You live in that game

What should be your work? What do you need to find out? You need to find out just one thing: who you are. Any interest you have in the world is illusory, since you do not have to find out what the world is. When you are in a room with other people, they all have a perception of that room. It is clear everyone perceives it differently, and what holds for the room is also applied to any form of perception you have of your world. So, wherever you are, you have a perception of the world around you, and so do other people there. Let’s take the example of a room with five people inside having their perception about it. Is it the same room? There is only one room, but there are different points of view. Then, is it the same room? What about your world? Is it, in fact, the world? Do you see the same thing he or she sees? Are you living in the same world like them? Is it the same world?

So, let us see how that sense of separation is created. What is the structure of the sense of a “me” present there? A particular point of view. Are you always the same person to everybody? That person you know, does everybody know him or her in the same way? Do you see yourself always as the same person? Point of view!

So, how do we build the illusion of a sense of separation? Particularizing the experience. Then, what is that false “me,” how is it created? Interpretation, particularization, point of view, choosing in what to believe, to feel, to perceive.

What is the “person,” the sense of “me”? The particularization of the mind, the vanity of the thought you “buy.” It is only one world, but several points of view, and when you choose one of them, you particularize a perception and contract yourself, and so you live “your world,” but it is false. Each one has his or her world, and it does not match the Reality of Life as it is.

So, how do we create the false identity? By making choices – choosing what to feel, to think, to wish and to not wish… “I want my birthday party!” But no one is interested in it, because everyone is attached to their points of view; everyone is living in their private world. But the expectation of the birthday party is already inside you. What holds for the birthday also applies to any form of desire. The birthday comes and you, in your world, are expecting a lot of applause, a lot of people saying "happy birthday," but they do not remember you. You are contracted in your world, waiting for the world to appreciate yourself, but people are expecting the same thing, and that is the contraction of the false identity, the false “me.”

You expect that from your husband, from your son, from your boss... You are in your private world, craving for attention, so you are in contraction. If you are in contraction, the world is hostile since it does not match “your reality.” That is very basic! That is your false "me" in the face of the Reality of "non-me."

So, once more: how do we create that false identity? It grows out of points of view, choices, ideas and the self-image you want others to see. Then, what is it made of? Ideas, images, beliefs, choices, desires, rejections, predilections. When the illusion is created, what does it cause? Contraction. “Life, the world, he or she, is hostile, everything is wrong! I have to end it all because I cannot take this suffering anymore, this contraction!” Is that true? Do you really want to end this? No! You want to change the objects.

You carry this “sense of me” since childhood, and that has not finished yet, since you never wanted to finish with that indeed, as it would mean the end of the illusion of the false “me,” of the choices, of what you want people to think about you. You do not want to finish that! You see it as normal, natural – to live being loved and despised, to love again and to be despised again; or willing to be loved, but being despised, willing to love without being accepted. You live in this game!

You feel yourself loved, and therefore you are so happy, but in the upcoming moment you are rejected, and so you are sad! You switch between states of happiness and sadness, happiness and depression. When you are depressed, you say: “I do not want that anymore, I am going to end this now; I do not want to hear from her anymore, because she does not see how important, beautiful and wonderful I am… I need to find someone who can give me that.” Or you can say: “I had all these children and I am too old to be mother now, but in another life, I will have more children and they will love me. These came out with defects, but next time I will get it right. I will carry on with this task. I will marry again; I will have another husband and he will be the one who will see me. So, I will have children with him and they will be wonderful! One day it will happen!” You want your children, husband or boyfriend to change to appreciate yourself. You do not want to abandon the point of view; you only want to change your boyfriend, your children, your family, that is, you want to change the point of view.

So, do you want to renounce the point of view or to change it? Do you want to give up on that relationship you have with this or that person, with the family, or do you want to abandon the illusion of a “me” in that relation? Do you really think the problem lies in life, in others, in the world?

So, abandon the world and others, but do it for real and not to replace them. You say: “I want to end it all!” So, end it all indeed and let the world in peace! Throw a “bomb” and “blow up” this world! The point is to give up on the illusion you are present in the experience. The problem is not the “room,” but the points of view each one has with regards to it.

Actually, what is not solved internally is the decision to stop interfering in Life as it is being presented, clinging to your judgments, opinions and beliefs.

Therefore, it is one “room,” but several private viewpoints. Here, you give up and you really put an end to all this when you abandon the illusion of being “someone” in the experience of looking at life, at others and at the world. My work is for you to be suspicious of what you feel, what you think and what you choose. Your relation with life should be objective, practical, intelligent! If you fall into the trap of trying to "feel" others, the world and what happens, you will be on journey in a subjective, egoic world. This is the ego's addiction – feeling, thinking and drawing conclusions about life. You learn that the more you feel the Divine Truth, the less real is the subjective feeling of the relationship with the world.

