Everything is the Self in the Existence

Your fear of not being pleased by others encourages you to try to please everybody, reinforced by the illusion of being someone leading life. You want to please the world and you want the world to please you, you want the world to give you a satisfactory, happy, agreeable, fulfilling response. You feel obliged to give something to the world in order to have all that in return. That is an imaginary self-imposition of a false identity you believe to be, that is internally leading all this to pursue a promising future and running away from everything bad, but I tell you: this is not true.

The hardest thing is not to please others, but rather to be Happy within Yourself, which means not being hurt, not being resented, not producing suffering. Then, your concern to please the world around you is not difficult to achieve. The hardest part is to believe the world will make you happy since you do everything for others “to be happy.”

What I am saying is that you try to lead, to control, so that everything is fine in the end, but it is already wrong at the beginning since you are not investigating this clearly. You even find easy to believe you can make others happy, but I consider the most difficult part to accept you can and need to be happy and that this comes first, above all.

First, you are at Peace, in Freedom, in Pure Intelligence, Consciousness, in Truth, in Love... First This, then that. If This is settled internally in the first place, the world will be happy, since there will be "no one" to afflict you, to frighten you, to make you sad. In other words, first, you Realize God, who is this Mystery, later you share that Freedom, Joy and Happiness with the world.

What I have found out in this Awakening is that, when This is already established internally, there is no world anymore, the world is not your business anymore for you to take care of it, that is, others are not your responsibility. Now, you know there are no "others," the "world" does not exist, and there is nothing and no one in control.

Live in Meditation! Stop guiding, leading, controlling; stop claiming and asserting yourself, moment by moment, as "someone" who knows, who can and should do things so that nothing goes wrong. Your whole experience will be just a “human being” experience if you keep trying to get somewhere, to reach some point, to solve a matter, to fix someone and yourself, to adjust a given situation so that you feel good while seeking control of the experience, rushing to see the results you expect to have, and not what Life has and can manifest.

You are not a “human being,” as a horse is not an “animal being,” as a fish is not an “aquatic being.” In Existence, everything is Being, is Divine! You were not born to be a “human being,” as a fish was not born to be an “aquatic being,” as a horse was not born to be an “animal being.” Every expression of Existence comes from this Consciousness. Everything was born to be God since everything is God as Being! So, you will have a hard time to love Yourself if you keep striving to gain or to avoid, to obtain or to abandon things, seeing the world through ideas, concepts, beliefs, projects, dreams, desires as well as through these cares, burdens, hurries and various forms of frightening imagination you carry. It is so because your behavior will always be of someone who is not ready for the Mystery, the Miracle, the Happiness of the Pure Being. Life is Pure Being!

If your concern is to please the world and yourself or to please the world in order to please yourself, or even to get away from the world to escape from pain, your viewpoint concerns a hostile world, an unfair life, and there is just one thing involved in this: the mind, the thoughts distorting Reality. You are excessively thinking, looking forward and backward, “holding the steering wheel firmly,” paying close attention to not “undergo an accident,” “choosing the speed” and “knowing where you are going to,” because you are the one in control.

Soon this body will fall, it will lie down, without breathing – everyone in this room will have to go through this, and for some of you this may happen sooner than to others. When that happens and you have to go through the portal, you will find out the only important thing is What we are talking about here. Everything stays there, exactly where it is. Everything is left behind, so relax. Get out of the steering wheel and let it all go, before everything leaves you.

Discover the Beauty of this Magic, of living in your Natural State of Being, of Meditation – the complete absence of control. That is Meditation: stop this illusion of trying to guide, to control and to lead whatever experience.

Some people have not quite understood what this Natural State is, which they call Enlightenment. Some people want to achieve Happiness by "Enlightening themselves.” However, Enlightenment is not a process for you to be better or happier than you are now. Enlightenment is the collapse, the crumbling away of untruth; it is to see through that facade of hypocrisy, illusion and flights of fancy thought creates, What is beyond all this. Enlightenment is seeing this whole facade is no more than what, in your mind, you always imagined to be the truth of "your life," the illusion of "your life."

I will end now by saying what I consider to be your current and ever present main difficulty and this is what you need to overcome: the difficulty to open to Yourself, to Love Yourself. Never interpret this statement the way it has been repeated in several speeches, books and phrases. See that Loving Yourself is to not consent to the illusion, to this idea you are doing everything, controlling everything. This “I Am,” that You are, is the greatest Wonder! Keep the Presence of that “I am” pretty alive internally. God is Something unforgettable…. He cannot be forgotten!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on October 19th, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on December 17th, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Love is your Real Nature

At first, you believe in God, but once this Realization is there, it is impossible to remain believing in Him. God is an unbelievable reality! Those who believe in the Truth do not know the Truth. Belief is still a mind’s need, trying to rely on something.

God is a mystery and will always remain so. Prior to this Realization, you do not know Him, and now, in that Realization, God remains unknown. People want to know God, but they can only really know what they are not. You will not know who you are, nor will you know who God is after Realization. You will not know who you are because you are not an object outside to be known or recognized by a subject inside. You will not know who God is, as God will always remain a mystery.

Therefore, this Realization does not provide you the knowledge of who God is or the knowledge of who you are. This Realization provides you the vision of what you are not, and the mystery remains. Liberation, Happiness, Wisdom... This is the unnamable and unspeakable Mystery. Thus, the Sage is not "somebody." The Sage is a mystery, like God. This is something greater than this "you." You can dissolve in This, but you cannot know It.

