Essential Nature, You are the “game” itself, you are not trapped in it anymore.

It is like looking at a chessboard, on which you are no longer the pawn, you are no longer the king, you are no longer a piece of that game. You are the game itself, but you are beyond it. In Satsang, when we go deeper, when we immerse ourselves into That, realizing this non-identification with the “game,” with the “me,” with this psychological sense of being “someone,” it gets clear that this “someone” is merely a fantasy, a belief, an appearance, just an image.

What is Enlightenment, then? It means knowing the “game,” going beyond it and being the game itself. In other words, it is settling in and enjoying Life as it is, without confronting, conflicting, resisting or causing any disorder. How worth is that? If you get deeply involved in It, you will discover the price, which will be insignificant given the value of That. However, you cannot know how worth is That without first approaching and looking at It closely, at what It represents.

You remain identified with these stories, with the story of the character you believe to be, with a name, in short, with this presumption of being "someone," an "entity." You see the body in the mirror and say "I," but it is only a body. When someone undergoes an accident resulting in amputated limbs, such as a finger, a hand or a part of the arm, this person will never say again that is his or her limb; let alone the injured person will say: "I am that hand," "I am that arm" or "I am that finger."

So, this idea you are inside the body is completely illusory, because You are the One who sees the body and these objects in front of you. This hand and this body are not You, just like this chair where this body is sitting. All of this is only an appearance! When you are awake, you see all this, but in deep sleep you know nothing about this body or this world.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on June 10th, 2020 - First published in Portuguese on September 10th, 2020. For further information about our meetings, click here.

What hinders Real Happiness?

What hinders Real Happiness? Our purpose in this meeting is to investigate the nature of this obstacle. We are not investigating Reality, Truth or Happiness, but rather the nature of this obstacle. The great barrier - perhaps the greatest one - is the unexamined belief in the Truth about yourself. You do not know who you are, but you have lots of ideas about it.

To be willing to live the Truth means to be willing to abandon all beliefs, which means abandoning the personal identity (the sense of person upholds the beliefs and vice versa). Your major barrier is linked exactly to this!

The thoughts you have about yourself uphold the ones you have about life. Basically, this is how it happens. What keeps your world is what you believe to be indeed. Unconscious beliefs manifest and uphold this model within the body and the mind - this is the basis of the false identity.

How do you feel at this current moment? What sensations appear in your body? What kinds of thoughts appear in your mind now? How are your beliefs appearing now? Everything you are feeling right now is conditioned by a belief-shaped model. If you feel sorrow, this is being configured by the current thought model. If you feel joy, another thought model is present there. If you are feeling something in the body, some sensation, it is linked to a certain thought model, a belief model.

You are so identified with thoughts that you do not even notice what they trigger in this body-mind mechanism. Your set of beliefs upholds this model of a present identity within the body. This is completely false, but not how your body-mind feels, as you are mistaking yourself for this "mechanism,” for this state of beliefs.

You see yourself inside the body, having a mind inside that body. This is a representation pattern you have about yourself. The Sages name this as "dream state" or "unconscious state." This is not Real! From the standpoint of Reality, the present Truth, you are literally sleeping! Do you realize how important this is?

Obviously, this is not easily accepted as real. This existence model is what is easily accepted, instead of what is being proposed here. Our invitation is for you to find out the structure, the basis upholding suffering, for you to understand this barrier. Then, you become more and more aware of the Reality about yourself.

You can go beyond the belief, beyond that identity present in the body; so that a change takes place in this entire structure, in this mechanism. It is evident it does not always seem easy, since your beliefs are deeply based, anchored in that feeling, that thought, that emotion, that sensation. You are addicted to it for such a long time.

I have been talking about it quite a lot. I have been using new words and ideas to talk about What is beyond them. So, leave your ideas, your beliefs, your models, your conditioned patterns behind. You may have read a lot of books, heard several speeches, watched lots of videos, but that did not work and will not work. Now, you believe in other things, but it is still an intellectual act, still within the mind, and you have not yet excelled it. You have quite specific beliefs and I am here to show you they are your hurdles.