People are very sentimental, romantic, sensitive, not practical about life, and this behavior strengthens this false center. You need to investigate that internally, how romantic, sentimental, sensitive, insecure, needy, precarious and not practical you are. You are not practical with regards to life’s businesses and to the demands of existence; you are constantly cultivating a subjective world of beliefs, feelings, emotions, experiences and sensations. So, be practical, objective. Otherwise, you will be stuck to the psychological subjectivity of demanding the world, life and the “room” to be as you wish.

Can you see what I am saying? When I say you are too romantic, sentimental, sensitive, not practical and not objective, can you understand what I am saying? Can you see the demands based on ideas, beliefs, conclusions, desires and choices that you have internally?

*Online meeting transcription originally held on June 7th, 2020 on Zoom app – First published in Portuguese on November 5th, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

True Happiness is Being

The fact is that I share nothing other than What You Are. So, this is permeated with a very real power. I lead you to yourself. I give you to yourself. I bring you the scent of your Real Identity, which is Happiness, Love, Peace, the Completeness, where nothing lacks.

You ask, "Where is there someone living That?" There cannot be "someone" living That! This can only be present when there is no "someone," that is, when there is no more search. That is why you do not find That in philosophy, in religion, in spiritual practices... This is not present in any practice. This is present when "you" are not present. This is the end of practices, the end of the search for virtues, for personal improvement, for evolution... This is the absence of the ego, the absence of the "me," of the "I."

Thus, That – as the only "Real Thing" – cannot be compared to anything at all, since nothing compares to That! That is unreplaceable, as nothing would be able to replace It! Therefore, you should not think, create ideas about It, nor try to compare It to human relationships, to external accomplishments. You cannot put That at the same level of all these things. All this has to disappear! You have to sacrifice everything for That, for this Realization, for this existing Presence, which is Consciousness, Reality, the Truth.

True Happiness is to Be That! It is not about finding solutions, since there are no problems to be solved. When you stop going outside, when you stop looking for something there, problems disappear, since there is no "you" anymore. Then, Happiness – previously ashamed for being replaced by desires and accomplishments – returns, appears again; and then Love – that you tried to replace by pleasant connections with the opposite sex or with the common sex – also returns; They leave the hiding place and come back to you.

The same thing happens to Peace – ashamed and hidden since you were loving conflict, loving to fight, to misunderstand, to think, to create arguments – It returns and takes back Its place. Love assumes the place that always belonged to it. Happiness returns home... This is Enlightenment!

Wisdom – also hidden due to your thought-based actions, and therefore stupid ones – comes back again, bringing Compassion, Beauty, Truth, Clarity, Sincerity, Honesty.

Truth is not a dogma, not a creed. Truth is the Realization, is the Blossom of Christ, the Blossom of God – you blossoming like God, like Christ. That’s when your speech is your own message, not a message borrowed from theology, from the sacred books, from the Sutras, from the Upanishads, from the Vedas, from the Koran, from the Bible... It is your message, because it is your Realization. That is why Jesus said, "Let your light shine!" It is your light that must shine, and not mine. Do not talk about my light. Make your light shine!

When you realize Christ, you are the Christ! I am not talking about the carpenter of Nazareth. No one can be the carpenter of Nazareth, the historical figure who walked on the shores of Galilee. Krishna and Buddha were unique as well. This is not their time, but your time. Stop talking about them and talk about Yourself, your Compassion, your Love, your Truth, your Wisdom, your Authenticity. Speak of Yourself, which is the "I am.”

You do not need to quote anyone to assign authenticity to your voice, to provide truth to your speech. Your Being is the authenticity of your voice and also of your silence. When you are real, everything becomes real: your speech, your silence, your movements, your gestures, your acts, your non-acts... Everything that comes from you, from your Being, is real.

When you claim for yourself the authority to speak from your Being, you are either a madman or a Sage. Without any collaboration, without any help, without any academic, philosophical, spiritualistic support, either you speak like a madman or like a Sage.

So, I do not know which category I fit in, but I know it is funny.

* Presential meeting transcription, originally held in Campos do Jordão city, Brazil, on July, 2017. First published in Portuguese on March 20, 2018. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

The acknowledgement of Reality brings the Awakening

To be in Satsang, in this work, means abandoning the ordinary model. This ordinary model is the idea you are there and I am here, two people interacting and exchanging ideas. To abandon that ordinary model means finding out the Truth about your Self, the Truth there are not two! The presence of a “someone,” independent of others and of the world is an illusion! That is the model everybody knows and was raised – the model of a separate existence, of a separate entity. Thus, these meetings are beautiful opportunities for us to identify the illusion of such model.

