What is this veil that hides this Happiness, this Freedom, this Enlightenment, this Self-realization?

You all are welcome to one more meeting, here on Paltalk.

Here, we have investigated this: to what extent does anything need to be done and how does this need to be done? That is what we investigate in Satsang. It seems that, while there is this identification with this apparent individual, with this apparent person, there will be no choice. So, what is the meaning of pursuit? What does this pursuit mean?

Truth is quite paradoxical. The pursuit is not real. However, if there is no yearning for surrendering and working on this, Realization does not happen. You cannot create this, but at the same time you cannot stand idly by waiting for this to happen accidentally as a lightning falling on top of your head and bringing this enlightenment, this awakening. Here is where many get lost by choosing a side and despising the other. How to solve this?

What I perceive is that absurd simplification. Someone chooses one of these sides and talks about it, discusses about it, deals with it, but they do not realize they fell into a trap. To say that no work is necessary is a trap. To say that the very effort and willpower will determine this self-realization is also a trap. That is the difficulty.

What is this veil that hides this Happiness, this Freedom, this Enlightenment, this Self-realization? What veil is this? In my view, the very search, the effort itself, the own personal will, using the very methods the person knows and that would use in any other enterprise to accomplish this, is the very veil that hides this. This does not come by personal effort, by personal will, by personal work... This Self-realization, Enlightenment, Awakening, Happiness emerges, blossoms, arises, appears, takes Its place by an action of Grace. We are saying this happens to you, you do not produce this.

You have just said that while I was talking about this immutability something happened internally. You became aware of this clearly. So, notice it is not a personal effort, not a personal work; you made no effort, no work; you are just here, now, at this moment, and this Presence was able to make this possible. This Presence is Consciousness, Grace. This is given to you, but nevertheless, you had to be here, you had to have entered the room, you were in the position to listen, to feel, to understand it.

There is something present in this room greater than the speech, which is the very power of the Grace. This is what makes the work possible, which is beyond your efforts, willpower, or determination. In this contact with a living Master, it becomes possible. In this contact with the power of this Presence, it becomes possible. But that is very subtle, it is a tenuous line: how far can you go by making it possible, and to what extent are you the very impediment?

I have often talked about the importance of surrender – it helps a lot. Surrender is the direct path, devotion, abandonment; it is to give up yourself to accomplish This. This also means, at the same time, an opening, sensitivity, a full and complete vulnerability. Then, this descends on you, or rather, it comes from within, arises from the inside, sweeping away completely the egoic mind, the sense of separation, the sense of the "me."

So, to what extent is there something one can do? To what extent is there nothing that can be done? That is the question! If you do something, you disturb it. If you do not do, you disturb it even more. If you apply your will and determination, you disturb it. If you do not apply full will and determination, you disturb it even more.

I am saying that if you are not willing, if you do not open yourself up, if you do not surrender, if you do not allow yourself (because of the resistance of the mind entirely concerned with the egoic interests), if you remain like that, this Self-realization is not possible, at least not now. You need to be burning for That, putting your entire life on That, applying your heart fully on That.

You need to wake up with this in the morning, spend the day with it, sleep with it at night, and the next day, wake up with it again in the morning, spend the day with it and sleep with it. On the third day, you do it different: you wake up with it, spend the day with it and sleep with it again. On the fourth day you repeat the first; on the fifth day, you repeat the second; on the sixth day, you repeat the third or fourth... (laughs)

In this sense, it is essential to be in presential Satsang, within a "sangha," getting "upadesa," direction, teaching. It is not information about it, but a direct warning on how not to mistake yourself for, how not to get lost, how not to identify one more time with this egoic world, with this mental world. This is what Grace needs, what the Guru needs, what the One who is beyond duality needs. This One no longer loses oneself; this One has already been through this whole process and knows it directly, not intellectually, but directly; not theoretically, but directly.

Participant: How do I remain in my Real Nature, permanently, if the mind is excited?

Master Gualberto: The mind is excited due to these "vasanas" – a word used in Yoga in India – these latent tendencies of the mind, its patterns of desires, choices, motives, hidden intention. This must end! If this does not end, the mind remains continually excited, going back to the same and old patterns.

That is why the practice of meditation does not work. No technique to quiet or silence the mind is going to work. Self-realization is not the stillness of the mind, the silent mind. Self-realization is the end of duality, the end of the sense of separation, the end of the sense of "me" within the experience, including the experience of thinking. Thought is only an experience, as well as emotion, sensation or feeling. When there is no duality, when there is no sense of "me" within the experience, there is no conflict and what is present is your Real Nature.

Consciousness is not separate from the experience of thinking, feeling, emotion, sensation or sentiment. But Consciousness in that experience, out of duality, is not lost, not confused; It does not identify with this anymore. This is something that many of you have understood in a completely wrong way. I have noticed this: many of you speak about this silence of the mind as if it were the own realization. Self-Realization is not the silence of the mind; Self-Realization is the end of the sense of an identity in this thought experience. This is a completely different thing.

Participant: Then, how to eliminate this sense of "me"?

Master Gualberto: This answer is directly related to a work. There is no definitive answer to that, a verbal answer, a sentence or two, or ten. In Satsang, yes, there is an answer to that! During in-person Satsang, in front of a living Master pointing out to you, showing you, making you verify these patterns, these mind's tendencies, these mind's ingrained habits... The Master's indication, this way of making you perceive all this directly, is part of the work in presential meetings. Then, you have an answer that means the elimination of this sense of a "me." But this is not possible with eyes closed, chanting mantra, nor quieting the mind for a moment. You can meditate this way a thousand years. Eyes closed, the mind is silent; after the meditation ends, you are back!

I have never practiced meditation; my whole practice was devotional but no meditation. The practice of devotion is the practice of surrender to the feet of this living Presence, this Consciousness, this Grace. My experience is this: The look of the Guru! Looking at His eyes was enough, listening to His Silence in my heart was enough, it already contained all the teaching, all upadesa, all guidance. This real attention in the present is this Consciousness always present in that surrender. This Presence, which is this internal Consciousness there, does all the work. You need to have your heart turned to That intensely, your whole heart into That. You need to be willing to "die," to give everything for That. You must be burning for That.

Participant: Are there any plans to Satsangs in Minas Gerais (a state in Brazil)? For in Campos do Jordão (a city in Brazil) is very cold at this time of the year.

