Ananda, the Joy of Being!

In these meetings we are talking about Real and True Freedom, which implies not upholding anything. If you uphold a feeling, a thought, and find a basis where you protect yourself, this escapes you once again.

This is like trying to hold a piece of furniture inside a space, forgetting the reality of the space itself, in which this piece of furniture appears. You get lost when you uphold a feeling, a thought, a belief, an ideal, a certainty, a set of ideas. You lost this space and end up upholding an appearance. When the space is occupied and you look at it, your eyes are stuck to the objects present in this space, and the space itself is forgotten. As long as your attention is on the objects you observe in this space, you forget the space itself, you lose the space and you fail to recognize it.

Likewise, it happens when you lose yourself on a thought, an emotion, a feeling, a story, a remembrance, a memory, a provocation. When someone approaches you and says you are stupid – if you uphold that idea, then, in fact, you are stupid. Identified with an idea you lose yourself, you stuck yourself to a belief and a thought. You are the space, but you lose that space when you are attached to any form of thought, any belief, concept, ideology and imagination.

When we talk about the sense of "me," of being "someone," we are talking exactly about that: to lose yourself on emotion, sensation, to mistake yourself for a thought, an idea of being "someone." For example, someone who gets lost in the idea of "being smart," which is not real intelligence. The belief of "being smart" is not smart. You never get offended by others when they think you're a smart person, but you get offended when one thinks you are stupid. You mistake yourself for the thought, for the belief you are a stupid being, a stupid person, and you get offended, angry, upset, but not when someone says you are smart. You are indeed a belief, and when you are a belief, you are under a limitation. That is the limitation of the ego. So to be smart or to be stupid is to be in a belief. Right now you are this space, this empty space. In this empty space, the furniture appears – thoughts, emotions and feelings appear. The idea "I am smart" or "I am stupid" also appears.

When the Grace places you before this Presence, this empty space is called Consciousness! That Grace, that Consciousness is exactly what we are talking about: an empty space. Mind and body appear in this space, as well as beliefs and disbeliefs, opinions, judgments and everything else. The Freedom of Being is that Consciousness, the Consciousness aware of appearances. You are completely conscious.

When someone approaches you and calls you stupid, you are aware that you were not the one who was called that. If you do not attach yourself to that idea, you remain in that Empty Space, the Real Consciousness, the Consciousness aware of that belief. However, when you mistake yourself for this belief, you place yourself within time and space as a separate entity, someone who believes "to be something." There is a huge limitation, which I now call mediocrity: to place yourself in the mind, to place yourself in being "someone," in the belief of "being someone." You are intelligent, I enjoy your intelligence, and at that moment you feel happy since someone has appreciated your competence, your skill, your dexterity, your ability to understand, comprehend, to reason. When you do this, you place yourself within time as someone who believes to be what others say that "you are." Ego loves this – to have its beliefs confirmed! This only strengthens the sense of "being someone" in you. It is what I have just called as upholding a thought, a conviction, a belief, an idea.

I sometimes provoke this in these meetings. I say: you are arrogant – and you believe it. By believing in this, you abandon this Space that has no name and cannot be named, classified, judged and evaluated. You leave this Space and place yourself in the belief of "being someone" and "someone" arrogant. However, ego does not consider itself arrogant, but rather wise, intelligent, and that hurts this self-image you have of yourself.

Do you see that?

All of this is just a belief, and you have just placed yourself in an idea – the idea of being arrogant. So, in the ego, in that belief, in that habit, addiction of upholding ideas about yourself, you are not real, but rather an easily manipulated plaything. You easily believe anything, but who does it? That person you believe to be is the ego.

I am challenging you to remain untouched by any opinion, judgment, appreciation, thought – your thoughts or the thoughts of others about you. I am saying this is possible. I am not saying this is easy, but I am saying it is possible.

Your work in Satsang is to recognize the Truth about yourself, and I am pointing this out to you! When I point it out to you, I say: You are real. But I am not talking about the "you" you believe to be. I am talking about the Void, the Space – this immeasurable Space! I am talking about this nameless, formless Thing that is not arrogant, stupid, nor smart. I am talking about What remains as pure Consciousness, Presence, Reality.