Many people are giving explanations about what God is and does, but that is mind’s engineering. You have to give up on the mind so that it can dissolve in This, in the Mystery. You cannot solve this Mystery, but you can dissolve in That. So, you cannot explain That.

Human mind, the ego, is such a stupid thing that, currently, it is possible to go to a college “to study about God” and to get a "doctor degree in divinity." This is completely stupid! You may become a specialist in a particular area of knowledge, but this knowledge will always be in the field of the thought. However, God is outside the thought’s boundaries!

Here, I cannot help you to find God, the Truth about who You Are... I cannot and this is unnecessary. What I can do is to help you figure out what you are not. You are not what goes on inside your head, that is, you are not this set of ideas, thoughts, feelings and beliefs, you are not this set of sensations and experiences. So, I can show you how to see What It Is, Life as It Is, without that set of ingrained beliefs. If you can see Life as It Is, you will be free from the illusion of being "someone." This is the mystery of God, of the Truth about who You are.

This is my work, in which nothing can or need to be done. All I can show you is the Truth of what is present when "you" are not, and that is the Truth of God. So, for the first time, you can see Life as It Is, and then the Mystery called God, the "I Am," is revealed.

Philosophers try to explain This, while the Sages only point This out. The Sage knows this "Thing" cannot be explained, that it is not necessary to give explanations about It. All the Sages know is that they don´t need to know but just to Live. Life is just That! Life does not need to be explained at all, nor does God, the Truth. I cannot explain this, absolutely!

The sky is very wide. You cannot believe you are seeing the sky just by looking through your window, as by doing so you can only reach part of the sky. The sky is much wider than what is seen through your window. I can help you to enter into the beauty of Reality, of the Divine Truth, but only if you accept to leave your "window," to leave your "home," to take a leap outside of your home and to stop looking at the sky through “your window.”

What I can do is to show you Life as It Is. I can do this from the moment you abandon the illusion, your beliefs. Truth cannot be explained. Truth is your True Nature, the Nature of God, the inexplicable Mystery; Truth is in action, not in words. Realization is the action of this Divine manifestation, and not this “blah blah blah” that is out there, that are only thoughts, new beliefs.

Do not worry about trying to understand It; You cannot! For over two thousand years, Christian theology is trying to understand Christ, just as Buddhist theology is trying to understand Buddha, and academics are trying to understand the Upanishads, the scriptures of the Vedas, the words of the Sages... That is, it is not only you who are seeking the Truth. In fact, the Truth is also looking for you. It is not only you who are seeking God; God is also looking for you. You are like that prodigal son from the parable of Jesus, who departed from the Father's house.

The image of Krishna is with a flute, Buddha’s is set down in silence and the image of Jesus is with open arms, with his two hands nailed to the wood, but it is the image of the Father waiting for his son. Buddha is waiting in silence; Krishna is playing the flute and Jesus Christ is with open arms. It is not only you who are seeking God, God is also looking for you... This is God in search of Himself, meeting Himself! It is God meeting Himself! Mystery remains a mystery, but illusion, suffering and fear end, as well as all your vanity, arrogance, presumption, pride, desire, affliction, confusion and disorder.

Love is your Real Nature, the Nature of the Truth, of Being, of God. Whatever I am saying points out the Truth, but it is not the Truth, because It cannot be said or explained. My talks work like a hammer in a hand knocking on a door: either the door opens or something is broken due the power of the hammering. This "door" has to open or this "thing" needs to be broken. Something has to be broken, to be undone. "Your house" has to be exploded, just like "your window." The sky is much bigger than you! From here, I can see that you have been missing That for a long time. I have to help you to break away this habit of staying at this "house," behind this "door" that never opens.

People are constantly fighting. You were not born to fight but to celebrate. However, look at you! You have gotten involved in every possible trouble, have filled yourself with duties and obligations, and you have to justify this to the world around you, to people who are struggling just like you.

This is the model you follow. So, obligations appear very soon in your life and to be "someone" becomes very heavy. You grow up and then you have to marry, to have children, to support the family, to buy a house or to pay a rent and, consequently, you have to work to pay for it all. All this is so difficult! Then, your children have children, who also have to be "afforded," and everything goes on. Moreover, look at the world around you! Everyone has to buy beautiful clothes at the mall or to buy and to drive a nice car, but they need money to do all of that and to be just like everyone else.

You have to fulfill many duties, many obligations and play many social roles... You have to show the family that you are successful, that you have children, just like everyone else, or to justify why you did not have children yet, or why you only had one kid and not more, or why you have not married yet... All these things, duties, obligations and inventions are so stupid, mediocre!

What is missing in your life is the Mystery of God, the Truth, the Happiness of your Being. You live all this, which is what everyone expects you to live, and you also believe this is what you have to live, but you remain unhappy, stupid, full of fears, of desires, of attachments, of conflicts and worries. You pay such a high price to be what everyone expects you to be, to be all that you want to be, but once you "become" all this, you figure out you are still not what you want to be, that nothing has been solved, that you are still unhappy and continue to have problems.

Facing that, you shout and say, "Could you stop for me to get off? I want to get out of here!" This is what the Sages do: the Sages get out of it. They will not go ahead, they get off. They say, "I want to get out of all these ‘bonds,’ to get out of this prison. I have to get out of this, of the stories. I want to get out of this world. You all, stay there with your lovely world; I want to get out of it, of that prison." That is why in India they call Moksha, a word that means Liberation, because it is liberation indeed!