Master Gualberto: If you are burning for This, you will not feel cold at all in Campos do Jordão city. If you are not burning for This, nothing is going to work. These meetings do not have to go up to you; you have to go to these meetings. It is not the Guru who has to go up to you; it is you that have to come to the Guru. It is not the Guru who has to go to Minas Gerais; you yourself have to come to Campos do Jordão. The Guru can be on Himalayan Mountain top, there on the snowy peak, but you have to meet the Guru there. If you are burning for This, you are not going to freeze, but rather realize God, realize the Truth about yourself. Now, if you are not burning for this, anything will be a great excuse – heat, cold, lack of money, lack of time...

Participant: Master, a year ago I lost my job, I cannot succeed in getting another one, I am depressed. Two weeks ago I met you Master, I watch your videos, but it is difficult to understand it and silent the mind, my mind screams 24 hours a day.

Master Gualberto: Leave this thing of silencing the mind behind, girl! Like now, here, just listen to my speech, put your heart into it. When watching my videos, look at me, not at my speech, look at my Silence, look at Me and you will realize that I will be looking at You. In fact, my speech carries this Silence able to do an extraordinary work within you. A work that you cannot do! It is not an ordinary thing, that is why I said extraordinary! It is not in this speech, but in this Silence; It is not in my gestures on the video, but at this look.

You cannot approach this work to get rid of depression or trauma or emotional problem. There are many therapists to help you! I have no interest in that. My interest is to show you What You are! You are not the body, you are not the mind! So neither the heat, cold, depression, fear, anxiety, nor any other negative mental response can prevent you from realizing What You are, your Real Nature.

I am here for those who are willing to realize This, and not for those who feel too hot or too cold. Without being willing to go beyond that sense of a separate "me," this illusion of being someone, it does not help to ask how to eliminate this sense of "me." You need to be willing to surrender that sense of "me" who is afraid of cold or afraid of heat, or this "me" who feels anxious or depressed or any of these states that the "me" knows.

All of you here need to pay attention to this: This long-distance "dating" does not give birth to the child; it does not get anyone pregnant! This child needs to be born, and it is not possible here. Is that clear?

OK, So, let us stop here! Namaste!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on June 13th, 2016. First published in Portuguese on July 1st, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

This is something already present

Welcome to one more meeting on Paltalk. Once again, we are together in this opportunity...

In these meetings, we recommend all of you to turn fully within, to look at this honestly, in your own daily experience, to find out, to clearly see all this, this whole evidence of what we are always saying to you in Satsang.

Here we are not dealing with a theory, but rather with something you can and need to have for yourself: a clear evidence, in your own living, in your own existence. You need to realize the reality of what we are dealing with here, what we are constantly saying to you. You need to realize the evidence of this Consciousness, this Presence, this Truth we bring that is not limited, not stuck to time, not imprisoned to the past or the future. The prison is all in the mind, in the involvement you have with thoughts, remembrances, memories, with what always happens at this moment as imagination. You need to abandon this, to find out the importance of valuing the evidence of that Grace, that Consciousness, that Presence.

That Presence, that Consciousness is your Reality, the Truth about yourself, free of images, imaginations, thoughts. You do not need to wait a moment for that Grace, that Presence, that Consciousness. You do not need to identify in yourself that Presence, that Consciousness, since you are already That. You only need to disidentify with what you are not: thought, memory, recollection, images, imaginations, what the mind projects as being real. You do not produce that Realization. You do not make it happen to you. You do not bring it from somewhere. This is already present there. Here it is a matter of discarding what is not, discarding this illusion. So, you do not need to wait for Grace, Consciousness, Truth to come. You honestly see this evidence of Consciousness You already Are, right away, discarding imagination, discarding this movement, which is the movement of the egoic mind.

You have to abstain from this addiction to thinking, imagining, to project yourself into time as a present entity. You need to start this abstinence, abandoning that addiction. It is just a thought in the form of images, memories and imaginations. It is just thought that imagines you with these qualities of a person, placed within time and space, with limitation, with an age, with a healthy or sick body, as an entity moving in time and space, walking towards death... it is just thought that creates this. Thought creates the imagination of memory, of someone's story.

Do you see that?

The whole problem is just thought. The key is to not rely on thought. You rely too much on thought, you are addicted to this thing. You need to abstain from that, from that trust in these images thought creates internally, in this machine, in this body-mind. I am showing this to you, checking this out with you in Satsang.

Satsang is this association with the Truth, with Reality. We are together investigating the nature of Happiness. Happiness is inside each one of us, our Real Nature. It is the center of our own Being. However, thought, in its imagination, projects this outside on images of objects or people: objects and people that will make us happy. Basically, thought works with images of people, things and places located within time and space. Time and space are also part of this imagination of thought. So, things will make us happy, people will make us happy, places are important, and you are like the center of that experience – everything to make you happy. What I am saying is that Happiness is the Nature of Being, of Consciousness, of Reality, of this Truth that is You. It does not depend on things, people and places. It does not depend on time and space. All these are just creations of thought.

There are some moments in your life when you, for a few seconds, are completely free from people, things and places. A usual example is this: you are before a scenery, a panorama; before a beautiful sunset on a beach, sitting, watching the Sun going down over the horizon; or in a beautiful dawn, watching the sunrise in those waters, rising... At that moment, in that silence interrupted only by the sound of the waves, for a brief moment, the sense of the personal "me" is completely displaced, completely swept away, and with it, thoughts, images of things, people, places and the image of the body itself. A moment of complete forgetfulness of this "I," this "me." That moment is of pure Consciousness, pure Presence, pure Happiness! The absence of the "I" is Pure Happiness! When the sense of "me" is not present, that Truth is present, that Happiness is present; present as your Real Nature, in the absence of this "me," this "I," this sense of person. Here you do not desire, do not fear, do not yearn, do not seek, do not search for anything. You are just relaxed in your Being, in your True Nature. All excitement disappears, all activities of your mind disappear, all mental activity ceases. You return to your Natural State.

This is what you also experience in deep sleep when all the egoic mind's excitement disappears and you wake up in the morning saying you enjoyed a wonderful night, a dreamless night! Everyone loves deep sleep since everything disappears there: the world, objects, people, places... Everything you say you love so much in the waking state is not missed in deep sleep. It is a real rest! The ego fears death, but something in you loves to die every night, loves to abandon the children, husband, family, possessions, everything that normally, in the waking state, gives you a lot of pleasure, a lot of joy, since these same things also cause you discomfort and suffering. In the waking state, you live in this duality between pleasure and pain. In deep sleep, you are beyond pleasure and pain, beyond duality, beyond this world – which is the world created by thought – of things, people and places.

Wherever desire reigns, fear is present, and basically this is suffering, misery, the state of alienation of your Real Nature, of your True Nature.

I repeat: you do not need to produce this Natural, Real, True State of Happiness; It is already present! What you need to do is to abandon this illusion of separateness, of the sense of "me," of what thought creates when it places you within time and space, looking for things, people and places, or trying to get rid of it all.