The acknowledgment of Reality brings the Awakening, the vision of Life as It is, free from fear, suffering, confusion and therefore free from that ordinary model of separation, of duality. You presume the “person” is not a thing. It seems offensive to say the "person" is also just a "thing," but every relationship you have with the world is a relationship with objects; all your interest in the world is in objects. What you name as a “person” is an idea, a belief, an image of a living organism you call as “someone.” If you see the world from the perspective of objects – which is how you see what is around you, from the standpoint of images – you end up imagining things, people, objects and the world as separate things. So, you live in that multiplicity and thought is present there. There is no inner Silence, no Consciousness, there is no room for the end of all this, for the end of this illusion, the illusion of that model.

In Satsang, you can go beyond that duality, that multiplicity. The mind is the one separating everything and creating this duality, and therefore, this relation with objects. In your Being, in your True Nature, you do not know objects. Your interest in objects or your relationship with the world in this way is purely mental. Why is all this important? Because as long as you do not know yourself in your Essential Nature, as Consciousness, your way to see the world will be completely distorted.

There is an inner restlessness caused by all the confusion thought produces to yourself. You are living through the thought, since that is how you were raised for life. A thought-based life is conflicting, since an object-focused life is a self-centered life. Not being able to see yourself is not being able to see others, the world, the life, and that is the viewpoint of objects. All your interest is in this self-centering, in this relationship with objects, in which desire and fear are present.

The question is: “Who are you?” To find out the Silence of your Real Nature, the absence of this mind’s condition, of this purely mental life model, this is what we are working on together, in Satsang. As long as you are involved in this mental life model, you are constantly waiting for something new to happen, for a new object to come, to complete yourself. Either you recognize yourself as Consciousness or you live in that mental life model!

All of you are waiting for something for tomorrow – maybe more children, a new marriage, a new home, a new job, opening up a business, being loved, becoming rich, famous people – so, you are always waiting for something tomorrow to be happy. It is always something you want or yearn. There is the structure of the ego, of this false "me," looking for a "someone" to "be someone." You were already married four times, and now you are going to marry for the fifth time! You have never been loved, but now you will be! You will find the right person, live in the right city, in the right country; there will be changes in your life... Things were not good yesterday, but they will be good tomorrow! It is always related to imagination, away from the present Reality. All this because you do not know the Truth about Yourself!

Maybe, within forty years, you will not be able to get there yet, but you will keep on trying. You want to keep on living another forty, fifty, sixty years under this search, this pursuit. Here, I want to invite you to go beyond the limits of time, of this model, of this circle, of the past and the future. Probably you are not happy with the past, otherwise you would not be in this room. You are still looking for something, a sign that you have not found it yet. Your model of life is that model of thought, of imagination: despair: past – hope: future.

It seems everybody is unhappy, since they are looking for something. When you are complete, happy, fulfilled, you do not search anymore! But your model, your conditioning is always towards searching, seeking. No matter if you were not happy in the past, you believe you will be in the future. However, your future will be like your past if you do not understand yourself right now.

This outside search always ends up in conflict, in another sort of fantasy. Satsang is the end of the illusion of that person constantly looking for something, hopeful about the future and hopeless about the past. The nature of the ego, the nature of the mind is always to seek continuity. What we propose to you is to know this "fire," this "flame" of Freedom. That is present when illusion dissolves, disappears. When you come here, I invite you to That, and I call That as “Something Natural and Simple.” It is about leaving the scene, leaving this illusion, abandoning this character, the illusion of seeing yourself and the world through this dualistic, separatist, conflicting mind.

You Realize the present Happiness when you find out “you” are not present there. There is no more search, no seek anymore (neither for spirituality nor for materiality). So, this Real Intelligence becomes Present! As long as there is some form of search, there will be problems.

So, it is not just the problem of a materialistic person, but also of someone involved with spirituality. What do we take for spirituality, anyway? It is reaching a world beyond this world itself! It is always the idea of conquering, achieving, getting there, acquiring, becoming someone special. You are not a worldly, materialist person; you are now a spiritual creature!

It seems quite strange and even absurd to hear all that for the first time, but life in the mind is a fraud! As long as thoughts are present, passing inside your head, producing images and saying you can accomplish this or that, you will be captured by the illusion, by the sense of "me,” by the sense of separation. That is why I have been warning you about the importance of Meditation. This fundamental ignorance needs to be exposed! This model of relationship with objects needs to be recognized! Now, you have understood: these objects may have the nature of materiality or spirituality, but they are still objects, mind projections, thought projections.

Participant: Master, my head is so full that I cannot meditate!

Marcos Gualberto: Meditation is not an empty head; Meditation is the absence of the head! When there is not the head, Meditation is present. The presence of the head is always the presence of content. Head is content! Wherever the head is, the content is. These thoughts, these feelings, these emotions are activities motivated by that conditioning, by all the craziness of that illusion, that sense of “me,” that sense of separation, and that is the head’s presence. All of this begins to fade away, little by little, in this contact with your Essential Nature, your Divine Nature.