This Liberation, which is not a concept, is a reality for the life of the Sage, of the One who realized the Truth about oneself. Liberation implies the end of work, of knowledge, of experience, of desires, of fear. Suddenly, the sky becomes clear, open, there is no more house, there is no more window, there is not anything else, because everything has been broken. Then, you find out that, in fact, nothing is broken... and there is no more sky! There is nothing else!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 2, 2018 – First published in Portuguese on May 9, 2018. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

The realm of illusion

The ego puts you at the center of the universe. After the ego settles in, you are enslaved by the time, since you start living within a story. Would you like to hear about it? This is my specialty: to show you what the ego has been doing in human history, in your history. As a matter of fact, history is only present in the ego.

To put an entity in the center is a work of the illusion. The false identity is centered in a universe created by itself. The ego establishes itself in the center of this imaginary universe, separate from everything and enslaved by time – it creates the time and a story. These are your conditionings: hurts, resentments, irritations, frustrations, hopelessness ... The positive side includes: enthusiasm, excitements, hope ... This personality lives in its dreams, fears, desires and under all kinds of pressures.

The ego creates a constant torrent, an enormous, extraordinary volume of mental structures. At the center of this structure, mind sits like a king and calls itself "I am." The first name is "I," the second, "am." Then, after this "I am," the ego assumes several pseudonyms: "I can," "I have," "I want," "I do," "I control," "I accomplish…" They are pseudonyms of this "I am."

This conditioning is present since childhood. The result is you seated here, having great difficulty in following a speech like this, resisting, interpreting, judging, evaluating, seeing if it is right or wrong, if it fits your program, your conditioning background, if you can accept or reject it...

The truth is that this "I am," this king, has taken this position since childhood, and you have been so entangled in that! You assume that as real in such a limited and mediocre way! Thus, "this king is who you are." This is an insidious assumption, and you are in love with that! This king takes the place of honor, he is proud, he speaks on your behalf, he feels on your behalf, he wishes on your behalf… as a matter of fact, you do not know what is your name, but this false identity has already assumed the "I am" and it passes for you.

Since childhood you have already been involved and attached to it, growing up with this warlike arsenal to defend yourself from enemy's attacks; a self-defense arsenal to protect yourself from imaginary enemies. The ego, without questioning, assumes to be who you are. So, it assumes the place of honor, thinking, feeling, talking, acting, choosing, resolving, growing up, then dating, getting married, having kids... It loves to procreate, loves to perpetuates itself through its offspring. It adopts a voice, a way, an appearance and begins to make decisions and to protect itself. It has an arsenal to defend itself by counterattacking the imaginary enemies life presents. Life is hostile, the existence is too hostile to the ego. The ego feels offended, yet it has a huge self-defense arsenal! Each day, the ego develops new plans, self-defense and counterattack forms to protect itself from the hostile condition it lives in.

You find out through existence, in life, how this structure moves, how it is shaped and created. You also find out how to get rid of it. You do not learn this from others; you learn it through self-observation, investigating yourself moment by moment. Even because you are the result of thousand years of "human consciousness evolution."

Do not hear to this speech passively. Listen and observe the passion you carry since childhood.

The ego even adopts that voice and places itself at the highest level, from where it begins to make decisions. As a matter of fact, it has discovered: "I can think," "I can do," "I can accomplish." Your ego does not care about what it creates in the form of thought. It says it is going to do something only verbally; it is just a thought being expressed. But its control is so sovereign that it does not respect even its own-created thoughts, and soon you find yourself acting by force of habit. "I am going to stop suffering" – that's just a thought. The force of habit of suffering does not respect the thought “I will stop suffering.”

This pretentious king sitting on the throne is controlling this universe. He is in total control! He does not have the real power he attributes himself, but he assumes that; he has the strength to assume that. Thought says, "I will no longer feel guilty," "I will not miss you anymore." It is like saying, "I am going to lose weight" or "I am not going to drink anymore." This is just a thought. This false king, with a false seal, is administrating and well prepared for his enemies; He has an extraordinary self-defense arsenal.

Look at yourself, look at what thought creates internally, look at the abundance of images thought creates, producing all kinds of conflict and suffering, that you cannot get rid of just through a thoughtful decision. Do you know why? Because this false king has been dominating, has been controlling, has been reigning over this universe he has built. It has been like that since childhood.

You have thousands of thoughts every day. Your hand does not care about what your mind thinks. Your mouth does not care about what your thought says regarding the effect of excess pasta or carbohydrate intake. This king does not carry the royal seal, nor does he have the power he attributes to himself; but he assumes an extraordinary power that you can never underestimate.

What subtlety is that? What skill is that? What power is that? Why does the ego take so much control? Because that place is occupied! A place that is not easily visible. The ego is in control!

Your thoughts, your emotions, your sensorial experiences are happening and being determined or controlled by this strong and imperious will – the will of "me." And why is this place not seen? Because it is invisible. The ego, the "me," resides in the invisible place, assuming your place. What can be seen in this place is an oppressor king, a dictator, a throne usurper, creating and upholding a story.

The place of Reality, of Consciousness, is invisible, or rather, not easily visible, since this internal will has been governed, since childhood, by this throne usurper, this false king. The ego takes place there. You do not know who You are because you do not see your place. So, there is no Truth in command; there is only a tyrannical will of a throne usurper king in power.

The thought says "I will go" and disguises itself as being the source of Intelligence, Wisdom, Consciousness. It takes over this place saying, "I will," "I want," "I don't want," "I like," "I don't like." A freak! The ego is an aberration connected to a completely mistaken reference.