Is that clear?

As long as there is this illusory need, which is this idea to remain as a present entity, as long as this is present, illusion will be present. As long as there is an illusion, there will be suffering, misery, desire, fear. Enlightenment, Awakening or Realization is this Bliss of Being, this Consciousness, this Beatitude of Being, of being completely free from this illusion, the illusion of this present entity, this person, this me, this I. So, this Happiness is Love, Freedom, Peace, God. That is the only thing you came to accomplish in this world. You did not come here to do anything else. You did not come to get married, have children, have grandchildren... you came to realize God. You did not come to become a famous person, an important figure. You did not come to become a football player, a president of the republic, a businessman, self-employed, scientist, doctor, lawyer, teacher, father, nor grandfather... all of this is part of an appearance that will soon disappear.

Everything you Are and were born to Be, is completely free from that, something internal completely free from that story, as pure Consciousness, Presence, Being, Happiness, Love, Truth, Freedom, God. You blossom as a human being when you are beyond this illusion of being a "human being." To blossom as a human being is to blossom as God.

Question: What is surrender?

Marcos Gualberto: Surrender means abandoning yourself, abandoning that sense of someone, that story of someone. Surrender means assuming What You Are, completely abandoning the illusionary belief about who you are. This work is possible in Satsang, before a living Master.

A living Master is the one who chops off your head. Before the Master, you soon find out what surrender is. God draws you in His Love, in His Grace and shows you what surrender is. Those of you in this room who have not yet been in presential Satsang, I invite you to come to Satsang. This is a question that is being answered in presential Satsang. It is the key to this Realization. Devotion is that surrender, and that surrender is that abandonment. All of you in this room are here only because you have already been touched by this Presence. Some of you have been deeply touched by this Presence, and when you hear this speech, you know what I am talking about. You were touched by this Divine Love, you are receiving a call from God, a call from the Truth, exactly for this surrender, this devotion, this abandonment. So, come to Satsang, I am waiting for you here.

OK? So let's stop here! Namaste! See you next meeting!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on June 27, 2016. First published in Portuguese on July 6, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Here you are a scientist and the lab is inside you

Our purpose in these meetings is to find out the Truth about Yourself. This work requires patience to observe your reactions, what is going on internally. Scientists go to the lab and use equipment to perform their experiments. They investigate, they formulate a hypothesis to be confirmed. You are in Satsang because you have also noticed that something seems to be wrong, so you develop a theory and investigate.

The most curious thing about all this is that Sages have a much simpler way to face all the oddness you have towards life. To you, something is wrong, out of place, but to the Sage, nothing is out of place and nothing is wrong. You feel yourself in trouble, unhappy and in suffering. The Sage feels at peace, at freedom, at happiness. Here, the investigation lab is not a physical structure, a building; the lab is internal, and you are the scientist. What is the nature of the "me"? Who are you? Why do you suffer? Who is in trouble? Who is unhappy? Who was abandoned, betrayed, who lost a son to drugs or to death? That is what needs to be investigated!

The Sage says everything is fine and in the right place, but you look at your life and you cannot agree with that. You look at the political situation of the country and you cannot agree with that, with all the corruption and violence in the world. You say the presidents, both American and Brazilian, seem to have a screw loose in their heads, they seem to be somewhat disturbed, and the Sage says: "Everything is fine, everything is in the right place." You look at your health situation, your intimate relationships, your financial situation and say, "How can I be happy this way and say everything is okay?"

There is something you do not know and the Sages know (that is why they are Sages), and I am going to reveal it to you tonight. When you perceive appearances only as a manifestation, a phenomenon of the mind, you are beyond that phenomenon. You should know that the world is only a phenomenon of the mind and what happens in the world is just a thought manifestation. What you call a "world common to all" or a "private world" is just a thought that multiplies into many other thoughts; that thought appears and manifests many other thoughts.

When you wake up in the morning, the first thought popping up is "me." The "I" appear, look at the room’s ceiling, at the bed, at the sick or healthy body – and the thought itself is creating all this. All of this derives from that first thought "me." This phenomenic manifestation of the senses is in the mind and there is no world apart from the mind; and the Sage, in the internal lab, has already found that out. When you realize the world, the entire universe, is only a manifestation of the mind, from this moment on you are beyond it, you are no longer mistaken for the body and the surrounding appearances, all linked to this supposed entity, since this is only a belief, the belief of "me" and "the world."

At this very moment, You are the Presence that is everywhere and nowhere. So, You are beyond birth and death, since these are also just thought phenomena; you are beyond health and illness and beyond the belief of being "girlfriend," "wife," "daughter," "mother," "father;" this way, your relationship problems may end. Your health problem also ends since it does not matter if your body has a stomachache or if your neck is stiff. When there is no desire, the lack of money problems also ends, since money is a problem when you have many desires. Our needs are very simple, but as our desires are very complex, we need a lot of money.

So, you will soon understand a Sage’s attitude when He or She says that everything is fine and in the right place. The Sages do not mistake themselves for the mind, for the thought, for this false identity called "me." As You are that Presence, you are everywhere and nowhere. You are that Divine Omnipresence, You are beyond the mind, the body and the world. So, I have good news for you – all your needs are very simple and, in this Omnipresence, in your Real Being, they are all provided, since that is God taking care of Himself. God has no needs He cannot supply. This is the Sage’s viewpoint – so everything is fine, in the right place.

Everything comes from within You: all supply, provision, completeness, and that means living in Happiness, without suffering, conflict and fear. However, you have ruined everything, as your mind ruins everything and prefers to live in itself, in the false sense of this "me." So, you think about solving your financial, health, relationship, personal problems, you want to fix politics in the world, solve the problem of social injustice... When you start worrying about all that, you ruin everything! You want to do God's job! Everyone wants to fix a world that exists only in their heads.

The ego is the problem! It creates the problem and wants to solve it. The Sage says, "Thy will be done" and relaxes. Since the Sages relax, all their needs are met, all problems disappear as well as all suffering. If you believe you have to do human things, solve human beings' problems, it means you see yourself as a "person," and that is why you have problems. Abandon this belief, this concept, of being a "person," let this to anyone who wants to believe they have to do things and suffer. You will never stop suffering as long as you believe you are a "person" in the body, responding to personal matters, be it yours or others.

So remember: this body appeared in this scene, is playing a role and it will soon disappear, it will pass, as everything passes, but you have nothing to do with it. You have nothing to do with the body, since the body is not yours. You do not have a body! You are not the body, you are not the mind, and this will pass, it is already leaving. So, do not fight with the body and do not cling to it. Let the body do what it was meant for. Do not complain about the body and do not embellish it excessively.