How does that sound to you?

There is nothing mysterious about this... It is just the acknowledgment of What You Are! An acknowledgment that cannot be captured by the intellect, since the intellect has nothing to do with this! You may capture this, but not as an intellect acquirement.

You are Buddha, Christ, Consciousness, you are the Truth! When I point at you, I say: You Are! I am not stating anything. I am saying: You Are this Void. Forget the words Buddha, Christ, God. Remain without ideas about this. Remain present, here, now, only conscious of being captured once again by the same old pattern of "being someone," who depends on others' opinion, judgement, appreciation, who depends on the idea others have about you.

You ask: Am I the space where every experience takes place?" I am saying you are exactly the whole Space, not only the space where every experience takes place. You are the whole Space… just Space. Body and mind are appearances, just like the ideas, the beliefs like "intelligent," "arrogant" and "stupid" are appearances, and you remain therein.

When you come to these meetings, you think you are going to discover something magical. However, if you discover something magical, it will be a trick since what you call as magic is just another illusion. That Space is just space. It is interesting to talk a little about this. People take this thing called Awakening, God's realization, Enlightenment, as something that is going to make them special; some people believe it. You are not special in Realization! In this Realization, "you are not"! When that Realization is present, you are not! You are no longer there to be praised or defamed. You are no longer there to be offended when they call you arrogant or stupid, nor to brag or feel special when they say you are smart, intelligent, for that does not make the slightest difference.

I have been told I am a fraud, some people say that. Some people have already said to me, "you are the Guruji." Some have said to me, "I do not believe you," and others have said, "You are my Master." I tell them, okay! It has to do with them, not with me. I Am What I Am and this will remain like this. Is it clear that these are just ideas, beliefs? Never be offended, hurt, or saddened by what others think or say about you. Any and every thought is just a thought. And it is only the reality that thought has, nothing else. But when you uphold this, this assumes a reality for that "you" you believe to be.

Participant: Does being Enlightened, or Awakened, have to do with the inner joy that flows from the heart, with no external need or external means for it?

Master: Let me put it in another way – answering your question, of course. The nature of that Consciousness, that Void, that Presence, is the nature of Being, What we can call as joy. But, see this – it is a joy of an entirely different quality than the joy the mind knows. The mind knows joy when it wins a prize, a gift, or passes an examination, a test. However, this joy of conquest, of achieving something, is a circumstantial, momentary joy – it has a cause. The joy of Being, of Consciousness, of Presence, of your True Nature, is joy without a cause.

In India, they call it Ananda, which is a Sanskrit word for Happiness – a causeless, non-dependent, non-circumstantial joy. It is a joy that cannot be stolen or taken from you since you are that joy. It is not something you feel. It is what you Are. The nature of this Joy is Ananda, Happiness, Bliss.

When you are before a living Master, it is clear what we are talking about – there is something that emanates from His Presence, from His Silence. There is something present in His eyes and behind His voice. Something that silences and quiets you, that also allows you to enjoy that same joy of your Real Nature, your True Nature, Something that IS you. All you are for, in this life, is to enjoy this Joy, the Joy of your Real Nature.

Another word for this Joy is Love, which is not motivated by forms or connected to them. It has absolutely nothing to do with the male, female or animal form. It is not the love for people, animals or plants... It is something beyond the form... It is the fragrance present in all directions, which goes in all directions. So, just like this causeless Joy, it is this causeless Love – something that has no contrary, opposite, which cannot change. You cannot turn this Joy into something else.

The Sage is pure Joy, pure Love, and you cannot sadden Him, you cannot do that. He will not love you because you love Him. He will love you because He cannot stop loving you. Your love is conditional, the Sage's Love is unconditional! Your joy is conditional, His is unconditional!

That's it. Let us stop here. Good night!

*In-person meeting transcription originally held in Rio de Janeiro city-Brazil, on August 2015. First published in Portuguese on September 23rd, 2015. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Do we need a Guru?