Some beliefs are basic and simple, posing no barriers to Realization. For example: you believe the Earth is round, water’s chemical formula is H2O and Gravity’s Law is a fact. You are not a chemist, not a scientist, so you believe in what they say, but they are still intellectual beliefs.

So, you have thousands upon thousands of beliefs not posing any sort of barrier to your Realization, to your Happiness, to the Realization of the Truth about yourself. However, some other beliefs, addressed in Satsang, need to vanish, to disappear: the belief in who you are, in a separate existence, in an existing separate identity at this present moment, "The world, God, and me." There is no "me," there is no "world" and God is not what one imagines.

So, the point here is not to be free from beliefs, as some of them are harmless. When drinking a glass of water, you do not need to know the water’s formula, nor to have the scientific proof of that; you can keep on believing H2O is water’s chemical formula. But from the standpoint of Consciousness, of the Real Nature of Being, this belief in who you are poses you the main barrier and you must abandon it completely.

The major part of the people live within these beliefs, that uphold further beliefs. True Happiness, true Freedom is far greater than any belief. It is beyond any idea, any description.

Realization requires an openness, that is the vulnerability of living without those beliefs. For a flower to blossom, it must open itself up; for you to become free, you must be open to the Truth about yourself, which is the end of the illusion of the belief in this false “me.” Then, like a flower, when you open yourself up, you bloom.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on February 16, 2018 - First published in Portuguese on May 17, 2018. For further information about the meetings, click here.

Disidentify from the mind!

This meeting is another opportunity to self-enquiry. It is an invitation from Consciousness to Consciousness. It is not an invitation to the mind, as it is unable to know anything.

We have a sort of objective consciousness, and even that is not the mind knowing something. As the mind is unable to know anything, it cannot enlist itself to this investigation, being just one more object.

So, what we name as “objective consciousness” is a just a perception of this Consciousness, unlimited and undefinable. The mind, indeed, is confined into this limit of knowledge and experience. What we investigate in these meetings, in this invitation to Consciousness, is the movement of the mind.

Therefore, this invitation is from Consciousness, within Consciousness and to the Consciousness. Everything the mind apparently is able to know is knowledge within this Consciousness. The mind is just a perceiving element, and all it can do is to perceive its own limitation, which happens through this investigation of Consciousness.

We can say the mind can explore its limitation, and this is what happens in this self-enquiry: you realize how limited is this sense of “me” in the mind, how limited is this perception and knowledge. So, this is the only thing you can find out within this self-enquiry. I see this in a very simple way. I do not know if you can see how simple is for the mind to notice its own self-limitation, beliefs, images, concepts, its notion of future and past.

Every mind’s experience is about perception, however, the True Nature, that is Consciousness, is beyond the mind and its perception. This acknowledgment through self-enquiry allows the mind to disconnect from this movement of identification with the experience, from the imagination of being an “identity.”

Throughout all this mind’s perception, there is something beyond it: the Reality, which does not need to be forgotten, but this is what happens when there is no attention to mind’s movement. The ordinary person is confined to this self-forgetfulness, as he or she is identified with the mind and its perceptions. So, that ends up being the person itself, although not being, in a way that this Consciousness gets dressed up as a person. Yet this Clarity, the Awakening or the complete Vision of the Truth is always a Mystery.

This is just like looking at the mirror and saying: “I am there!” Now, this “I am” has an entirely different meaning than what the mind knows, it is absolutely unknown, a great mystery. This Self-recognition is named as Awakening or Enlightenment, which is the Comprehension that experience and action are not yours, that thought, body and world are no longer yours, nor what You really are. We remain in What we are when mind, body and world are not important anymore. In your Natural State of Being, which is Meditation, you just allow yourself to think, feel, perceive and experience, moment by moment, without the illusion “you” are there, leading, moving, changing and making that happen. All this is just happening.

When no work on yourself is going on, you mistake yourself for this present thinking, feeling and perceiving, that you name as “me” - here lies your identification with an imagination.