Your True Self, your True Being, your True Consciousness, does not act by will. There is such an excellent Intelligence, of such a mysterious quality that everything happens without any effort, without any volition, without any intention, any desire or fear. Your Being carries this Beauty, but that aberration does not! That aberration only creates confusion, disorder, it messes everything up, it falsifies everything, the most beautiful feelings, the most beautiful expressions of thought within that Intelligence.

This aberration falsifies everything, makes you mediocre, unhappy, complexed, traumatized, symptomatic, miserable beings, making use of this self-defense arsenal, attacking all the time and defending itself against one or more imaginary enemies, in a hostile life, in a suffering existence. All of this lies in that “person´s posture or attitude.” This Intelligence, this Beauty is usurped by the ego, so there is an aberration of intelligence, an aberration of beauty, an aberration of consciousness. The ego is a false self-reference working with pretensions, always hiding, defending itself and resisting.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on September 27th, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on December 3rd, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

About the Real Knowledge of Yourself

We can start by asking you: where to go? From this Place, this Space where You are, where to go? This action, this activity of doing, of going, will continually happen as long as you imagine yourself as a separate “me,” as an entity within time and space, able to move. This is, in fact, an ordinary movement common to everyone. It is a movement that keeps you away of What is present, of What is never absent, of this Consciousness present now, therefore it is always imaginary.

All that has been done is this separation, this imaginary "me" in this movement of becoming, of accomplishing, of reaching a goal. Do you know what are the results? It wards you off from the present Happiness. Happiness is not found in conquests, in achievements, in goals or achieved objectives within the movement of time, that this "me" imagines to exist to itself. So, the results are the separation from the simple Beauty, that is Peace, the Happiness that is here and now.

So, how could we define verbally what I consider the foremost thing: Meditation? We could define This as the beauty of not warding yourself off, imaginarily, from what is already here, that is Happiness. This imaginary separate "me" is nothing more than this simple imaginary movement covering up Peace, Happiness, the Natural State of Meditation, your Divine State, your Natural State.

Why do you want to go somewhere? Because you imagine! It's pretty simple! You imagine another place outside that Place, that Space where You, as Consciousness, Truth, Peace, Happiness, reside. You imagine you have not found yet What is already here. This is the movement of the thought, the imaginary movement, the movement of this false “me.” Just because you imagine, you believe you can move, but what moves is just the mind, looking for peace or for an object floating somewhere far away – the search for a future situation in an imaginary time. You cannot get any closer to Peace by moving yourself! All you can achieve by doing this is to keep yourself away from Peace.

My emphasis on Meditation is because Its essence lies in understanding there is nothing like the so-called "future." Who would be able to move away from or approach this Consciousness, this Happiness, this Beauty, this Grace, this Divine Presence? Only an imaginary person could move, a false "me," a non-existent thing. There is nothing in your experience that keeps you away from what You are in Essence. Nothing in your experience is happening apart from the Truth of your Being; but only the imagination.

You imagine a world where there are people who need to be loved or forgotten, who you need to be away from or close to, people you worry about, you busy yourself with, you want to solve their problems... All imagination! There is a main person in all that: "you", with problems to solve as well. All of this is imagination!

If your body is sick, this is a body’s problem, it is not your problem. It is yours when you believe you are the body. It is not yours when you abandon the beliefs. The body is a problem for medicine, for medical science. Medical science has been studying how to take care of the body for over thousand years! So is with psychological problems – they are problems to psychological science and not to you.

Maybe one day, psychological science will find out that what belongs to science does not belong to Consciousness. Putting it differently: what belongs to the mind does not concern Consciousness. Consciousness remains free when the mind or the body is sick. Just as the body cannot reach Consciousness, so the mind cannot. So, there may come the time when science acknowledges it is limited and it will always be. In the same way, a time may come for you – and I hope it is now – when you understand that when you are physically ill, it is a matter of the body and therefore of medical science – that deals with the body’s physiology. Just as when you feel sad, it will be a problem to the mind and to psychological science, not to you.

Identified with the mind, sadness is a problem to you. Likewise, identified with the body, illness becomes a problem to you. Our purpose, in this Art of the Real, of the Real Knowledge of Yourself, is the end of the identification with the body and the mind and, therefore, the acknowledgment that your Essential Nature is beyond science. This is Freedom!

The whole point is that this relationship among body, mind and Consciousness is very intimate, and you need the Ability, the Real Knowledge of Yourself, to break this identification. Attention to the movement of the mind can break this identification with the experience of sensations or with any natural reaction of the body, as well as with this identification with the psychological experience of sadness, as I said before, or with any other psychological reaction. This attention is all you need to not mix up this intimate relationship among body, mind and Consciousness anymore. Here, to identify with that is to be entangled with that. You are not the body, you are not the mind... You are Consciousness! The body and the mind appear in this Consciousness, and so do these present reactions.

So, Meditation is the art of warding yourself off, in full Consciousness, from that ordinary and habitual identification with the body and the mind. Thus, this “journey” to the future proves to be useless. Happiness, Freedom and Peace are present now, when you are not the body and the mind. This means that the person sitting there listening is not real. Only the Presence is here in this room, in this meeting. Presence is the only Reality present! This “person” there, with a story, is a fantasy, just an imaginary “me.”

*Online meeting transcription originally held on October 18th, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on December 8th, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

You have to unlearn everything

When a fish appears in the scenery, can it say it cannot swim? The fish’s nature is to swim. The fish may believe it does not know how to swim; however, it is born already swimming in the water.

The nature of Consciousness in you is of non-resistance. So, when you say “I do not know how to act differently,” you have to change that. You have to say, “I learned to act this way.” At some point this blossomed internally, you learned to live in this sense of separation, in this illusion, in this resistance. Now, it is about unlearning!

