Truth cannot necessarily be achieved through effort. For you, this is the model, the pattern, since everything you have in life was achieved through your effort. Everything you managed to gain was through effort, but even what you strive to get, you end up losing someday. Realization is different from that. Generally, you think you have to do something about it, but the movement must be completely different from that.
You have this strong idea of authorship and autonomy to accomplish things, and you believe this also applies to the Realization of the Truth about yourself. Thus, you are occupied with a course of action to obtain a certain result, and you miss the point that this action is not possible. Therefore, you cannot Realize the Self you already are, just as you cannot do anything to destroy What you already are. I repeat: you cannot build or destroy What you already are. Actually, This has always been there, it has always been with You, being You, and You cannot be separated from What You are! You have never been able to do this and you never will!
So, what is the job proposal in Satsang after all, since we cannot build This? Our work is not to construct, but rather to acknowledge, to become aware of It. However, notice the difficulty: you cannot leave the dream just because you want to stop dreaming. At night, when you are sleeping and having a dream, it is not so simple to leave it since while the dream happens, you do not know you are dreaming. Only when you wake up, your mind realizes that it was all a dream. Therefore, while the dream is happening, you have no consciousness to wake up, you do not know it is a dream and you only leave it when you wake up.
How can you want to stop dreaming if you do not know you are dreaming? That's the difficulty! In the egoic state, the ordinary state of the mind, you are lost in this identification and do not know you are "dreaming." For you, life is what you are living. So, as long as you see yourself as a "person within the dream," not aware it is a "dream," there is no way to escape from it.
Someone may say you are dreaming, but this "someone" is also in your "dream." This "someone," who is only a character in your "dream," ends up giving you precepts, techniques and spiritual practices to end the "dream." However, the whole point is that this someone is also "sleeping," although telling you how to wake up; this someone is in the "dream" telling you how to leave the "dream." So, this someone tells you to work hard, to follow this or that doctrine, to do this or that, and that is exactly what the clerics, priests and gurus do.
On the one hand, you are told to work hard to "get there," to this Realization. On the other hand, you are told that all this is just a dream and so you need to do nothing. So, on the one hand, you have those who say: "Follow spirituality"; and on the other hand, those who say, "You are Buddha already, you do not need anything." So, you end up believing that you have to do something or absolutely nothing, and you have been trying to get That, the Realization of the Self, positively through action or negatively through non-action.
I remember some time ago someone told me that he had found out he did not need to do anything. He told me, "Enlightenment is like a lightning bolt that falls on your head." I asked him, "How long are you going to wait for this lightning bolt, without doing anything?"
So, notice what I am saying to you: there is a tremendous illusion in all the knowledge you acquire. Knowledge is not enough, as this element of separation, which we call "me," is much older than you. That brain of yours is only 35, 40 or 50 years old, but mind is much older than you. Scientists say there are about nine million species on planet Earth. We, human beings, are just one out of nine million species, and you consider yourself very smart – you are only 50 years old and you feel yourself smarter than the mind, that has millions of years. After all, what do you know? How far does your knowledge go?
What I am saying to you is: do not postpone the moment of this Realization. Your time is very short and you have no way to Realize the Self using the brain's capability. Only a very small percentage of the brain works; the millions of neurons you have are very useful for this structure's functioning, for this biological mechanism, for the human body, but they do not provide you any intelligence to excel the mind, which will always be much smarter than you.
The point here is that you need to go beyond the mind, but you do not know you are "dreaming." You do not even know how identified you are with the illusion of this "dream," this belief that you are a "person." All this is the very own mind in control. You are mistaking yourself for the body and you do not even realize how mistaken you are for this belief of being someone inside the body. Everything is a "dream," in which you are not even aware of what is happening, not aware this "dream" is happening.
Realization is possible here and now, and fortunately, It does not depend on your intelligence. Here, it is about recognizing your Real Nature, which is not the body, not the mind, does not live in this structure, in this base created by thought. Realization is the end of the illusion of "someone" within that "dream;" and neither effort nor non-effort can provide you That. A new Element that is not in the "dream," which is not "dreaming," comes into that "dream," and by His Grace, a work becomes possible. God comes, takes the form of a character within the "dream" and Awakens you. All of this is God's work, Grace's work, but you need to Awaken. Then, the "dream" ends and the "dreamer" disappears, not through hard effort or no effort, but rather through the Grace's work!
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