You imagine a room, people in this room, situations and things happening, and all this is being perceived, seen, analyzed and understood by a “witness.” Mind says you are this “witness,” but this is a trick, it is utterly mind’s perception, as no witness is there. There is only this biological and functional movement of the brain, of the body and of the senses within this experience. It is so fascinating!

Consciousness does not play any role here, within this illusion. Its role lies in being the basis for everything, but there is no “person,” no “witness” in there. It is just the basis of this impersonal phenomenon.

Everything appearing is just impersonal phenomena from this Consciousness, in this Consciousness, to this Consciousness. So, even the experience you call as “fear” is not happening to the “person”, but to a psychologically conditioned pattern.

Your Essential Nature does not experience fear, but the mind does. Since you mistake yourself for the mind, through this imagination, “you” are in fear.

There are smart, no smart, healthy, sick, happy, unhappy, tall, short, fat and thin people, but this is just an impersonal Consciousness phenomenon, as these people, these forms are no separate identities. All kind of people are inside a room, but no “person” is there, as everything is just a phenomenon within Consciousness.

Consciousness is What we are. To assume your True Nature is to enjoy Love, Peace, Happiness, without mistaking yourself for the body, the mind and the world anymore. This is the goal! So, we allow everything to be as it is. When you allow everything to be what it is, You are What you are! When you mistake yourself for the mind, when you resist and don’t allow everything to be as it is, things to be as they are, you are identified with the illusion of a false “me,” and then you are miserable, unhappy.

You, in your Being, cannot be unhappy! Out of your Being, you will always be miserable, there will always be this resistance against the present Truth - present here and now – against this impersonal Truth, in which there is no “you” to control, voice, judge, compare, evaluate, accept or reject.

However, the mind is persistent, the ego is very persistent. This distinguishes the Sage from the fool, the Self-realized one from those who have not assumed the Truth about themselves: the fool one believes to exist and to be in control; the Sage knows he or she is not there, there is nothing to control. So, one is Happy and settled in his or her Being, and the other is tense, miserable, settled in his or her mind.

So, mind is this set of concepts and beliefs arising and assuming a false place. Look at this closely and disidentify from the mind! Thanks for the meeting! Namaste!

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on March 23rd, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on July, 17th, 2020. For more information about our meetings, click here.

Meditation is devotion to the Truth

I see it is quite important you pay attention to what we have been addressing in these meetings. If I tell you that, in your Real Nature, you are What undeniably maintains the feeling, the thinking, the acting, then you have a basis for self-investigation. You are that undeniable Presence! So, this is the perfect basis, and you start the investigation from that. You are always that undeniable, complete, perfect and radiant Presence. No matter the model of thinking, feeling, perceiving or acting, this can only be present in that Presence You are, always!

This is never obscured nor hidden by time, circumstances or mental states. All of you have experienced, at least once in a lifetime, anxiety, sadness, worry or some kind of fear, conflict or desire, and yet none of this can obscure or hide your Essential Nature. To begin from that basis is a great start. You are not a "person," this limited "person" you believe to be.

The beauty of this Investigation, which is Meditation, lies on recognizing this existing Presence, this Consciousness free from all effort, from the burden of this existing contradiction in thinking, in making decisions, in feeling, in having internal desires, emotions and feelings. So, the beauty of these meetings is to find out it is possible to recognize Yourself. Here, recognizing yourself means realizing What is present here and now, and not recognizing "someone" there. Therefore, never start from this mistaken principle you can know Who You Are through some knowledge.

Knowledge is a model of belief, of information, and What You Are is not limited to a model. Similarly to Reality, “What It Is” is not within a model. You cannot know anything about Yourself, but you do can find out what You are not. You are not this “person,” this limitation, this feeling, this thought, you are not this perception or this model of action. So, this is the real basis of this Discovery, of this Revelation. That’s when all suffering, confusion and anxiety disappear, as well as that model of having to strive to win, that fear of losing or this expectation for more pain and more conflict, that causes you fear, always fear, fear, fear... All that effort disappears in this simple and straightforward Recognition of your Essential Nature.