You have to unlearn being the way you are, the way you act, the way you think, the way you feel… Do you know what I mean? For instance, when someone does something you do not like, what is the thought in your head? Revenge. Can’t you unlearn that and accept the harm without thinking about revenge? Can’t you unlearn that? Will every sufferer spend the day craving for revenge? Won't be someone on the planet able to disregard others’ offenses or mistreats?

So, notice it is possible to unlearn being evil, being reactive, since it is a learned thing; no way to disagree with that. It is not your Nature to react this way. You have learned all that! You have learned how to think, to feel, to react, to act, to do, to undo, to take revenge, to mistreat, to hurt, to protect yourself, to defend yourself, to choose… and look at the results!

So, when you say “I do not know how to act differently,” what you are saying to me is that is the way you have learned to act. It is all about unlearning, just unlearning… that is why as per a Realized Being’s viewpoint, this Self Realization is not learnable. You unlearn everything and assume the Truth you already are.

The nature of the fish is to swim; it does not need to learn that, let alone believe it does not know how to swim, as this is the only real thing in its nature. Now, if the fish sees itself swimming and believes to be not swimming when it compares itself to another better-swimming fish, this is an intimate matter, the fish has a problem. The fish would rather have the other fish’s life instead of its own, so it is in serious trouble.

Therefore, when you see someone doing well and you doing badly, and you have this distinction between good and bad, this is an intimate thing (an intimate thing means “psychologically”). You start living based on beliefs and not on facts, therefore you suffer.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on January 16th, 2021 – First published in Portuguese on March 19th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

I cannot stop thinking, so how can I go beyond the mind?

The proposal of this work is to go beyond the mind, although there is a huge confusion about what this really means. For example, there is the concern about the need to stop thinking, provided that many people believe that means going beyond the mind. So, there is always that question: "I cannot stop thinking, so how can I go beyond the mind?" This is a very common question. In fact, you cannot stop thinking. Get this: the point here is not that this movement cannot be ceased, but rather the fact “no one can stop it.” Notice the difference of that.

So, this concern to interrupting the thought is a concern of its own. Notice the clear difference. Realization is your Natural State beyond mind and, therefore, beyond thought, but you cannot stop thinking – this needs to be very clear to you in this work. Through this work, you can get in touch with something very important if you comprehend the mind can stop, but you cannot stop it; that thoughts can cease, but you cannot cease them.

That is, it is possible to be beyond the mind in this non-mind, and this happens when there is no longer this movement of thought. The difference is quite subtle. In the absence of thinking, the non-mind is present. But you do not reach this non-mind by ceasing to think, since mind will not end or destroy itself.

Many people are pursuing that, for example, in all kinds of meditation practices, but behind these practices the mind is “trying” to destroy itself indeed. Ramana used to call that as "the thief dressed as a policeman, trying to capture the thief." So, I want to clarify this matter of trying to stop the mind: do not make any effort to stop thinking, as this means a mind’s, ego’s effort. You need not to act against the mind, as this means the mind fighting against itself, you tearing the mind in two (the “cop” and the “thief”).

Do not try to stop the mind! The only thing you can do is to be still and watch it! That does not require any effort and is very simple: you just stop and observe it, let the crazy mind loose; do nothing against the mind, nor in favor of it. Do not be for or against the madness going on inside your head, as they are all thoughts, and they are not yours; the head is not yours, but of the body. The head belongs to the body and the thoughts belong to the mind, but you are this Consciousness where the body appears with the head and the mind, with the thoughts.

I really know your problem and I will tell you now. You have already decided there is something wrong with the mind, and therefore you are confronting it, you became its enemy. Nevertheless, there you were captured by the very own mind. So, sometimes you say, "I cannot stand those thoughts anymore," as if that state were not the "annoyed" thought itself saying that. But who is saying that? So, the mind separates itself and now wants to demolish the "mind," and you remain in that game – here is duality, where there is separation: a thought wanting to demolish another thought; a feeling wanting to destroy another feeling.

Realization is the fruit of Consciousness! In Consciousness, there is no separation, no duality, no mind. So, in that State, you just watch the mind and there is nothing wrong with it. Sometimes in the morning you look up at the sky, you see it full of clouds, but you do not say there is anything wrong with it, you do not complain about the sky full of clouds. You do not say, "I wish these clouds to disappear, so that only the blue sky would remain." Thoughts are like clouds that sometimes appear in the sky, in this "sky" that is Consciousness, and when you just remain still watching, this observation works like a gentle wind sweeping the sky and the clouds, and so clouds begin to vanish.

So, notice what I said: thoughts can disappear, stop, but you cannot cause them to disappear, to stop. Your effort will not cause that, as it is still the "nervous" thought, the movement of the thought itself. I am telling you about the art of getting disidentified from the mind, of letting the mind and its madness disappear naturally, effortlessly. Look at this with deep reverence, do not be a fighter. Just watch it! Stay detached, disidentified, distant, just watching. The good news is the deeper you observe it, the deeper is your Consciousness; the "sky" gets clear and the "Sun" shines wonderfully! This is the way to deal with the mind, and so the entire Life becomes clear as Consciousness itself!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on March 7th, 2018 – First published in Portuguese on April 02, 2018. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

The essential is to Realize this Truth

To find out What You are, the Truth about Yourself, is the most important thing in your life!