That Consciousness itself, your Essential Nature, begins to reveal itself, begins to show you what Meditation is. I am not talking about a practice; I am talking about approaching the recognition that You do not have a head, that You are not a separate entity in a relationship with the world. All this restlessness, all this internal confusion is present in this illusion.

Every thought inside yourself is not You. You are the Reality where thought takes place! You are not the thought! This Reality, where thought takes place, is this Consciousness I am talking about, and This is not found in a relationship with the world, in the duality "the world and me." That requires work, a real work involvement with yourself.

The mind will not give up its place so easily. Everything you know about yourself is false; it is the mind knowing. You cannot know what you are; and what you know is not what you are. What You are cannot and does not need to be known. You know what you are not, and that is totally useless, since it is not the Truth.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on July 24th, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on November 3rd, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Discover the Truth of the Mind’s Illusion

Participant: How is the matter of suffering according to the viewpoint of the Self-Realized One?

Marcos Gualberto: You have to differentiate suffering from pain. Generally, in the mind you interpret all pain as suffering, but pain is physical, whereas suffering is psychological.

Thought does not produce physical pain, but rather psychological pain, which is suffering. This is what the “sense of person” carries. Physical pain can be treated, while psychological pain, suffering, is endless, is linked to the mind’s nature.

In fact, the right thing to say here is that the mind will never stop producing psychological pain. In other words, the mind will never stop suffering, as this is its nature. Why do I say that? Because the mind has this profile, this dualistic nature. It will never fail to experience pain, for the simple reason it lives in a world of opposites, of contrasts. This way, pleasure is the other side of this pain.

Participant: Master, is every emotional pain a suffering? Even when it is due to an immediate response to the environment, such as a loss, for example?

Marcos Gualberto: Your body has a self-protection system. The body translates an attack, a violation, an incision, a cut, an injury into pain. This is related to this defense system of the organism, this living mechanism. It is natural. But when you lose someone, it is not like that. You say: "Even when it is an immediate response to the environment.” In what sense do you apply the word "environment"? Because losing someone only represents an immediate response to a purely psychological environment. The matter of losing someone can only be placed psychologically, and of course, connected to an emotional pain.

Then, you ask: "Is every emotional pain a suffering?" That is evident! Any psychological pain, apart from this physical, neurophysiological pain, is suffering. Only the psychological sense of a "me" experiences suffering and this "environment," that is purely sentimental, emotional.

So, where is your suffering? It is in the “sense of me,” in this “sense of being someone,” moving within this “environment” of relationships with objects – be it inanimate objects, such as the carpet in your living room or the car you drive; or living objects, such as your child, grandchild, husband or boyfriend. Every relation the mind has involves objects, as it always sees itself as the subject, as the "central Sun" of this "cosmos," of this "universe."

The curious thing is that the word "cosmos" means beauty or beautiful in Greek, but there is no "cosmos" in this mind’s world. All the ego experiences is suffering, because every ego’s experience concerns its relation with duality, with separateness. You will never be free of suffering as long as you remain in the illusion of seeing yourself as an entity separate from the experience. As long as you see yourself in a relationship with something, that is an action between two things, suffering will be present.

Life is not happening in this format. This is imaginary, created by a presumption, by an assumption. The assumption is: "me and the world" or "me and others.” When a violation seems to happen in this “cosmos,” in this “universe,” which is when the object of this subject (being the subject this “me”) is removed, be it in the case of death or separation, this “me” will resent him or herself for not being happy due to the lack of fulfillment provided by that missing object – and here the object means others.

Notice the mind does not enjoy losing, but it enjoys winning, as it provides the mind the sensation of fulfillment, of importance, of validation, of classification. When the mind acquires much or everything it desires, it has what we call as "success." So, winning is success and losing is failure. In our culture, we appreciate successful people, because they represent what, in the ego, we want to be: someone who conquers things. But here, we are faced with the situation I just talked about. The nature of the mind is to live in duality, so it seeks success, because success is winning. However, it will always experience losses too, that means suffering to the mind.

That way, by examining that closely, you will find out winning is also suffering, since everything you gain, you lose. If you have a husband, one day he will go away, he will die. If you have a child, one day the child dies or leaves home and you will not have that child anymore. Everything you acquire, in this "sense of being someone owning something,” typical of the mind, will be lost at some point. It is an illusion to believe there will be no suffering! As long as the mind is present, there will be suffering. The mind will always experience suffering!

To live in this duality, in this suffering, in the mind, confined into this “sense of person” has become very common among us, the so-called “human beings.”

Participant: Master, you destroy everything!

Marcos Gualberto: Only what has no structure can be destroyed. What is not solid may fall, what has no reality may disappear, what is not firm may fall. In the mind, the world is fictional, a world without real stability. There is no Truth in the mind! Your whole psychological world is fake, a fraud! Your thoughts, emotions, perceptions and sensations can be translated, analyzed and interpreted. This is all part of something unstable! Only your Being cannot be “knocked down,” only your Essential Nature cannot “fall.” Your Essential Nature is not "keeping Itself in balance," is not subject to "fall," because It is not part of the mind nor of your world.