That is a quite funny subject too, as embellishing the body is like doing a hairstyle and making up a corpse, since the earth will "eat" all that beauty and no one appreciates a corpse. The ego is quite funny, it has to embellish itself to death for death to be beautiful, to pretend it is not happening, but it is so. Death is the end of everything. Everything will pass, even you! You will also die! Death is a very beautiful thing from the Sage's viewpoint, but from the ego's viewpoint, every death is a too ugly thing. The Sage knows that nothing is born, nothing dies, but the mind gets despaired before the impossibility of keeping its mischief, crazy things.

So do not interfere, do not fight, do not resist! Surrender yourself! Abandon yourself! Go beyond the body, the mind, and this sense of "me," then God will take care of everything. This is the "scientist’s discovery," which is you in this space called Satsang, in this "laboratory" within yourself.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on July 10th, 2017. First published in Portuguese on January 15th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Live like the lotus flower

It is important that you make your own discovery. What I give you here are indications of what you will discover within this work. These indications are actually revelations of what you need to discover for yourself. The lotus flower gives us an example: its leaves live in water, it drinks from that water, draws life from it, draws beauty from it, but the water does not touch the flower. It is in the lake, but the flower itself is on the water surface. When the rain comes and falls on it, the drops roll down into the lake and the flower remains on the surface, untouched by the water. The lotus flower gets rid of the water when it tries to touch the flower.

You also need to become aware of the reality of your world. You live in this world; your physical life is in this world, which is a world of thoughts. Thought has produced this all around you! Your physical existence and your story as a human creature will happen one more year. Your environment, as an apparent individual entity, is this human life. The lotus flower's environment is the lake, but it is not touched by the water, or when it is touched, the water does not stay on top of it – the water rolls back into the lake. So, the flower is always dry, free from water, even though it lives in the water. Likewise, although this physical and psychophysical existence is in this world, your True Nature is not from this world!

I can tell you that within this work, you will find out that thought is not the instrument, the sustenance, the truth you need. It will never be an instrument capable of helping you to live in harmony with life! Thought is not the instrument of Life; it will not help you to live in Peace, in Truth. Thought is chaotic, contradictory, and imaginative, it is out of Reality. Thought does not deal with Reality, but with imagination, with contradiction, with phenomena. If your life remains grounded in thought, you will be a lotus flower suffocated by water. But this is not the case with the lotus flower, as it does not allow itself to be suffocated by water. If the water level rises, the flower follows it, rises with the water. The flower does not accept living underwater. In this world, people are like a lotus flower, but they are submerged in water, suffocated by it.

My emphasis is always on this matter of thought, and why? Because I realize that you spend most of your time busy with thoughts, and they take you to a relationship of "flower submerged in the water," they ward you off from Reality, since thoughts put you in the world, in this "water world," which is the mind's world. If you are busy with what thought creates – and this is what the egoic mind is busy with – you are living in the ego, not in your Divine Nature. Thought is something dead, it does not touch Reality.

Thought speaks of a Spirit, of a Consciousness, of a God, of a Life, of Immortality, of Intelligence, of a Love, of a Peace that it does not know. It does not know, because it is dead! In thought, you are submerged in identification with a character, with this character you believe you are who hates, loves, misses, needs, suffers, desires… Isn't it so? Am I wrong? Show me a memory that is not a photograph of the past. Have you ever noticed that it is impossible for you to bring a memory that is not a photograph of the past? And if it is a photo, it is not Reality, it is a memory impression. Thought is something dead! Your relationships are not alive since they are all based on memory.

There are those who talk about the importance of creating a right world by right thoughts, of accomplishing what you want, desiring the right thing. You need to be attentive to discernment. The human being is too naive! They let themselves be convinced by what they hear and convince others without a more accurate, truer, more honest investigation. You will not create the world using the thought, the world is already ready! What they could do for the world they have already done, and what some still need to do in the world, they will do, dreaming as they are.

When you come to Satsang, you are invited to stop dreaming, to leave the world alone. Will the world fail to be created or reasserted itself over and over again? No. Thought will always be creating the world. The world does not need your thought, another one in this dream context, seeing oneself as a separate entity, able to control and do things. A Buddha is the one who sees the game, and for him this is just fun. The Buddha is not in the game.

As I just said, thought is something dead. It cannot touch Reality. It is the one that creates problems and goes in search of the solution. Thinking brings you ideas about what the world should be like, and you can stay in that game, trying to create a world different from what you are seeing, believing, as a separate entity, to be in control, to be able to manage and to correct life, creating what you want, as if it could bring you harmony, peace and happiness. As if it were based within the Reality of Consciousness, the Reality of Being. No! Thoughts are contradictory, dualistic, problematic, imaginative...

The planet is not in danger! The world does not need help! Yes, you are in danger, as you cannot see, hear, deal with thought as it is, with feelings as they are, with emotions as they are. You are the danger, a danger to yourself, and that is to be out of Reality. The danger is to be out of Reality, to be unhappy, to be "someone."

Of the nearly 8 billion on the planet, how many do you believe dawn on the first day of a new year, like this 2021, and are already before something like this? How many are warned or called to This? I am not wishing you a new year. I am calling your attention to Life, without all this old, dead thing that is life in the thought. There is something in you beyond time and space, which precedes this manifestation called "world," all this creation, all that thought has created. There is something that precedes all this! Precedes the body, the mind, the story, the thought... That lotus flower lives in water, it drinks from the water, it is in the water, but when you throw water on it, the water rolls over. When you really understand what I am saying, nothing else can remain.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna, "The world does not abide in me." Another time Krishna also says, "Do not be impressed by my words, it is What I Am that matters." In India they call the Vision of What You Are God's Realization, which is the Understanding that You are the beginning of all manifestation, the only Reality, and there is no longer the prison of thought.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on January 1st, 2021. First published in Portuguese on February 2nd, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

How to recognize the real Guru?

Concerning this question of "how to recognize the Real Guru amid this 'market' of gurus that every day increases more," do not worry about it! You will be mistaken if you want to know "who is who." You will not be deceived as long as you let God do it for you. If you are real, God will never be unreal to you. If you are real, God is real, and God is real when you are real. When you are real, everything is in its right place, everything is showing up for you as it has to appear. It is what you need at such moment.

When Ramana appeared to me, I had everything it was needed to reject Him... All my intellectual and theological background was set to reject the presence of a Master who was not Jesus Christ, and even worst, without body, already dead. A man without a body, dead! But there was something here that was authentic. The desire for God and Liberation was authentic, then it could not be an illusion or something from the evil, the devil, the demon. If I was praying to Christ and fasting 24 hours, as I did by that time, in those days, every Saturday, to find God, it could not be the devil that was appearing to me at that moment.