You have many beliefs, many ideas about yourself. Here, through this speech, you end up asking yourself: “After all, what is the distance between what I am (or I believe to be) and the Truth?” “Maybe this belief I have about myself is not real. After all, what is the distance between the Truth that I am and all these ideas I have about myself?”

You constantly see what is happening through beliefs and ideas. So, you are entangled in an ordinary conflict, looking at life in bewilderment. Actually, since you do not know who you are, you cannot perceive what Life is! What is Life, if you do not even know who you are? The ideas you have about yourself do not provide you true answers, since conflict never ends. To keep on fighting amid all this conflict has already become quite ordinary.

Human beings live in conflict, since that is the nature of the mind. Thought, in its beliefs, strives to understand or to adapt to Life, but it does not work, does not pan out. All problems result from that! All your problems arise from the idea you have a private life, and it is never satisfactory! This “life of yours” is full of conflicts, dilemmas, dramas and problems.

So, you imagine a private life happening, “someone’s life,” “someone” able to make choices, to make wishes come true and to get rid of problems, what never happens! Some wishes come true, but constantly followed by conflicts. Actually, these achievements are just happening! If you observe it closely, you will realize they are Life events.

What is present is just Life appearing in this or that format, and the present mind “discussing” with This. The mind wants to find a solution to every problem, but the mind is confused! Actually, the very own mind is upholding the problem, just because you know nothing about Yourself, about who You are. As you do not know who you are, you do not know what really matters to you.

The mind is overwhelmed with concepts, beliefs, motivations and desires. You mistake yourself for the mind and go through this path searching for many things. You do not really know what is important to you, since you do not know who You are.

In these meetings, I am pointing out the importance of knowing what is important to you, to acknowledge your Divine State, your Natural State, your True State, free from all confusion the mind has created in this so-called “your life.” A mind in conflict, a life in conflict. The important thing is to Acknowledge Yourself! Then, these desires and this entire search for something to make you happy will vanish, since Happiness, Freedom, is innate, is your own and true Nature, your Divine Nature!

Thus, Satsang is quite important since it points out this direction, the end of the illusion of a personal, private, own life, of a separate entity, of this “me” you believe to be.

After every accomplishment, you end up learning they cannot provide you neither peace nor happiness. All this just because you, in this confusion and lost in the mind, have believed already for such a long time that you will be happy or will be in peace when achieving something you wish, you dream about.

Satsang provides you a sampler of that Peace, of that Happiness, of that Freedom already present within yourself. So, for the first time, you find out This is not outside, is not what a new achievement, a new accomplishment, nor a new social condition could provide you. This is all within the illusion of the egoic mind, of this turned-outward mind. This egoic mind is separatist, illusory and is constantly walking in circles.

I mean that, here and now, at this moment and past this moment, in your own Being, lies the Nature of the Truth. But, while you are searching for something outside, you forget what is here and now, already present internally.

All your education, all your learning, all the training you had throughout all these years, was for you to find happiness, peace and freedom on the outside, what neither you nor nobody else have ever found. However, everybody keeps looking for it! This is a mental conditioning.

You are quite educated, quite cultivated, quite cultured, quite skilled, you have already reached some goals, you have already accomplished several things, yet internally you are still lifeless, callous, in suffer, in conflict.

All this just because you do not know the Truth about Yourself, and you have not received a warning about it. No one around you wonders about "Who am I?" So, there is a lack of Depth, a lack of Beauty, a lack of Grace.

If Life, the Reality, your Essential Nature, has no Freedom to express itself internally, there is no Beauty, there is no Grace, there is no Depth. So, what remains is this dry, tuff and conflicting thing you name as "life." I speak of Real Life, beyond this "life." There is the Real Life in Yourself and there is the idea you have about what life is, this dry thing.

There is something in Yourself yearning for Something beyond all that, Something missing that you do not know what it is. You do not see yourself, you only have ideas about who you are. You do not see Life, you just have an idea about what life is.

To dedicate your days, the years you still have here, to investigate That deeply, to plunge deeply into Yourself and to find out the Real Quality of Life outside this "life" you believe you have, you believe you live, is a great possibility.

The cornerstone is to Realize that Truth, to look at what is happening at this moment, without interpreting, without judging, without wishing to change, without any form of fear behind that look, without any romantic, sentimental appeal, without any form of belief. Can you understand how important this is? To have a heart free of the burden of the mind, to live without the mind...

All this is the result of Meditation. Meditation is the Flourishing of this True State, of this Natural State, What I just called as "the foremost thing."

Realize the Truth about Yourself and find out the Peace, Freedom and Happiness I am talking about. Then look at the world and see what is happening there. You will have a completely different look from this "Place." When you are unhappy, you believe you are in the world to make it happy, to make a big difference in it. When you Realize your Natural State, you find out the world does not need you to be happy, you cannot make it happy, there is no world. The world is inside your head!

If you are unhappy, you want to make the world happy, yet this is due to this unhappiness. You see the world unhappy and miserable as you are in misery internally. When you Realize What You Are, the Truth about Yourself, you find out the Real Nature of the world, the Reality underlying all appearances, all manifestation. Nothing is out of place or wrong, requiring your assistance.

You are here to Realize This, to Acknowledge there is no world. This Divine Realization is the Liberation of the world, the Happiness of the world, which is when you Realize Happiness in Yourself. Only then, you carry the Silence, the Peace, the Intelligence, the Compassion to share with the world What You Are. This happens through a quite natural process, without any egoic effort from yourself.

If you are Happy, you Realize the world's Happiness; if you are in that dimension of Peace, you bring Peace to those around you, and you can Awaken in them this same Peace present in yourself. So, do not worry about saving the world, the world does not need your help! You are not here for that, but rather to find out there is no world! Realize what You are, and so God will take care of everything.