So, what is suffering? Suffering is an interpretation of pure resistance to the way life is being presented at this moment. You cannot forget Life does not take your story into consideration. Never mistake Life for the story.

Life is not the mankind’s story, nor the private story of this “me” you believe to be. Life does not consider this story that relevant, but the ego does not see it this way; the ego feels itself important. "Important" in a negative way, in what you call as "low self-esteem" or in a positive way, in what you call as "high self-esteem." In a very special way, the ego feels itself important. Everything is happening to the ego, but the ego does not take into account that Life does not see it, does not notice it. The ego does not consider itself as unreal!

There is certainly no lack of people revolted with Life in the world, with what happens, as if Life were happening to them - but Life does not see them, does not take their stories into account. Sometimes, Life interrupts a project, destroys an objective, a dream. Since Life does not take your idealism, your imagination into account, It just happens and destroys all that, and your ego gets outraged, as if it were being betrayed, deceived, deluded. All self-projection! It is the illusion of that "me" in its private world.

You say: "Your speech destroys everything!" No, my speech says there is nothing. If something is being broken, it is only the illusion.

Participant: I have a huge ego, I am snobbish and arrogant! Nobody can stand me, but it is my fault, since there are no others and I am not here, I am a mere illusion!

Marcos Gualberto: If it is a mere illusion, whose is this huge ego, snobbish and full of pride? Who is this unbearable little creature? Who is this creature that says, “It's my fault! There are no others and I am not here, this is a mere illusion,” a set of thoughts, that's all! It is just an image the thought creates about itself, assigning a present entity to it, to this image with a name.

Even considering yourself with a huge ego is a big consideration. Not everyone is snobbish, is it? Not everyone is superb and not everyone feels guilty. It seems that, somehow, the illusion of this false identity always feels itself important, whether in self-depreciation or self-appreciation. All fantasy! Here we have to investigate the illusory nature of the mind and to discover there is no entity present in this experience.

Observing the illusory nature of the mind is not self-analysis, not self-examination nor self-reflection. Observing the illusory nature of the mind is possible because the Nature of Consciousness is pure Observation, without choices, without naming, without self-classification, without self-importance, without self-depreciation, without self-analysis, without self-examination. The Nature of Consciousness is Being, something simple and natural, without the illusion of this idea of a “me,” that separates itself in order to analyze, to examine and to discover who it is.

So, my purpose in these meetings is for you to discover the truth of the mind's illusion. You are not the mind, you are nothing the mind is producing. You are not the body, you are not the story, you are not the winner nor the loser, you are not the one who was born nor the one who is going to die, you are not the one who “believes in something” nor the one who is skeptical.

Participant: Master, you are Love!

Marcos Gualberto: Love is the Nature of Consciousness, the Nature of Being; Love is You. You are not the nature of the mind, you are not the nature of the "me." Understand this! You are the Nature of Being, which is Love, Wisdom, Intelligence, Truth, Real Beauty ... the Cosmos!

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on September 18, 2020 - First published in Portuguese on October 10, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

The Real Relationship

We can call the contact between Master and disciple as the “Real Relationship.” I mean the direct activity of the Master with a suitable response from the disciple. You can try to cheat on this, but you won’t have great results. Self-realization is unique and irreversible. One of its implications is that you cannot make it happen and you cannot do it on your way.

You can be self-taught, can learn many things in life almost alone, based on other’s experiences and without a direct teacher – but when we talk about Self-realization, we are dealing with Something entirely different, not to be learned through experience, that is, impossible to be learned from others. This is like being born: you don't learn how to be born from others; you are just born! Either you are born or you are not! In order to be born, you won’t learn this experience from others. So, in the Divine Realm, in the Grace’s Realm, there is no way to learn how to do it.

Here in Brazil, there is an ongoing saying “the Brazilian way,” which means always finding a way around all problems or issues. However, Brazilians cannot find a way around Enlightenment. There is no “Brazilian way” to this. So, there is no way for you to cheat on This, to break the rules, because Realization is not like a small secret window you discover and pass through, while others remain on the other side. In politics and in several other areas, you see a lot of this, these potential “ways” to reveal a window that you can go through to get a head start, and therefore reaching what others won’t be able to.

God's realization belongs to God, it is an event of the Grace, so there is no place for contravention here; you cannot break the law. In God’s Realm there are no policemen, judges, prosecutors nor lawyers. They are not necessary, since no one can break this law and receive sanctions. God's Realization belongs to the Grace. Since in God’s Realm everything happens according to the Divine Grace, you don’t know what is happening, there is no "someone" to drive or to control anything.