Therefore, This is not about knowing, but rather about comprehending Life as Something present here and now, not separate from What You are. So, to Understand Yourself is to Understand Life, but it does not mean knowing anything about Life nor anything about Who You are. Your True Nature is Freedom, Love, Peace and Happiness, what the mind does not know. Happiness, peace and love known by the mind are states that come and go, present or absent, circumstantial experiences. Everything you know is circumstantial, part of the known, of the mind. What You really are cannot be known, as it is not part of the mind, of the time, it is not circumstantial. Here lies the huge difference between Awakening and its mere knowledge.

So, your straightforward Understanding of the Truth is always immediate, here and now. You always have that Understanding when the mind is not there judging, comparing, evaluating, moved by these states or striving to get rid of or to gain something. Notice how simple and interesting this is. When "you" are not there, You are present! When your subjective and known world is not present (this world kept by mental states, by striving, doing, acting, thinking), You are there, and when You are there, there is Freedom!

This Freedom does not nullify thinking, feeling, perceiving nor acting. Freedom does not include yourself, but rather Your Self! Freedom means You as the Real One, and not “you” as a “person,” a fraud, a lie, an illusion. You are Peace, and that is the sign. Ask me what is the sign when You, in your Essential Nature, are present. The sign of when You are present is the absence of time, knowledge, comparison, judgment, mental evaluations, desire or fear. So, That is Meditation, Consciousness, the Awakening of your Natural State of Being!

That is why I have been often pointing out this to you: you will not find any answer, any spiritual experience that could provide you an answer to What is external to the mind. No matter how spiritual you become, you will always be stuck in time, space and circumstances; you will always have to improve or to learn a bit further; you will always have to gain or to get rid of something, to conquer or to give up on something. So, forget all that! Forget spirituality or spiritualization.

Your State of Sanity is the Real State of Holiness, free from time, free from the mind. The Saints live in a mind-free state! They are not spiritual people, since there is absolutely no “person” in the state of Holiness, of Real Sanity! When there is Sanity, there is no "person," there is no "someone." Saint is God, the Truth, the Consciousness, and That is beyond time. So, the answer is not found in the mind, we cannot find That within the mind’s world. "You" cannot find That, there is no way to find That.

Therefore, to become spiritual, to dedicate your life to esoteric and mystical practices, to rituals and ceremonies is worthless. All of this may even be of some use, such as making you to be a bit more psychologically focused on some purpose, but even that purpose will have to be abandoned at some point. All of that will have to be abandoned, as it is still part of time, part of the known, of the knowledge. So, it is always a frustration circle. You have always believed you can reach That through some technical practice, or that spiritual practice would provide you this Freedom, or that some technical practice or ritualistic, esoteric exercise would provide you That, but this is not true, it is not like that.

Your real exercise is to bring Consciousness to this moment and disconnect yourself from the psychological time, from this time created by the mind through beliefs, conclusions, deductions, comparisons, judgments, evaluations and imaginations. Notice how I have been talking to you about this matter of imagination and how huge is that burden you have inside since spend your day imagining and naturally cultivating fear.

Is there anything you need to know? That is how your brain works, as since childhood you were conditioned to “learn.” You believe everything can be learned. This is a brain conditioning - you assume that everything “you” are today was learned. However, what "you" are is not What, in fact, You are, exactly because you have learned about it. What you have learned did not provide you Freedom, did not provide you What You Are. Everything you know in life came from that. You have learned all this once; you have even learned to "be someone."

So, your jealousy, envy, spite, your fears and desires, all that came from this knowledge you have acquired. As part of that, you have a name, an age, a history, a culture... All that are learned things, that is, you have learned to “be someone.” When you learn to “be someone,” you forget the Truth about What You Are, the Truth of What It Is, here and now, this Reality, this Consciousness. So, is there anything to learn? No! Now, it is about unlearning, the only thing you need. Only then, you will return to your Essential Nature, to Home.

Meditation is your Natural State, while imagination is artificial, it is a thought’s movement built by the thought itself. Meditation is Truth, whereas this imagination or this thought’s construction has no real basis. The fact is that Meditation makes you not only aware of the illusion of imagination, but also aware of the illusion of time, of thought, of the experiencer, of the thinker. So, not only imagination but also thought and experience are discarded. That is why I have been saying that Meditation is the key to all this.