Either I trusted in my prayer or in the thoughts of theology I had studied for so long, had read in the Bible and had listened to in the seminary ... Either I stayed with what warmed my heart and filled me with an inexpressible love and an indescribable silence, or I followed the thoughts in turmoil, in doubt, in confusion, in fear, like: "Is this Christ or the devil?" or "what is going on?" Thoughts came like: "You are getting crazy," "What is that? This is madness," "You are losing your mind!" "You are... you are..." Either I stayed with these thoughts or was here, in this inexpressible Space and indescribable Silence and Joy, overcame by a love that I had never felt before for anything, for anyone, for nothing in this world.

Do not worry! Do not worry! God will know how to take care of it. God always knows how to take care of everything.

The challenge ... The great challenge is that the "person" dies within this Presence, and the "person" does not want to die, does not want to lose control. A living Master is the last subway station, the last stop – compulsory landing! There comes a voice saying: "Ladies and gentlemen, leave the train! Last stop!" And the fear of facing what is behind the door, on the outside? "Will it be a real world? Will it be a real life? Will I still be alive or dead, if I take this door that has just opened, hearing this voice that says: 'compulsory landing'." That is the challenge!

Facing the Truth, the Real Guru, there will be no choice, you will not want to choose, if what burned there, all this time, was the fire for the Truth and if you are not playing with this thing, if you are not lying, you do not want the lie anymore. So, do not worry! Never mind! As we have just spoken, the sleep took place and getting out of the sleep also just happens. God takes care of this! Leave it to Bhagavan. He said, "Bhagavan takes care." This was one of his promises. This is Bhagavan's promise, the promise of the Satguru.

This is a way that not even the fool ones could err. In the Bible, there is a verse like this: "Though fools, shall not err therein!" No ego there, you cannot see ego here. Remember the example of the mirror? When you look at the mirror, you do not see the mirror, you see yourself. So, the problem is not there, the problem is here.

The question I ask to you is: Can you trust this? Can you trust in a mind that, for millennia, is just telling fairy tales, making up a world of stories and saying you are ugly, you do not deserve it, you are not worthy, or that you are a sinner deserving the hell? Or it is saying the opposite, that you are very important, a precious soul, you are more beautiful than everyone and more worthy than everybody around you, deserving the best amid all things? The question is: Can you trust in these feelings? Can you trust it? In a moment you are joyful; another, you are sad; one time you are well, another, bad; in a moment, you are in love; another, you are hating; a moment, you are so sure about the truth and right after you are so disappointed, feeling frustrated by believing that you have been deceived.

Can you trust the emotions? Can you trust the sensations? Is it hot or cold? Can you trust these conclusions about what is and what is not? Can you trust this movement of the mind? Can you trust it? Can you trust you are or not? That you have realized the Self or not? Can you trust it? Can you trust in what you say, in what you write or what others tell you, or what you read what others have written? Can you trust it? Can you trust in yourself? Can you trust? Ok! So, do not worry! Never mind! Relax! That is none of your business!

When I talk about surrender, the ego is frightened (not to say scared, let's say frightened), because all it wants is to remain in control. When I talk about surrender, I speak exactly what I am saying to you: abandon yourself, plunge, bow down at the feet of the Grace of God... "But when you use the word God, what are you talking about, Master?"... "Oh, Guru, what are you talking about? I love when you use the word God, and when using the word Consciousness, I am still happy. But when you use the word Guru, I get disconcerted!"... "Oh, Guru, where are your feet so that I throw myself at? If I throw myself at your feet, whose feet am I going to throw myself at?"

All this fight with words that you have there has to fall apart, because it is also within this self-confidence, this illusion to believe that you know. You know nothing! If you knew, you had already settled everything. If you knew anything about the Truth, you would be free, because Truth does not come in parts; it is not like the installments of "Casas Bahia" (a big store from Brazil) that you will pay to pay off it one day. Truth is like a block: oh ... boom ... It falls on you and crushes you. You do not know what the Truth is, but you have this arrogance to believe you know: where the truth is and where it is not, where God is and where He is not, what is true, what is false, what is real and what is not real to yourself. However, you are like a headless chicken.

When I talk about surrender, I mean this thing of giving up... Giving up on trusting in yourself. Notice that this is the opposite of everything you have learned during the whole life – self-affirmation. Give up all you have heard, have read "about," have learned in a course of self-help, self-help books, therapies, supports to be healed. From what? From who? What cure is that? Who can be cured? Who can be saved? Who knows? Who here knows the Truth? When I talk about surrender, I am talking about giving it all up, to let this Consciousness, this Presence, this Guru (give any name for that) care... to take care of that... Take care of this matter. Ramana said, "Leave it to Bhagavan that Bhagavan takes care!"

April 13th, nineteen fifty (04/13/1950), it was morning... The Sun was filling the whole mountain, the clouds of extraordinary beauty in the blue sky, the birds singing... Everybody was around Ramana that morning, tremendously concerned about his clinical condition. In the past last nights, the one who slept near Bhagavan had commented that his body moaned under the pain, under that cancer pain, that fatal disease. Everybody was concerned that morning! He opens his mouth, looking at everybody with indescribable sight, a deep silence, complete disidentification with the body, and tells everyone there: "Why are you so worried? Everything will be fine tomorrow! Tomorrow everything will be fine!"

The next day comes... April 14th, a day of unspeakable Presence at the Ashram, a Silence, filled with Grace, an imperious power, spreading over the whole Arunachala Mountain. The Sun sets on that day and at 8:47 p.m. (that day, April 14th, 1950, a minute before), the peacock makes a common noise that all the peacocks do... One of them makes that noise, that sound, a mixed of a song with a deafening screaming. Ramana, who was lying down, made an effort to sit (and some helped at the moment)... He could still sit in that 1 minute before (8:47 p.m.), and after that sound of the peacock, his last words are: "Have you already given food to him?" He repeats, asking for a second time, "Have you given food to him?" That Silence came back again and they perceived, they felt that it was the time to let the Master be seated. At that moment, all is well! His last breath takes place.

Do not worry! The Guru is always real, if devotion is real! The Guru is always the Truth, if you are the Truth. Everything ends up well, very well, always well!