Now, going a bit deeper into this matter of Self-realization, another reason why you cannot learn That from others concerns your ever-present Nature. What You Are is not learnable, but rather recognizable.

The question here is: "How can I realize That, since it is not possible to learn from someone?" When you go sleep, you set an alarm clock to wake you up at the time you need. The alarm clock is a mechanism to support you, to help you, but that mechanism cannot get you out of sleep. It makes a specific noise, helping you to leave the sleeping state – but the alarm clock does not get you out of the sleeping state; you are the one who does it indeed! If this alarm clock is ringing and you are in deep coma, you won’t get out of this sleeping state. Even if you have your bed surrounded by several alarm clocks making different noises, you won’t leave the sleeping state.

So, here we get into this matter of the “master-disciple” relationship. You can choose not to have a master or you can choose your master, but you are in a "coma," your "sleep" is deep, and this movement of choosing happens within the “sleeping state”. So, in the “sleeping state” you choose not to have a guru or you choose the most beautiful one, preferably that one living in your country or that pleases you, but since you are the one making the choice, it won’t work. All this will work as an alarm clock for the coma state – it will not work! That is, this cannot be your choice!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on September 12, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on October 15, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

You are not in the world

We are before a straightforward talk! Words’ meaning is not of our interest in meetings like this. Words are easy to be found at a conference, by reading a book… Our point here is not to share teachings; we are only inquiring. The purpose is for you to understand, in your own direct experience, what we are pointing out. The approach here concerns knowing or feeling straightforwardly, what creates an extraordinary shift of perspective. It can bring you a new way of living, of experiencing life. So, Satsang points out this possibility – that is the purpose of our meetings.

One of the foremost things to understand about this is that you cannot have a Real Vision of Life, of Yourself and, at the same time, keep the vision of yourself and life in the format you used to have until now. This can literally turn your perspective inside out. Self-Realization destroys your world!

You are not in the world! The world is present in Yourself, but you are not present in it! Some of you have not investigated this profoundly. So, you wake up in the morning, go to work and are alive, but the Universe is dead. In the Awakening, something different happens; you wake up in the morning, take a shower, go to work and everything is happening, but now it is happening to nobody. The Universe is alive and “you” are dead. The natural Universe functioning is happening, and That is the Real You, and not that old “you,” that “you” from the old perspective, the old way of seeing life and yourself, that “you” who sees yourself as a person, living inside a body, having different issues and uncountable problems (emotional, psychological, social and even political problems).

These problems are only there because “you” are alive and the Universe is dead. In your True Nature, you are Life, the Universe itself, and you carry no misery. This “little world” of yours is small, fraught, complicated, full of pain and suffering, without Peace, with broken relationships, unhappy marriages, lack of purpose, confusions and conflicts with the family, with the parents, with the country politics, with the whole external situation happening in the world. That is “you” alive and the Universe dead! “You” and your “little world.”

The world of “me” is always a world of problems, conflicts, dilemmas, suffering, fear, anger and everything else. That is inside you due to your belief in a separate “person,” due to the lack of deep self-investigation. You need a passionate, zealous, diligent intent, and then you can see Yourself, Life, the Living Universe. Otherwise, you will remain in your “little world,” full of unsolved issues. Notice you will never be able to change anything outside. The world has been like that since its beginning. Soon you will be gone, and everything will remain the same. It is a constant work in vain, a psychological activity of conflict, pain and contradiction.

Reality is Absolute, beyond all ideas, beliefs and characteristics. Something in you knows your Real Nature, beyond “to be” or “not to be,” beyond the so-called “consciousness” or “unconsciousness,” “life” or “death.” Thus, by plunging yourself into Yourself, you will know Real Meditation, the True Nature of Being, of the Truth, of the Living Universe. Then, the whole world – not your “little world” – can appear under this Supreme Consciousness Light – and not in what you call “consciousness.”

Reality is non-conceptual, not an idea, a belief. When you wake up in the morning, that Supreme Consciousness is present. In fact, before waking up in the morning, this Supreme Consciousness was already present. In this State of Being, of Consciousness, you perceive the body, the mind, the world, this Living Universe without “me,” without the sense of “someone” waking up, having breakfast, going to work… That is a fundamental position! You may think to listen to all of this is very beautiful, but that is only the “song melody.” Do not just listen to the “song melody”! You need to hear, celebrate, dance, live the “song”!

That is like the Sun... No other object makes the Sun brighter or less shiny. You are the Sun shining in the Space! You are present and shining, but whenever you mistake yourself for the mind, for the beliefs arising, you end up limited.

Now, you are a person waking up in the morning, taking your bath, having breakfast, going to work… you do that for forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years, and then you die. You can only die because you are not the Living Universe, but a “person.” You always carry this illusion of the “sense of a person,” and that is your fear.