However, Meditation is not learnable either. You recognize Yourself as Consciousness, as Meditation, and that is the end of imagination. Therefore, you cannot learn that. In fact, if you know meditation, you will have to unlearn this, as this meditation does not work. This meditation is not What You Are, but something you have learned, you have been taught, you have discovered. If you have discovered it, it means it was hidden; and the Truth is not something like that.

Wisdom, Happiness, Meditation, God is not like that, something hidden. It is rather a matter of forgetfulness than something hidden, although the expression “forgetfulness” is also inappropriate - “forgotten meditation,” “forgotten consciousness,” “forgotten God.” The ‘Thing’ is there, but It is not being assumed; It is not hidden. I repeat: the whole Thing is here and now. It is not hidden, but it is not being assumed; So is Meditation, God, Truth, Happiness, Realization.

Meditation is devotion to the Truth. If there is no devotion to the Truth, there is no way for Meditation to flourish or to be verified here and now. So, notice it: it is not a matter of a hidden thing, but rather a lack of attention that makes That appear to be forgotten, and That can only be recognized when there is surrender, devotion. I see devotion as surrender and surrender as welcoming the Truth. That’s when Meditation can no longer remain “forgotten.” If there is no devotion, there is no surrender, and so there is no Meditation. However, it is impossible for Meditation to remain “forgotten” if devotion is present here and now. Devotion is this surrender to the Truth!

If you say, "I don't know where the Truth is," I fully agree with you! Truth cannot be known, as It is present through devotion, and not through conclusion, deduction, logical speculation, that is, intellectual understanding.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on March 16, 2020. - First published in Portuguese on August 21, 2020. For further information about our meetings, click here.

The Heart is Consciousness, Presence, Reality!

This is a moment of Surrender, of Self-investigation, of Meditation, of the encounter with the Divine Truth, with the Truth we bring within ourselves. All your longing is for Freedom. It does not matter how, but everybody looks for Freedom, for Happiness.

Life, in this false identity, is dramatic, boring and conflicting. When human beings begin to recognize this, they begin to realize how stupid it is to live in the mind, then they turn to the search for themselves, and at that moment, by an action of Grace, they are led to a new direction. This search for the end of a dramatic, confusing, disoriented, and conflicting life is the real search, the great goal.

This whole process begins when you realize how stupid it is to keep on living in the old mind’s model, with all the drama thought produces. When you begin to realize that, you are called to understand, to awake. In mankind’s history, this has been named as “Liberation,” “The Kingdom of Heaven,” “Nirvana,” “Union with God.” It is, in fact, the recognition of your Divine Nature, of your Essential Nature, something that reveals itself in the Silence, in the Silence of Meditation, when a complete emptying of the sense of “me” happens. When the sense of “me” disappears, all drama and all confusion also vanish.

Usually, people do not realize what goes on with themselves. They simply live the drama of the sense of separation, without being aware of the inherent burden, since they have been living this way for such a long time – so this is already normal to them. People do not realize what is their real condition and how miserable it is to live that way because they are often distracted by external fulfillments.

These external fulfillments distract them from their own misery, from their condition, from their drama, and so people keep “living” their lives - a dull, conflicted and boring life, with little pleasant and fulfilling moments, purely egoic, and with a huge amount of anxious, conflicting, fearful and suffering moments, in several forms, but they are already used to experience.

So, people do not become aware of this condition, of this sense of separation, of the burden of living this way. In fact, people even enjoy this miserable life condition, as it is all they know. A complete unconsciousness! People cannot see this condition because the mind is constantly busy, fulfilling new desires, constantly searching, without resting, for more egoic personal accomplishments to fulfill this sense of personality, this sense of separation.