All this debate about the need or no need for the Guru, the need to work or not to work towards this Realization is quite controversial. However, the matter of the need for the Guru should never be questioned, since it is completely mistaken. Yet the matter of work could be debated. It is possible to question if we need or not the work, but not if we need the Guru. This is the mistake. There is nothing to question about the need for the Guru since there is nothing to question about the need or not for God.

If we question the need or not for the work, which is a questionable, discussable matter, and we find out the need for the work, it becomes crystal clear how indispensable the Guru is. First, we need to understand what the Guru is so that we can see how flawed it is to question the need for Him or not.

So, what is the Guru? Is the Guru a human form? Is the Guru a person, someone? Is the Guru an authority?

What is the Guru?

To talk about an internal Guru is to try to create this questioning, this debate according to the thought model, since when you talk about an internal Guru – which is just quoting a theory, a concept, a belief – you are making room for the illusion there is a Guru outside, an external Guru, a Guru with a form, the "person" in the form of the Guru.

There is no inner Guru. There is no outer Guru! There is nothing to be discussed about it, and there is no Guru! There is only God, and God is a great need, the only need! God is the Nature of Being! God is the only Real need! God is Being! One cannot get rid of the Self. One cannot get rid of the Guru. The Guru is not a teaching, not a practice, not a teacher. The Guru is Consciousness, Truth, God! The Guru is your True Nature, and you cannot get rid of what you Are.

The only thing you are sure about is that you are present there. So, the only thing you are sure about is that being here and now cannot be ignored. This is the Guru! It is not about internal or external, but rather about the Nature of Being, of the Truth. Therefore, it is not a matter of discussing it! It is not possible to question the need for the Guru, the Truth of the Guru or not, the Truth of your Being or not. What can be done is to investigate the nature of the work.

What is the nature of the work to this Awakening? What is the value or importance of all this? If the work was unnecessary, you would have already realized That by yourself.

We cannot discuss the need or not for the work to Awakening... It is what we can discuss and, at the same time, we cannot discuss it! We can get entangled with this discussion and come to a conclusion about it, which is that the work is unnecessary for this Awakening. But that is clearly a conclusion of "no investigation," since through clear investigation it is possible to confirm the real need for the work, since without it you remain the same. The work to Awakening is a real need. So, as we discover the real need for the work, it becomes quite clear the Guru is indispensable.

This is like being sick and having not the needed knowledge to treat the disease. It is like trying to ignore the disease by closing your eyes to the discomfort and pain it brings and saying, "there is no disease," just because the doctor says there is no disease. The doctor may say there is no disease, he can treat it without naming it, without talking to you about the disease, without emphasizing the belief in the disease. He is the doctor, and not you. As you are feeling the pain, symptoms and discomfort, you cannot say there is no disease. That would be denying yourself the possibility of treatment, medical care, which is what you do when you say the Guru is unnecessary. When the Guru is unnecessary, no work is needed. When the doctor is not needed, then treatment is not needed either. However, the disease persists. Even if you do not want to look at the disease, it is present. Even if you do not want to feel the symptoms, the symptoms are present. Even if you do not want to feel the pain, the pain is still present.

One can theoretically or intellectually get rid of the Guru... One can have a very clear answer to the matter of whether or not the Guru is needed and that answer can be quite clear intellectually. It is like when you do not need the doctor – the body is still sick, in need of treatment, but "I dismiss the need of treatment and the doctor." That is what people have been doing… So, "if the doctor is unnecessary, so is the treatment to be prescribed." Therefore, "if the Guru is unnecessary, so is the work the Guru would propose me." But everything remains the same... Everything remains the same.

The countless arguments you can use to defend yourself against the "treatment" – which is the work – and to defend yourself against the One who will "treat" it – who is the doctor, the Guru – can be quite clear, forceful, relevant, logical and reasonable. However, they will not solve anything... The problem will remain there! It is only a matter of time, and sooner or later the pain will be there, the "symptoms" will be there, the "disease" will become more and more evident.