Your Essence is pure non-duality, non-separation. When you perceive the body, the mind and the objects within this Consciousness, it is like the Sun shining in Space. Neither the body nor the mind, nor the world, neither the objects nor the experience can overshadow, change, increase or decrease the brightness of that Sun. That is your Natural Condition even now. When you identify with the mind, you lose yourself on personal identity; you start having opinions, judgments, making conclusions, so you collide again with your little world.

In your Real Nature, You are beyond all states, experiences, beliefs, concepts, agreements and disagreements. In your Being, You are Happiness; you cannot be angry, unhappy, unsatisfied, feeling yourself miserable. But when you collide with your little world, all this Clarity disappears, and this whole Vision of Reality vanishes.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on March 25th, 2020 - First published in Portuguese on October 29th, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Your life in the ego is a life of illusion

What do you expect when we meet each other? More knowledge? Do you expect to know a bit more? Do you think that only knowledge will solve the situation? Does it mean that Truth, Love, Peace, Clarity and Intelligence come from knowledge? Is it so?

We have nothing to know and no knowledge to have. There is only the Knowledge of this present moment, which is not knowing. This unique Knowledge is free from objects, free from the illusory mind and all its information about events, happenings, incidents and experiences. Intelligence is possible and is present when “there is no knowledge to have.”

The “sense of person” you believe to be is all the imaginary problem you have. Life happens at this present moment, which is the Knowledge of not knowing. All suffering disappears at that moment of not knowing, the only possible and real Knowledge. I am telling you that everything your mind produces is false! You have the false knowledge of what is happening, and to embrace that is Freedom. While you resist to that, all you have is servitude, slavery and prison. You live in the ego identity, and that is not Life.

If you put a bird inside a cage, how long will it live? It does not matter if during the time spent in the cage it will be alive, but that is not a life for the bird. Life for the bird includes the flowers, the trees, the branches, the flight, the dance, the song to attract the mate… All that in Freedom. But inside a cage, there is no freedom! It does not matter how long this bird lives; if it is in a cage, it is not truly alive, and so is the existence in this condition of “being a person.”

Life happens in this not knowing of the present moment, in which there is Peace, Clarity, Plenitude, but the “human life” is the identification with the body, in the idea of this “me,” the “me-bird” in the cage. Here, your cage is the mind, and your world is in it. In a birdcage you find a perch, which will never be the free branches of a tree, moving at the sound of leaves in the wind. Besides the perch, water and food vessels are placed for the bird to drink water and to be fed, but the bird is not free. In this ego identity condition, it seems you have everything: you have a house, food and water; you can get married and even have your babies, because a big cage has enough capacity to all that, allowing even for flight-like leaps. However, there is no sky, there are no rivers, no land, no trees, no space and there is no Freedom.

This life condition in the mind is a very specialized cage, not a simple birdcage. The mind is a cage that has been improving over millennia, creating this "knowledge" you believe to exist. I have just said there is no knowledge, but the mind has created it and naturally posed there several objects and goods, that are now where your identity is found. You have attachments, and in this fear, you have no peace, no clarity, no plenitude. That is the condition you were born: in exile. As a definition, exile is when you are out of your place of origin, expatriated, as a refugee in a foreign country – and being repatriated means returning home. Here, “Home” is the extraordinary Grace, Beauty and Truth of this not knowing, at this present moment, where there is Freedom concerning these illusory objects, the Freedom of the non-mind. That is living in God!

I am saying that no knowledge is possible. There is only the Knowledge of not knowing, the Knowing of not knowing, at this moment, at this present moment, in this Consciousness. Then, there is Peace, Clarity, and this Plenitude appears… There is no knowledge, no object, nothing exists anywhere! What is present is only That, which knows this Emptiness, this not knowing. There is no bird nor cage. So, you did not come here to know, but to find out it is useless to know, and that knowing is a burden.

If that is the Truth, and if there is something you need to get rid of, it will only be possible if you allow these illusions to vanish, since these illusory mind’s objects represent your prison. Thus, allow every illusion crafted by the mind to dissolve. Do not cling to them! I notice you do not want to embrace Life; you are not ready to listen to the unexpected; you are not ready to the not knowing, to that Freedom of the unforeseeable. You are not ready – or do not want to be – to allow all this illusion to dissolve in the Nothing, in the Absolute Nothing, where all illusions dissolve.

Nothingness is a complete emptying, where the “dream of existing” disappears. I am describing to you the indescribable, the egoless State; one of care, of action, of movement, of attention and totally free from fear. That is not like an inert and insensitive state of a stone, cold as an ice block; it is not like that. I repeat: the egoless State is the one of action, of attention, of care, of movement, but it is free from fear because there is no illusion. So, when you face a vicissitude, an adversity, a complex situation, you will be practical, agile, you will be on the move, you will handle the situation, but there will be no fear since there will be no illusion.