*Presential meeting transcription, originally held in Campos do Jordão city, Brazil, on June, 2016. First published in Portuguese on June 28, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

You only have this moment

To be here is the goal. So, when you say, "now, I am going home and everything will disappear," you do not understand the purpose. The purpose of this work is this moment. You only have this moment. "Ah ... but today is Saturday and the day after tomorrow is Monday..." "Tomorrow" is already Monday and you cannot escape this moment. You are with me to learn there is only this moment, which is the goal, whether now or within a thousand days. This is the moment! Do you perceive the beauty of that!? It will not make difference for you if you learn to stay in this moment.

What attracts you to me is that as you approach, I share this moment. There is nothing to teach, to learn, to do, to accomplish; nothing to mourn or to seek. When you come, you look at my eyes, you meet me, at this moment. I bring you to this moment. There is no effort of my part, because this is the only place or the only space, the only "non-time," in which you are fine. Every time you are within time, you are in the illusion you are outside this moment. When you are like this, you are not fine, because you are not in your Natural State. Your Natural State is timeless, out of time; It is already here, now, immediately, in the present, in the present moment.

So, the purpose of this work is the work, just as the purpose of a hike is to walk. This is Meditation, Silence, Consciousness, Presence! This is God! This is Enlightenment... No one enlightened, no one self-realized... no one.

Do you see what Meditation is? It is not that thing, not at all! You have learned meditation will give you enlightenment, so you begin to meditate; you become a skilled meditator and keeps on meditating. When you are out of meditation, the mind says to you: "Go and meditate, because there will come the day a lightning will fall on your head... so continue meditating"; or it says: "This is the goal of meditation: enlightenment." But I tell this is not true. I say that Enlightenment is Meditation and It can only be now. When I say Meditation, I am talking about the absence of time, of the meditator and the goal, the purpose. Meditation is Enlightenment.

I am in Meditation! I never leave Meditation to enter into Meditation again! No! I do not do this! This is very stupid and would mean leaving this present moment and joining the fantasy of time, in the illusion of time, where the ego has a purpose, which is always to be in the future. When the ego is present, there is no Meditation, and that is stupid. I know this destroys your meditation, but your meditation is not real, for it is still the meditation of "someone." In my Meditation there is neither "you" nor "I"; There is no one. So, Meditation is to eat without "someone"; to speak without "someone"; to walk without "someone"; to listen, as now, without "someone."

You asked me yesterday, "So, are we meditating?"

Naturally! Of course! Here and now, you are meditating. You are Meditation, here and now! Look at this girl... Do you doubt that? Not even a thought going on. There is a deep, relaxed, gentle, effortless attention here and now that sweeps away all thoughts, fears and all the past. You do not remember the dog, the cat, the son, anything, anyone. You are here, now, and this is the purpose... Now, here, means there is no time; then, even a thousand of "tomorrows" from now on, you will be here; you can only be here. It is very beautiful: no past, no future, no problem, no relatives, no dog, no cat, no house, no... Your eyes shine of pure joy, of gratitude for Existence. This is your Natural State! Sat-Chit-Ananda! Happiness!

What else do you want? What else do you need? Where else can you go to? Yes, you are completely right! Do not move! Stay here... here! Today I understand that. This is fascinating, indescribable, speechless... The beauty of God! Remain silent and you will know what I am talking about.

Do you see it? This does not require effort! Look at the effort I make! I am tired, very tired ... (laughs). Do I look like tired? Do I look like tired to you? Do I look tired in order to be happy, to be at peace, to be in love? Do you think this is a very big effort of me? Do you think it is hard to me? Loving you, loving everything around me? Absolutely! This is not difficult to me. This is not difficult to you. It is a matter of focus. If the mind is in desires, in objects, its energy is in time. All this energy, which is Consciousness, is dissipated in the movement of the egoic mind. That same energy, focused, in a relaxed way, in a very relaxed attitude, in that Silence, and that's it! There is no ego. When there is no ego, there is only Love. Love for everything, Love for all. Love in everything, Love in everybody. There is only Love. Without ego, there is not you. Everything is Love, everywhere. Everything is God. Everything is God. Everything is God!

People ask me a lot of questions and one of them is: "how to remain on that?" You cannot get out of That! But when you give room to it, you create an artificial space to move around in the world of the mind, which are thoughts, imaginations, desires, things, people and objects. So, when you create this artificial space and get lost in it, you are in trouble. But if you do not get lost in this, there is no way to leave this Real Place of your True Nature that is pure Love, pure Joy and Freedom. Is it clear? As for the rest, it is up to you! You will get lost a few times... dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of times... No problem. There is no problem, because these times are within time, but you are outside of time. Your victory is guaranteed, because you are the Buddha, you are the Christ, you are the Enlightened One, you are God! So do not give up! Do not give up! Go ahead! Look, look again and again and again! Do not give up! Do not stop!

*Presential meeting transcription held during a retreat in Tiruvannamalai city, India, on September 2016. First published in Portuguese on November, 15th, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

The joyfulness in God

Joy is the classic sign of Freedom! However, be joyful does not mean smiling all the time. Real Joy is silent. It shares the Presence but silently. It says, "I am here," but with no apparent excitement. It is invisible and says, "I am here, if you can see me, okay! If you cannot see me, that's fine too!" Few people can see it, many others cannot. The vast majority cannot. They have no eyes to see it.

People are mistaken themselves for a false joy – this joy of the smile, of showing off they are well, of appearance, of status... This false joy is about trying to show everyone around they are happy. This is why people take pictures when they are traveling, to tell others they are happier and have more freedom than others; they have more money and enjoy life more than others. It is about status, ostentation... Pure vanity! Things from the egoic and stupid mind indeed...

But the Real Joy is this: the Joy of Being what You Are, without conflict or suffering, without seeking more than what you have gotten here, more than what presents itself at this moment, with a grateful heart and a smile on the lips or not (it does not matter). This Joy says, "I am here," but it is not for everyone. It is not for others to see it. This Joy is not exhibitionist, does not humiliate anyone; it is not about giving self-importance; it does not create status; it is not vain. This is the Joy of God, and like all that God does, it is simple and with no ostentation, but with such great beauty for those who have eyes to see it!

The mind is blind; the ego is blind, it sees nothing. That is why it delights in making others sad, showing off itself, like it was happier than others – pure vanity, pure imbecility, pure stupidity. However, the one who is interested in Life as it is, is not concerned with being someone to some people, in showing oneself off to others. This one's joy is silent, is in this moment; it needs nothing from the outside. It is an overflowing...

Only the mind knows status, knows this euphoric, exhibitionist and egoic joy...

*Presential meeting transcription, originally held in Tiruvannamalai city-India, on September 2016. First published in Portuguese on September 25th, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

All you seek is the Truth about yourself

Consciousness, Presence is the real meaning of Being. Right now, you are this Consciousness, this Presence, there is no way to escape It. This Consciousness, this Presence is the nature of Reality.