Therefore, debating these issues is completely useless. Who would do such a thing in the very own ego if the doctor is always ready to treat the patient? The doctor has the skill, capability, expertise and knowledge needed to care for the patients, instead of convincing them they are ill, isn't it? Have you ever seen a doctor dealing with this? Trying to convince the patients they are sick? The doctor just waits for you to talk about what you are feeling and is not interested in explaining what you feel – that is your business. The doctor's interest is in treating you, freeing you from the symptoms and the disease. So, it is useless to keep this endless debate about the need or not for treatment with a person who does not feel the symptoms of a present illness.

Do you believe that this work happening around me is for those who are doing well or for those who are ill? Is it for the sick or the healthy ones? Do you believe the doctor is there for the sick or the healthy ones? With the Guru it is the same thing... The Guru is useless! It is like the doctor, who is useful only for the sick ones! The doctor is so good for the patients since the doctor will relieve them of the pain, but for the healthy ones, the doctor is useless. For someone healthy, the doctor is just a friend; not an expert, not a help, just a friend! If you cannot see the Guru, the Guru is just another friend, and as a friend he or she is useless.

That is why I said to you: it is no use coming to visit me on ordinary days since I do not want to be your friend. I am nobody's friend. I am a "doctor" taking care of patients. If you feel pain, come to me, but if you do not feel any pain, stay far away from me! I have nothing to do with friends, but rather with the truth seekers, those who are "burning" for God. I do not have subjects about international politics, such as: "How is the US doing?" "What will happen now, after the new president?" I do not have a subject about soccer championships. I have no politics subjects to deal with you. I do not know and I am not interested in knowing about economics, music or art. My interest with you is to communicate God, is to help you to go beyond the illusion of the sense of a separate "me," of a separate identity.

Now, if you do not feel like that, it is just like the patient that does not feel anything... You are not a patient to the doctor! Imagine you sit down in front of the doctor and say, "I'm here, Doctor" and he says, "Okay! What is the matter?" and you say, "I do not know." Then, the doctor asks: "How come you do not know? Are you well?" You answer: "I am fine!" The doctor asks: "What do you mean? What does it mean to be well?" You answer, "I am fine, I am fine!" He asks again, "So, what are you doing here?" You answer: "Nothing. I was just passing through and I came for a cup of coffee with you!" The doctor will say, "Well, please, I am sorry, but now there are patients out there waiting to be seen. I do not have time to have coffee with you; let us leave it for another time. If I feel like having a cup of coffee, I will let you know and we will have a cup of coffee together. But, now, there is a line of people waiting for an appointment."

If you do not feel that, going to the Guru is useless, as a matter of fact, you do not even see the Guru. You do not need a Guru! You are already a Guru for yourself. You are already your own Master. You are taking care of yourself and you do not need treatment... You are fine! So, why do you come here? I am not your friend. I do not want to have some coffee with you, but rather to know what you are feeling. Nevertheless, if you come to me and say: "I do not feel anything! I am Consciousness, Happiness, Love, Peace...", that's wonderful! That's good to know... Wonderful! It is good to know you are that. So, the line is there and the next patient needs to be seen! Excuse me, because there is another one who thinks, feels or believes it is not like that. You believe it is this way and the other one believes it is not. So, one has a belief and the other one has another belief, but both of you believe in one belief. Glad to know you believe you are well. You came and sat down here, but you found out you came just for some coffee. I cannot offer you some coffee, since I do not have time to have some coffee with you. I could prescribe treatment if you felt the need for it, but since you do not feel it...

Do you understand how useless this is? You have already understood that, haven't you? So, what do I do? You sit down, take other's place and I say, "No! Excuse me! I have no personal matters." I let you go, leaving the "chair" free...

*In-person meeting transcription originally held in João Pessoa/PB-Brazil, on November 2016. First published in Portuguese on February 10th, 2017. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Meditation requires no effort to happen

You may ask me what meditation is. Meditation? Do not meditate about that. If someone orders you to stop thinking and you strive in this direction, you will soon discover there is no way to do that. It means thought happens without you. And, here, we have something interesting to say: in the same way, meditation happens without you. Just like effort will not cease the thoughts, so also meditation requires no effort to happen.