Your life in the ego is a life of illusion, therefore a life of fear. You do not do what is practical; you do not have the needed attention, and you do not take the required care, since there is no Consciousness. So, allow all illusions to dissolve into that absolute Nothing. Let dissolve that sensation of being, knowing… that sensation of imaginary control and order thought produces, and so, you will free yourself of all your doubts and questions. When all of this goes away, anxiety, imagination, despair and those negative and positive feelings also go away. Can you see the beauty of that?

Can you also see that life in the ego is of a constant fear created and sustained by illusion? You do not need those questions, that anxiety, that negative anticipation, that mediocre hope of a dream to come true tomorrow. In order to have that Plenitude, Peace and Happiness, you do not need to dream – this is a typical behavior of the mediocre mind, that seeks training in self-help lectures, believing the future can be more complete than the Completeness of this moment. All of this is imagination!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on September 19th, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on October 31st, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

My proposal to you is about Egoless State

Thought creates the illusion it is solving, doing, accepting or rejecting something. Thought itself is only an existential phenomenon, an appearance like any other else. However, it separates itself as the one leading, having choices and wills, able or unable to do things. So, thought splits itself between subject and object. Objects are thought’s actions, achievements, accomplishments, what thought is able or unable to do. The illusion of a present entity in the experience is the subject. This position of the thought is utterly false! It is endless, starting and perpetuating itself in the illusion. That is resistance!

My proposal to you is about Egoless State, Life with the full right of Being, without this mind’s vanity, presumption and arrogance, which is resistance. You surrender this resistance when you surrender your ego. There is no ego without resistance and there is no resistance without ego. What we call as “ego” is only a supposed entity, fighting against or resisting to Life as It is. So, the end of this resistance is the end of that entity illusion; by ending the resistance, the entity vanishes.

You say: “I surrender my resistance at your feet!” But you do not ask: “What is this?” “Where are your feet?” “What is resistance?” “Where are the feet of the Lord, of the Truth, of the Real Guru?” The feet are Life! That is where you surrender or abandon the resistance!

Another question is: “What is to abandon resistance?” “What is to surrender that resistance?” To welcome all! Stop making choices! Thus, you will let your future go of, you will leave your past and there will be no “you” anymore. That is the legitimate way of embracing things. So, to surrender is to abandon yourself in Life, the resistance surrendered at Life’s feet. It means giving up on being “someone.” It means taking the risk of losing what you believe you have, you hold, you maintain, you control, you can or cannot do…

Everybody wants to be “someone.” You do not realize how much fear it entails, how heavy it is to be in control, to resist and sustain “being someone.” I have already said this to you before: to remember Yourself means no more being concerned with thoughts. Notice it requires no effort. However, you manage to do the most difficult, the most labored, stressful work, that causes further misery – actually, it is the only thing that leads to misery – which is to think, to engage with the self-forgetfulness. Now you know: Self-remembering is not possible when thoughts are present, since thoughts are Self-forgetfulness.

When you want to solve a situation, you think about it. Isn’t it so? You tell me you have a practical matter to solve, therefore you need to think about it. But what I found out, throughout this contact with my Master, it is right the opposite! I found out when I dismiss the thought, something moves, but it is not me, and therefore, it is not the result of resistance, of control, of the desire to be “my way.” You need to see all this!

When you do not move anymore, Life does! I have just told you what Lord’s feet mean. And what did I say? I said to you, Life is “Lord’s feet!” Life is “Sadguru’s feet,” “the feet of Consciousness!” Life has all the Power! So, Life can assume naturally when you are not involved anymore! Actually, Life never stops doing things, but now you can see that because your ego is no longer involved in that. Your control, your requirements, your desires, your vanity and your arrogance are no longer there… your ego is no longer there.

Can you see the difficulty? For a lifetime – for many lives indeed – all you know is control! In other words, all you know is fear, a complete absence of confidence in Life, in “Lord’s feet”! To you, in the ego, everything has to be the way you want.

My Master showed me I had no life without his Grace! When you meet Christ, your Guru, your Master, you find out you have no life without that Grace! The Master is the Truth, is the Sage, is Life! So, you unburden yourself; you take your burdens off! It is typical of the devotee! The devotee has no difficulties in doing that.

The difference between the philosopher and the devotee is that the first needs to think to be wise, while for the second to feel is enough. The devotee says: “I do not know, but I feel;” The philosopher says: “let me think about it, let me see the possible aspects, give me some time to analyze it.” The devotee says: “if it goes wrong, it is right because so wanted my Lord and He knows!” The philosopher says: “I need to ponder.” Devotees abandon their resistance not because they aim for a positive outcome in the end, but rather because they are too lazy to trust in some positive result in the end.

Thus, while devotees surrender themselves, philosophers keep checking their safety equipment.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on September 12th, 2020 - First published in Portuguese on October 13th, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.