So, what we see is that this constant desire, in its several forms of manifestation, is based on the very own sense of separation trying to heal the sense of separation. What I am saying is that life within desire is always based on the conflict of the sense of separation. Separation has already happened (this is the condition of the ordinary person), so the desire appears in attempt to heal that consequent sense of inadequacy, of conflict. However, this cannot be successful. Desire is part of the conflict; therefore it cannot heal the conflict. Desire is part of suffering. It is not apart suffering as an antidote, as a healing, as a medicine. In reality, it is the poison itself, circulating as such.

Therefore, there is no ultimate success through desire. Even the so-called “spiritual accomplishments” are just new desires being fulfilled, that is completely useless. What people experience in some therapeutic or spiritual work is only a temporary sensation of freeing up themselves from a certain kind of pain, of conflict, of suffering. But deep down, there is no way to radically free themselves from this drama, from this dilemma, because the sense of separation, the sense of “me” is still present. The ego is the disease! A disease without treatment. The problem with the search is that it will always entice for further searches, be it for material or spiritual objects, for gross or subtle things, and behind all that still lies this false “me,” this false entity.

You are not a divine “piece,” a “piece” of God inside the body. There is no such entity there inside the body. This apparent entity is not real. There is only this Presence, this Consciousness. That apparent entity is within Consciousness as an imaginary appearance produced by the mind.

All that exists is Consciousness! That is the straightforward and practical Understanding of the Truth. The Liberation from illusion is the end of the drama, the end of the conflict, the end of suffering, the end of this image of an entity within Consciousness.

The ordinary person is unconscious about all of this. All his/her relationship is based on the imagination of being “someone,” and that is fear. Yet, the one who is in one’s Essential Nature, living the Truth about oneself, carries a Radical Understanding. He/She is living in the Heart… the Heart is the Consciousness, the Presence, the Reality!

You need to let everything go away so you can be What you are! That is what I just called as “Radical Understanding.” In It, your life is pure Intelligence! Then, this Power flows without hurdles, without roadblock, because there are no desires, there is no fear.

I am not here to entertain you. I am not a speaker, an orator, a teacher. I am here only to investigate with you how confusing it is to live within all that drama or how dramatic it is to live within all this confusion.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on June 5th, 2020 - First published in Portuguese on September 8th, 2020. For further information about our meetings, click here.

The Space of your Essential Nature

Satsang is an opportunity for the one who has already found out that Peace cannot be found externally, that this constant search for objective experiences cannot produce real results. It is not possible to find Peace, Freedom and Happiness in external experiences.

You cannot feel completely Free, Self-Realized, in full Happiness, you cannot live this Divine Presence because this inner mind’s movement prevents you from that. Thoughts and feelings inside you are producing internal states of conflict. To get rid of this conflict, you search for external objective experiences. In fact, by doing so, any experience you have will be just an experience within this belief, still within the mind and reflecting a state of the mind itself. That will only confirm you remain as a separate entity, “you” are within the experience as a separate entity.

So, this is an unsolved matter: to feel yourself separate (a separate entity) is surely not peaceful, not happy, not Liberating. It is imprisoning, something inside a prison, as it hides your Divine Nature, the real Peace, Freedom and Happiness.

This way, every experience you have will always be within the mind itself, and never beyond it. Therefore, this search format does not solve the sense of separation. This Real Presence You are in your Being is the very own Freedom, Happiness, Peace. I can illustrate it as a space where you see some things. They are there within that space, but the space itself cannot be seen, but only the things within it. The objects can be seen within a given space, but the space cannot be seen. In fact, when the space is occupied, it cannot be seen at all, because it is as if the space were absent and only the objects were present. This illustration is quite interesting, since the objects can only be present because there is a space preceding them.

Therefore, your whole experience may be just the experience of objects and not of the space. Your whole human experience, the whole history of this character there, who has a name, a body, a set of experiences, all of this is just part of these objects within this Space. There is no history, no body, there are no situations, conflicts, dramas, no experience in the Space itself. The Space is always free and remains unknown, it is something you cannot recognize. The Space can recognize you, but you cannot recognize It. It recognizes this body, this name and this history, but none of this can recognize this Space, because It precedes all of this.