So, my invitation is for you to "disappear," so that only this Divine Consciousness can shine. This “sense of me” needs to disappear. Here, when you are nothing, you are everything! Here, when you have nothing, you have everything! Actually, when you have everything, you have nothing. When you are "someone," you do not make any difference indeed, since that "someone" is just conflict, just confusion.

When you comprehend the need to investigate this, you are open to Yourself. So, a door opens, an opportunity for you to go beyond all this confusion, all this mediocrity, all this sense of dissatisfaction and human suffering, a gate for a Divine Life, for a Sacred Life, for a Life in God, for a Life in the Truth!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on July 27th, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on December 1st, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

My technique is:

Happiness means not denying life, neither means accepting it the way the mind wants. The egoic minds aims for accepting life in such a way that Happiness does not know.

So, what is the problem?

The problem lies in living addicted to the guidelines thought has to you, shaped by culture, by society, by the model implanted in the world. You were raised, educated according to this model and now you are there, allowing yourself to be driven by the thought to move in this or that direction, acting in a programmed way, shaped by fear and desire.

So, your goals, together with your model of existence, are fated to failure, to produce more and more suffering, further lies, further confusion and further misery.

Due to the absurd condition of ungoverned thoughts inside your head, there is no Consciousness, there is no Intelligence, but only this chaotic, confused and disorderly movement.

Basically, you think; that is the problem! You only think so because you accept this inner chat as truth, as part of your reality. An objective and essential thought for the body happens there, such as: "I am thirst, I want water," in the midst of a billion of thoughts like: "It is horrible," "I do not like her," "I do not like him," "They are lying to me," "I can do it," "I can," "I do…" that is, billions of thoughts concerning the self-fulfillment of a supposed present entity living inside the body.

How will there be no misery, no suffering this way, if what you call as "life" is a lie, a lying programming? It is not Life! How will there be God, Truth, Intelligence, Happiness? It is not possible! How will there be Realization, completeness of Being, currently, at this moment?

In the midst of this chaotic movement of thought, the idea of evolution is also created: "Today I am not, but tomorrow I will be," "Today I have not, but tomorrow I will have it," "Today I am not enlightened, but tomorrow I will be."

The Sages say time and effort are not required to be here with the unique Truth. So, the thought creates philosophic theories about that, finds explanations to what it sees and distorts the whole thing.

Then, the mind begins to practice "staying here and now" and to teach this: "Stay here and now," "It is just a matter of being here and now," "Do this or that exercise to achieve this." And there is the movement of the old me, still engaging in some form of practice, some meditation technique. You all have already tried several meditation practices in the pursuit of something.

What I call as Meditation is to look at what is present at this moment, without attaching to it, without giving credibility, trusting, nor holding on to it. You do it exactly in this second; and then in three days later, you do it in this very second; and then three years later, in the same second. You only have one second to do this, and it is now, here! So, notice it has nothing to do with practice, but with Attention, with Presence, with Truth… The Truth to not trust this inner voice, to not trust this inner feeling, this inner disposition, that says you are this or that, you need this or that. That is why I never lead you to practices, I lead you in the art of Meditation, but not in the practice of meditation.

To look carefully, to listen carefully, to feel carefully... When thought arises, keep your attention on this inner madness, so to not be a thinker. The thinker is also just a thought. There is no thinker, only the repetitive, continuous, programmed, invading thought. Every thought is an invader! You do not have a single original thought; no thought is!

Thought is not your nature, not real in your Being; thought is only real as a phenomenon, just like that couch. You were never born! As this is also a phenomenon, it is not real in your Being.

Your Being is not what you think you are! Your Being is external to the thought! Thought is not your Being! So, you just say this: "It is not that." Your job is: "It is not that." Do you want a technique? People come to me and ask for a technique. My technique is: "It is not that." This feeling? It is not that! This thought? It is not that! This sensation? It is not that! This certainty? It is not that! "But, Master, Silence has come!". Then I say: "It is not that!" That is quite common in the Zen: the monk listens to the Master for a while and then says: "Master, I have reached Silence" and then the Master responds: "It is not that. Abandon this!”

*Presential meeting transcription originally held on March 2018 in João Pessoa city, Brazil – First published in Portuguese on May 26, 2018. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Consciousness: The light of every manifestation

Truth is the very Light of every manifestation, and I always speak of Truth as a synonym for Consciousness. When there is Consciousness, Truth is present, and Consciousness is much more than being conscious. For some people, this notion of Consciousness is to be conscious, as opposed to the state of fainting or deep sleep, for example, that we call as "states of unconsciousness." I do not mean that when I use the word Consciousness, but I mean the Light of every manifestation, and That is beyond being conscious or unconscious.

You believe someone in deep sleep or in a faint is unconscious due to the lack of Consciousness, but that is not true. This Consciousness is beyond "being conscious" and, of course, beyond "being unconscious." It is quite difficult to accept, in the mind, there is no unconsciousness. There is only that Consciousness! When the mind is unaware of something, you call it unconsciousness. That is a very interesting subject... In deep sleep, what you call "being unconscious" is the mind being unaware of the experience of the world. However, Consciousness is ever present, beyond being conscious or unconscious of the world.

Every manifestation is an expression of Consciousness, but the Consciousness precedes the perception of that manifestation. In other words, Truth never ceases to be What It Is. It never disappears in fainting, deep sleep or death. It never ceases to be What it is: Consciousness. So, you need to stop being afraid about this concept of death related to the disappearance of the body or of world’s notion, believing everything is over, since in this Consciousness, that is the Truth, nothing begins nor ends.