There is no lack of Presence, there is no lack of Consciousness, this is never missing. What is lacking is the awareness of this Presence, the awareness of this Consciousness, and this is what we always investigate in these meetings. That is because this Presence, this Consciousness has imposed upon itself an apparent limitation. It has imposed this apparent limitation, the limitation of the thought, the limitation of perception. This is basically what we call as unconsciousness.

However, we cannot divide this Consciousness, which is synonymous with Presence, into unconsciousness and consciousness. There is no such thing. There is no real unconsciousness in this Consciousness.

This Consciousness is always Consciousness, and It is always this Presence, that means this Consciousness is ever present. This Presence is pure Consciousness. The Nature of the Self is being Consciousness. The Nature of the Self is being Presence. This is the Divine Truth, the Truth of God. This Consciousness is also called as Happiness. In India, they call as Ananda. Ananda is Happiness, and therefore this Consciousness, that is "Chit," is also "Sat" (Self, Truth) and also "Ananda" (Happiness).

Our work in Satsang aims at this direct observation. It is not about having special knowledge for this Realization. So, it is not about learning It. We do not need a specialization for this Realization, we do need a surrender. It is necessary that you "give" yourself to this Presence, surrender to this Presence. In other words, it means giving up that egoic mind, that sense of separation, which means disidentifying with thoughts and this illusory perception. So, That, which is present, manifests itself.

Participant: Is it necessary to go through holiness to realize the Natural State?

Master Gualberto: The nature of the Self is pure sanity, and sanity is holiness. So, let it be clear: it is necessary to abandon all illusion. The illusion of separateness is the cause of all misery, of all suffering in the world. Misery and suffering are not the nature of the Self. So, holiness or sanity, which is the nature of Consciousness, the nature of the Self, is the end of misery, the end of the illusion of separateness.

Therefore, sanity or holiness must be understood in this way. This means going beyond illusion, beyond suffering, beyond lie, this sense of separateness. The ego lives in this illusion, in this lie, and that is the only sin. Sinfulness lies in this sense of separation. When this is present, illusion is present, lie is present, suffering is present.

It is necessary to go beyond the illusion of separateness, beyond all this mistake, beyond all this format the egoic mind knows. Man has lived for millennia in fear, envy, anxiety, jealousy, desire, ambition, and all this is within this format of the egoic mind, in that way egoic mind moves. It is necessary to go beyond all this, beyond this dependence of the egoic mind, this slavery, this illusion.

In that sense, Truth is not for those who live in the lie. Truth is only present when there is no lie. Truth is the Real, and the Real is present when there is no illusion. The ego, in its model, is pure delusion. The sense of an "I" present in its envy, jealousy, possession, control, ambition, desire, fear, is pure delusion.

There is no way for those who are striving to realize this Realization of the Truth to match This with the lie, with illusion, with this egoic state of pure ignorance, pure fear, pure desire, of pure suffering.

You must have a life focused on the Truth, a balanced life, a life of surrender to this Truth. Human beings are under excessive behavior because of this identification with the egoic mind and its desires, its fears and constant search for pleasure. Human beings have abused the body too much, have been involved in all kinds of actions that damage this machine, this mechanism, that organism. So, what we can see from this is that there is no love for the Truth.

It is necessary a balance, a discipline, a certain prudence with regard to this machine, to this mechanism. The man has abused this: too much food, too much sex, drugs ... all kinds of searching for sensations, creating more and more insensitivity in the body, making the body more and more insensitive. You all know this sort of things very well. This mechanism, this "body-mind" is here for this Realization. If it is destroyed ... it is gone.

So, sanity is the key. This sanity is this holiness, this balance, this discipline; this mechanism, that "body-mind" dedicated to this surrender, to this Truth. You have to dedicate all your years, all your months, all your days, all your hours, to this surrender, to this realization of the Real Nature of the Self. You need a healthy body, or a relative health, in order to make this possible. So, those excesses are completely inadvisable. The egoic nature, the nature of mind is this constant pursuit of pleasure.

Participant: Is the excess of working included in this abuse?

Master Gualberto: Yes, excess of working too. In fact, work is not the subject of the talk of this meeting here, but work is also a great prison, a great and wonderful prison. Do not underestimate the ego with respect to work, it loves such thing. This gives you a strong sense of existence. There is a great fulfilment, there is a great pleasure in it. It is not only the issue of money that one earns, but also the work itself is very fulfilling. The ego transforms anything into a great source of pleasure, fulfillment, achievement. Balance is also needed.

You are here for God, not to work. You are here to realize God, and not to live for having sex all the time, eating all the time. The mind is this: it seeks refuge, seeks its continuity... this constant pursuit of fulfillment, of satisfaction, of pleasure, and when you do it, you mistake yourself for the mind.

So, you become a slave – a slave to the pleasure of food, the pleasure of having sex, the pleasure of working. I am putting three examples here, but there are many, they are diverse! There is also the bondage of the pleasure of drinking, smoking, "taking" (drugs)... this complete identification with the body.

Mind loves this sense of being someone in the experience of doing, feeling, obtaining, accomplishing. The question was whether holiness is fundamental... Holiness is this sanity. Without this sanity, there is no holiness. It is completely insane living in the body, identified with the body, living for satisfying the desires of the egoic mind, in which the body is confused with. The body mixes itself up with them and you mistake yourself for the body. Then, there is the constant feeling of being the body, of being in the body, of being someone inside the body, because the thoughts are spinning around those satisfactions, that search, the search for accomplishing desires. Do you realize the importance of this we are saying?

The whole society, the whole culture – this world we live in – encourages this, explores it. People love going to the mall. There is a constant search for objects. There is a constant search for the experience of the senses – touching, feeling ... "I am the body, I am someone, I need to get this, to get that." The mind revolves around this constant search for pleasure, satisfaction, fulfillment of desires. If it is stuck in it, you are in a prison, and so you impose that limitation on yourself. When you mix yourself up with the mind, you are imposing upon yourself the limitation that you are the body, that you need this or that.

All that you really seek is not in the mind. All you seek, in a real way, is Peace, Love, Freedom, the Happiness of Being, that Nature of Consciousness, which is "Sat-Chit-Ananda." All you are seeking is the Truth about yourself.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on August 3rd, 2016. First published in Portuguese on November 22, 2017. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Without simplicity, it is impossible!

Hello, folks! Today we are here on the terrace of the hotel, from where we can see one of the entrances of the main temple here in Tiruvannamalai. This is the city where Ramana Maharshi came to live when He was 17 years old, after Awakening.