When we talk about Freedom, Happiness, Peace, Divine Realization, we mean Space. This Space has neither birth nor death; it is not subject to agitation. If you have a room, you can change the furniture, but the space will not change. That is exactly what happens to you. Your inner states are changing but this Space does not change. It cannot be touched by activities, that is, activities and agitation can happen, but the Space will remain intact, absolute, without changes. The Divine within Yourself is something like that. The Presence of God’s Reality, of this unknown “Thing” without name, shape, body, history, is something like that. This Divine Presence allows everything to happen! It may seem strange to hear this, but there is no problem with agitation. What I mean is that when you are disturbed, disoriented, scared, fearful, unhappy, none of this touches this Space!

Everything you have learned in your life from those around you, within this society, within this culture, through relationships with “people” in this world where you were apparently born - or that you believe you were born in - was to live in agitation, to be restless. Conflict, fear and suffering are this restlessness. The story of this “person,” of this character there, who has a name, is this restlessness – a restlessness within the Space, and not a restlessness of the Space. Basically, the sense of ego, the sense of separation is restlessness, and this is the ordinary, the “normal” way of knowing the experience. However, this Presence remains the same and allows everything to appear within Itself, without choices, without preferences.

The mind can be restless, the body can be restless, the world seems to be restless, but these are all objects within this Space. So, there is absolute no need for you to search for a peaceful, happy or loving experience, since this search is the very own separation from this already full and complete Space. This Space is Peace, Love, Freedom, Happiness in Itself! Thus, there is no need for this movement. In fact, it is not only unnecessary but it also further reinforces the illusion that it is possible to find something by moving yourself, but all you can find through this movement is more restlessness.

In other words, in the state of conflict, your movement is towards conflict. In the state of fear, your movement is towards fear. Being confused, you can only act in a confusing way, you cannot act otherwise, so your action will be confusing. If you are restless, your action will come from this restlessness. So, you do not need this search, because it is completely unnecessary and counterproductive.

Another point here is that you do not need any special knowledge to become aware of your Essential Nature, of this Space that remains free from this restlessness. It is enough to know You are That and to assume this Knowledge. The more you remain aware of Yourself, being disidentified from this restlessness movement the mind produces, the more the Truth of your Essential Nature reveals Itself, which is Peace, Happiness, Love, Freedom.

In general, people are not interested in this. They will keep their external searches, remaining restless and appreciating objects, unaware of the Presence of the Space. So, the ordinary intelligence - or what people consider intelligent in this world - is exactly this movement towards external accomplishments, through this search for a richer, more profound, more meaningful experience. Then, you end up following the steps of those who achieved “success,” of the “well-succeeded people,” but remember that “people”, even the “well-succeeded ones”, are still “people.” “Person” is synonym for illusion, the illusion of the sense of a separate existence, of an entity living a separate life; it is the unawareness of the Space.

You need to ask yourself how deep there is something inside you really burning for This, for this Self-Realization. What I am telling you is that the deeper you go, the more you are aware of Yourself, of this Presence, of this Reality, which is this Space. The more It becomes clear, the more this quality of Silence, of Peace, of Freedom, of Real Intelligence is revealed. Here, I use the word “intelligence” differently than the ordinary understanding for the major part of the people. Intelligence here means to be aware of the Reality of non-separation. So, the deeper you go into your Being, into your Natural State (that is this Space, that I have also called as Consciousness), the more these attributes or qualities of your Essential Nature are revealed. That’s when you are, in fact, touched by the Grace, by the Divine, by this Presence, by this Consciousness, living in Love.

Now, it is up to you apply yourself to that, to get yourself involved, to work on it. That is the purpose of our work here: to show you the importance of a profound involvement with the Divine Truth You bring within, that You are, that is within yourself, sleeping, but It is there.

When you watch a movie, you see things like tragedy, shocking, difficult, hard and complicated scenes … If you saw that happening to you, you would be completely off your feet, desperate, but while watching a movie, you consider it a film. However, is this so different from what you currently call as “your life,” at this moment? Are the things happening to you truly real? That is just a movie over there and it has nothing to do with you, but the things that seem to happen to you do not seem to be a movie; they seem very real, quite scary. So, it is time to find out this Space – the Space of your Essential Nature.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on June 15th, 2020 - First published in Portuguese on August 31st, 2020. For further information about our meetings, click here.