Your Natural State is already meditative when there is no identification with the mind. When there is not this obsession, this fixation, this undue importance we give to thought, then meditation is present – and that is quite natural.

Listen to this carefully. I am saying that when you look at something, thought is not present, but it does arise a second later and, when it does, it says "I want" or "I do not want," "I like" or "I dislike," or anything else. However, at the look moment, at that instant of the look, there is no thought. The same happens with hearing. You hear a sound, and at that very moment you are listening to it, there is no interpretation on it, there is no "I like it," "I do not like it," "it disturbs me," "it does not disturb me," "it is good" or "it is bad." Therefore, I want to invite you to stay there, only with the listening, without judging, translating, interpreting. Stay there with the looking, with the seeing without saying "like" or "dislike." This is possible when you are aware of this thought movement. Such attention puts an end to this conditioned pattern, a mental pattern that is frequently putting us in this unnatural challenge of "being someone," "being something" – "someone" who likes or dislikes something, who listens to, or sees something. Did you get what I say?

To be natural is to not be "someone," here, at this very moment. This is so simple... It's really simple! That is the work. But notice: it is not your work. It is just the work. This because if you do something, you destroy it. You do not interfere in it, and so the work takes place without you. You are not included into it. You are not involved in it. You have nothing to do with that.

Deep inside we have this strong need to "nosing into other's affairs," especially when we are not requested, we have to show up! You do not have to get involved in anything, nor getting involved with everything, but the mind is constantly getting involved with anything, continuously involved with everything. And this interrupts, undoes, your naturalness, your Natural State, which is Silence, Stillness, Peace.

So, I want to say to you: stay there! Even when you go to the "outside," talking, having a conversation, choosing one side, giving your opinions, even if you have to be there, in the "outside", do not leave home, stay therein! This is the art of Being, of being Yourself. This is natural, quite natural. There is a present "discipline," but it is a discipline of a new order. It is the discipline of self-investigation, of meditation and surrender. Is that clear? It comes naturally, as natural as a fish swimming, a bird flying and the Sun shining. This is to be natural.

*Meeting transcription originally held on February, 2012. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

The ordinary human state is not natural

The question people ask each other is "how are you, is everything right?" Why do people ask each other this kind of question? Everyone knows why this is asked: you never know how that person, who was feeling so well yesterday, is going to be today; or that person who was feeling so well ten minutes ago, will be now after ten minutes have passed. Why does it happen? Because what we call as "human consciousness" is changing states of emotions, feelings and thoughts. That is how the human being lives. This has been our ordinary experience.

But I want to question this. This is essentially human from the common viewpoint, but it is not essentially human from the Real viewpoint. All we know is how to be an ordinary human being, but we know nothing about how to be a Natural human being. So, from the ordinary viewpoint, we ask, "What's up? How are you?" But you do not need to ask it, just look at the person's face to see that already: the person is angry, stressed, annoyed, sad... at best, since the person may be even worse! Isn't it like this?

Is it also like that for you? Don't you know someone like that? Within your ordinary circle of friends, aren't people like that? So, this is the ordinary human state, not the Natural State. The Natural human State is non-dual, of full Consciousness. It is a State free of the "me."

Participant: Master, are "me" and the fear the same thing?

Not only "me" and the fear are the same thing, but also "me" and the conflict, "me" and suffering, "me" and desire, "me" and unconsciousness are the same. Basically, what is this "me"? What do you take for "me" when you talk about yourself? Notice that this "me" is sadness sometimes; at other times, euphoria, regret, conflict, fear... We never separate this "me" from this emotional, sentimental experience, nor this thought experience.

So, when we ask, "How are you?", what we are asking is "what state are you in right now?" It is like saying, "Are you angry? Are you sad? Are you upset with me? With the world? With yourself?" We just say politely, "What's up? How are you?", but what we mean is, "what kind of 'me' do you have now to show me?" "What is the 'me' that is present at the moment?" Isn't it?