Hearing a conversation between his relatives, He discovered the mountain of Arunachala was in this city. The name kept coming back to him until He discovered this name was exactly this mountain. He thought it was a heavenly place, that there was not this place on the Earth. And now here we are, in India, visiting this mountain every day. It is a sacred mountain! This mountain is one of those mysterious geographic spaces. Why does the Grace do that? Nobody knows. The Grace has set apart this place, where many have realized God for several years. And here we are, in this same place, visiting the Ramanasramam and the buildings built around it, most of them were built after Ramana had left the physical form.

Those who have the opportunity, granted by the Grace, to come to this place, are brought by Shiva, by the Presence of God. There is something in you that is Arunachala. There is something in you that is this Presence. There is something in you that recognizes this Presence.

There is a sense of disquietude in everybody that only ends when this Realization is settled. This search for the Divine, this search for God is a paradoxical thing. Everyone has a searching movement, but some are searching for It in pleasure, in every form of personal fulfillment: in money, in material comfort, in sex and everything else that you know. But all this is still a search for God, a search for the Divine, as it is a search for Happiness, Rest, Freedom, Peace, Silence, Consciousness. It is still a search for God, because only God brings Stillness, only God brings Quietness, only the Truth is Silence, Peace, Happiness.

But the mind does not accept it, so it keeps on this search for God in things outside. Mind seeks the Truth in knowledge; it searches for Joy in pleasure. Mind searches for Self-realization in economic success, in financial success. It seeks Love in relationships. So, the mind does all that in its own way. The problem is not in the searching. The problem lies in the misunderstanding of the illusion of someone in the search. This "someone" is the illusion of a present identity that believes to be able to realize That. But the search is natural. There is no problem in it.

The question is: who is present in this search? When you come to Satsang, I show you that the search is not necessary. The search maintains, upholds, keeps, strengthens the idea of a seeker. So, the search is not necessary. The search must end! I have just said the search is not the problem and now I am saying the search is a serious problem. Do you understand it? Let me try to make it clearer.

My proposal is for you to keep yourself still, stop searching. However, if you do stop searching, if you do not become really still and yet keep on believing the search has ended, then your situation will be far worse than the situation of the one who is still searching. Do you understand the difference? I can simply hear the quest is not necessary and find it very nice, because I hear all Sages saying this ... They say: "Stop searching!" Then, I completely stop. I do not want to go to the temple, to pray, I do not want to know about guru, sadhana, I do not want to receive upadesa ... Now, I say: "I do not need this anymore. I do not need any of this. I am Consciousness, I am the Truth, I am Buddha." But it is the ego saying that. It is still the old mind saying: "I do not need anything else." So, I begin to quote Buddha: "Buddha once said, 'Be a light to yourself'. Do not depend on anything! Do not depend on anyone!" Buddha is an ancient Master, who said this thing. So, I put He aside and quote a more recent master – a master who plays this role of a master saying that you do not need a master, however, the master himself is teaching that. Then, the master says: "I am not a teacher. Do not follow any master, but I am here. Every time you walk in through these doors, you will hear my speech. I am not a master, but I have a lot to tell you!"

Do you understand what I mean? Do you understand the trick? A great divine joke. I am not saying this is right or wrong. I am saying that God is playing, playing with you, playing with all of us.

So, if I repeat as a parrot that the search is needless, the guru is needless, just because I learned it, because I memorized it, so now that is only part of a new conditioning. Everything remains the same way. "I do not need a guru; I do not need a teaching; I do not need a search ... " What now? What happens? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This is another illusion, a "new" illusion ... as if there could be a "new" one illusion. What are you going to do to get out of this? Such talk explains. It says: "Do not do anything!" So, you do nothing. And when you do nothing, what happens? Nothing happens as well.

One day someone told me that he has found out there was no need for a guru. He had been in some of our meetings and then discovered it was not necessary anymore. I asked him: "What happened?" He said: "I do not need it anymore." So, I asked: "and now?" He said: "Now it is okay!" I said: "How well?" He said: "I am just waiting." I said: "Waiting?" And he: "Yeah ... I learned that this is like a lightning. It comes and hits your head and I cannot do anything." So, I said: "Okay. I see."

So, this boy is waiting for the lightning. While he waits for the lightning, he keeps his old life, in his old model, in his old practices. He does not care about self-investigation anymore, does not care about this surrender to the divine and keeps on playing his guitar. He is a musician. While he is playing the guitar, he waits for the ray of enlightenment to hit him. This boy did learn very well. He has on his tip of the tongue the whole teaching that says you do not have to do anything. So, if you listen to him, he looks at you and you realize his eyes are opaque, his mind is excited... He does not like the word God, he cannot stand the idea of a guru and hates everything that is sacred. If we tell him about a mountain that is the manifestation of the Grace in a form of rock, or of rocks, trees, monkeys and snakes, he will laugh at. Do you get what I want to say?

Ramana Maharshi himself said this mountain was God for him! It was the Guru for him! He considered that every span and every stone on that mountain as sacred. And this boy with his guitar, carrying all the conflicts of the illusion of separateness, says that Ramana was wrong; Not only Ramana, but thousands upon thousands of men and women who realized God and ended their days free from the sense of separation, free from suffering, free from the illusion of a separate identity. This is very funny to me [laughs]. The mind is very stupid in its arrogance, in its vanity, in its presumption to know.

So, I have something to tell you at this meeting: without humility it is impossible. If you already know, there is a wall in front of you. I recommend you have a real approach: look without prejudice, look without fear, look without conclusions. You can refuse and turn your back on everything, but this will be no more than a stupid behavior.

Let me tell you something as an illustration:

They say that a man was coming down a slope driving his car, when, suddenly, in the other way, a woman was passing, also in her car; she opens the window, looks at him and shouts loudly: "pig!" He looks at that woman and says: "But how come? What did I do?" At that moment, he is overwhelmed with anger. That woman called him a pig and he did not do anything! He gets very angry and starts call names. He is now angry and continues to go down. Up ahead, he reaches a next turn and when he passes it, he comes across a huge pig in his lane and then he has no more time... He ends up crashing the pig! This is called reactivity. Reactive mind.

If you are not open, there is a wall. You cannot realize God in this way without humility. I do not use that word so often. My favorite word for this is simplicity. Humility can be a cultivable thing and that is not what I am dealing with. I am speaking of simplicity: to live without reactivity, without a reactive mind, without prejudices, without conclusions, without ready-made opinions, and to remain open, with an open heart to listen, to be taught, to discover, to investigate.

OK? Let's stick around? Thanks for the meeting. Namaste!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on September 2016, broadcasted from Tiruvannamalai city, India. First published in Portuguese on September 27, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.