Are past and future a real experience?

We have a great opportunity tonight, at one more meeting, one more moment in this investigation, in this immersion, for this plunge into the Source, into the heart of all things. This core of everything is beyond the thought, which is quite interesting. Thought creates the illusion of past, of future and of this present moment as being the real now; and life within the mind revolves around present, past and future. Life within the mind revolves around the thought, which creates the illusion of a separate life, of a separate existence. Without the thought, there is nothing similar to past, present or future. Without the thought there is nothing similar to a separate life. The beauty of Self-realization lies in verifying that.

Notice that past and future are only thoughts. We do not truly experience the past or the future within them, as they are not real experiences. We only experience the present thought, because neither past nor future are real experiences; they are simply thoughts. Notice how interesting this matter of thought is. In Satsang, you are going beyond thought, beyond this illusion.

Are past and future true experiences? Are they real experiences? What do you have now, at this moment, when you talk about past or future? All you have present is simply the thought. See how interesting this is, how thought has fascinated, hypnotized us, and how it has made us believe in a separate existence, the existence of "someone…" The beauty of Self-realization is the end of time, of the illusion of time! Do you see that? You stop giving importance to thoughts.

So, time is an imagined thing... Life is an imagined thing... Person is an imagined thing. This moment is this Presence, the only Reality, and It is beyond thought. All that exists is this ever present now, out of time. Eternity is out of time. Time is just a thought, like a veil trying to cover Reality. This eternity is just another name for Consciousness, Presence, the Self, our Real Divine Nature.

Participant: Master, when I "notice" a thought, it disappears; so, it seems to be unreal. But after a while, I find myself again wandering on unnecessary thoughts.

Master Gualberto: It is exactly that. The nature of the egoic mind is to produce thoughts and then to wander on these thoughts. This is the mind’s life, life within time. The egoic mind is in the past, in the present or in the future; all it does in the present moment is to project itself to the future or to the past, imagining what apparently happened or what may happen, which are only thoughts - and all thoughts are unnecessary. Life does not need the thought. Life happens within Eternity, that is not the eternity of an infinite time period, but rather the Eternity of the absence of time, of the non-need for time, outside of the time.

Other names for Eternity are Presence, Consciousness, Being... pure Being, our Real Nature. Time overlapping this Eternity is just a thought. There is no time within which we move in action... there is no movement within Consciousness - the Self does not move. Is that clear?

Therefore, it is not about words, but rather the Awareness of this Presence, this Presence as Consciousness. It is this Real Now. It is not the simple present moment, which is also only an imagination within time that will become past. We are talking about something out of time illusion. This present moment is time. The past moment is time. The future moment is time…and everything is appearing and disappearing, arising by overlapping this timeless Reality, this Eternity, this Presence, this Consciousness.

Notice that there is no person on it, there is no personal life there. Personal life is the story, which is time, thought, imagination. Here it gets clear that all this is an illusion, just a belief, an idea; "a person" present in this room is only an idea. There are no people in this room, and it is fascinating to comprehend this... To access this is what I call "to comprehend," because you cannot reach this intellectually, but only understand it. I want to use here the term "to comprehend," which means going beyond the intellect and therefore, beyond the understanding. You cannot understand this, as understanding means getting some piece of verbal and intellectual knowledge about this Thing, which is useless, and you find that everywhere, on books, on Facebook… everywhere.

There is plenty knowledge available about this, easy to understand, but no comprehension remains in this “understanding.” Comprehension means not understanding, but rather realization, and I invite you to comprehend This. I do not invite you to understand It intellectually or verbally, nor to know and even to be able to explain It, because this is useless - it is just more knowledge. Regarding this "matter" here, which is not a subject or a matter of discussion for you to learn, every knowledge is garbage, useless. You need to plunge into your Being, see That directly!

Let’s stop here. Good night everyone. Namaste!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on June 29th, 2016 on Paltalk app - First published in Portuguese on July 18th, 2016. For further information about the meetings, click here.