This Consciousness, the Truth You are, is immutable, is not subject to changes. Only the mind’s experience is subject to changes, and that is what you call "being conscious," but it has nothing to do with the Truth. When you wake up in the morning, that "being conscious" dawns, but that Consciousness does not need to "be conscious." This Truth You are is beyond those vigil, sleep, deep sleep, unconsciousness or consciousness states (in that sense of "being conscious").

When you wake up in the morning, you have this state called "consciousness," when you perceive the body, the world and the mind. However, these are just appearances in this mental experience, where the senses (hearing, sight, touch, smell, taste) are at the service of the mind. These senses are also part of the mind, of the dream, just like this world you perceive, but I repeat: these are only appearances, none of this is You, what You are. By identifying with any of these experiences, you end up having this notion, this feeling, of a separate, individual identity, which is the basis of fear, of all searching, all suffering, all confusion, and this is the egoic mind state. It is so clear that no one, in deep sleep, has any concern about not being alive, about the possibility of losing one’s life, of dying. There is no fear in deep sleep, since there is no “dream” created by this sense of separation, in which the illusion of a present identity is present.

This is another speech for you to let go of this psychological concern with this terrified, scared identity. When you are under the effect of anesthesia, this whole experience of "being someone" weakens until it disappears completely and, after that, nothing lacks, nothing is frightening nor worrying. That illustrates how transitory is this so-called "consciousness," it comes and goes with the mind. When the mind is present, the senses are working well, and that is what you call as "conscious life." When you interrupt that through anesthesia, fainting or deep sleep, everything is at peace.

All this sense of existence is only an appearance. When you come out of deep sleep, fainting or anesthesia, which here means becoming aware of the body, the mind and the world, it is quite clear something existed before, was there, before this experience of being conscious, otherwise, that would not be possible. That is, it would not be possible for you to be conscious now if there was no Consciousness before. This is very basic: you are coming back, and if you are coming back, it is because you were somewhere.

Participant: And where were we?

Marcos Gualberto: You are what you are, and here is where you had been, are and will be. Only the presence of the mind is what comes and goes, not You. This is fascinating, of great beauty! That is why I said this Consciousness is the Light of manifestation. Now it has become clear. Consciousness, the Truth, precedes every manifestation, is the Light of that very manifestation. Understanding that is beautiful! Following this even intellectually is quite interesting. You cannot stop being What You Are, just as You do not become what You are not. In other words, You were never born, so you cannot die. All this is marvelous, something of great beauty!

Participant: When we receive anesthesia, nothing exists, everything disappears. How do you live in this world, relate with others, make decisions, being this Nothing?

Marcos Gualberto: From the viewpoint of the Essential Nature, of that Source, which is a non-conceptual thing. This sense of conscious presence arises, this sensation of being and of experiencing arises, and that is what, in itself, works in the world. The illusion of a present identity is not required for this “conscious presence” and this “sensation of being” to be present there, working, operating... So, here, in this discovery of Meditation, of your Essential Nature – that is this Consciousness and the Light of every manifestation – when That is present, that illusion of the sense of separation is useless.

You, as Absolute Consciousness, as the Real and True Light of this manifestation, are beyond to be and not to be, the body and the world, the manifest and the non-manifest, the duality and non-duality. Do you think the Sun knows its own light? The Sun is absolute light, but it does not know its own light. This Absolute Consciousness is the Absolute Reality. Here, I am using the Sun as a figure of speech, but only in the sense it does not need its own light and it is unaware of it. This Absolute Consciousness is beyond knowing and not knowing, and in this sense I compared the sunlight… not in the sense of being conscious or not, but in the sense of not needing light, as the Sun is pure light already.

You, in your Being, as Absolute Consciousness, are pure Light, the Light of the manifestation itself, so you are imperishable. Only the body and the world vanish; the mind, the idea "I am," is what vanishes. You are, and this is the Light of every manifestation, the non-conceptual Consciousness. This Reality is beyond all characteristics, expressions and definitions. Awakening to this Essential Nature, to this Essential Identity, is to find yourself moving in the Realm of the Absolute, where phenomena are not as important as the mind sees.

Your Essential Nature is beyond this "awareness of being." To put it simply: Something in you knows this feeling of being aware, of being present, but what You are, is beyond this feeling, and that is what I am saying. This Something is always unknowable, indefinable, indescribable, nameless. So, there is a certain temptation to believe that this Natural State of Being is a state of peace and happiness, which here is the opposite of conflict and war from the point of view of the mind, but the Natural State is beyond this "peace" and “happiness” the mind imagines. Everything the mind knows is through comparison and experience. If the mind imagines peace, happiness, it does that based on its experience of conflict and war, so that is not the Truth yet. That is not Peace, Happiness, and this also works for Love, since what the mind knows as "love" is sensation, pleasure.

What the mind knows are sensations, and all these states are objective things, they come and go, appear and disappear. For example, today you are happy and tomorrow you will already be sad; you are at peace now, but soon something will happen, and you will lose this quickly. That's all you know. However, What You Are is, evidently, beyond all that, beyond these states. At some point in Satsang, there may be a resonance, something pointing out to this Dimension, since there is a certain contact, but soon the mind returns, assumes its place again and starts to objectively and subjectively translate, interpret everything. This is automatic, and all the mind knows is to live based on experiences.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on April 27th, 2020 – First published in Portuguese on November 26th, 2020. For further information about our meetings, please click here.