If you have a girlfriend or boyfriend or live in a closer relationship with someone, you know very well what I am saying. One hour this person smiles and swears love. Ten minutes later, the person is pinching you full of imaginary thoughts about cheating, about being cheated on, or about the possibility of being cheated on. Then jealousy assumes that body, those pretty eyes, that sweet little face, and now the person looks like the devil itself, possessed by jealousy. Isn't it?

So, which "me" am "I" dealing with right now? In a relationship with another person, you find strange how much the person changes, but you do not realize how much you change, because you also have several "I's" – one time it is the "me-conflict," another time it is the "me-anger," the "me-fear," the "me-desire," the "me-…," and so on. There is the "me-love" and the "me-hate" – the "I" who loves and the "I" who hates. You are never just one! This is easy to see. It is difficult to observe this in yourself, but in others, it is very easy. It is complicated to see it in yourself. It is easy to see the others are crazy or that they are on the verge of madness. So, what are we dealing with in Satsang? We are dealing with the human Natural State, not with the ordinary state of humanity. We investigate the ordinary state of humanity, but we do not point it out as a real goal of life, of existence. We are pointing out non-duality. Do you know what non-duality means? It means "not two"; "me-love" and "me-hate"; "me-joy" and "me-sadness" – this is duality! "Me and others," "me and the world," "me and suffering," "me and desire," and so on – this is duality!

We are talking about non-duality, this sense of Reality outside the mind, which is like a sense of connection to Life. So, this illusion of being a witness disappears. The illusion of being "someone" in a relationship with the world disappears – this is non-duality! In non-duality, you do not see the world – the world and you disappear. You do not see a mountain, there is no "you" and there is no mountain, or there is only the mountain, but there is no "you." There is no "you and the world." The world is present, however without the sense of a separate "me," and when there is no such separation, there is no fear, there is no "me-fear." When there is no such separation, there is no "me" and envy, since there is no object of desire. There is no "me and the control." So, there is no "me and jealousy," once there is no fear of losing, no fear of not dominating, not controlling, which is what upholds envy, jealousy, all these internal mental conflicting, unhappy and complicated states under this duality.

Are you with me? Can you see this in yourself or just in the world around you, in others? Is the other person like that? Don't you see it within yourself? This sense of duality, this sense of separation, this desire to get away, to punish, to take revenge? This desire to protect yourself or not to suffer? This is suffering, this is conflict. Not willing to suffer means already suffering. There is great conflict in this desire to escape suffering. Notice it is always the "I" with this model, it is the "I" carrying this model. Without the sense of "me," there is only the mountain, there is no "me and the mountain." Without the sense of "me," there is neither the friend nor the enemy on the other side. There is not the one who "I" like and the one who "I" do not like. Do you see that? Do you see that linking people is the same as to disliking them? The problem is present there.

The root cause of every human suffering lies in the ignorance of this straightforward Truth – the Truth that there are not two. There is only this Consciousness everywhere! Some sages called that as Consciousness, God. It is the unique Reality, the unique Truth present in every manifestation, in the whole existence, everywhere! There is only God! There is no "you and Him."

*Online meeting transcription originally held on January 13th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on February 10th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

What is the right attitude to approach the Master?

Participant: What is the right attitude to approach the Master?

Marcos Gualberto: If you are invited to the royal palace in England to see the queen, you will receive some lessons about social conventions, about how to behave in front of the queen. Any different behavior can be considered an insult, and that means, at the very least, you can be expelled from the room she is.

In this meeting with the queen, who is the authority, who has the power, who owns the kingdom, who gives and who receives the favor? It seems to me that everything comes from her! From her there comes favor, hospitality, grace. She is the queen! You will not try to explain to her how to rule her own kingdom. You are not part of the government, neither to give an opinion nor to vote on decisions to be taken. You are just a visitor.

So, what should it be like to visit the Guru, the Presence, the Consciousness in the form? Will you say this Consciousness in the form is a liar? Or are you going to discuss how the Guru does or does not do his or her job? No! You cannot come to my kingdom and discuss how I rule it, if I cast someone out of the kingdom, if I mistreat one of my subjects... You don't have the power to do that. I am the owner of the kingdom. I am the king. I rule the way I choose to rule. When you do that, you are no longer part of the kingdom. This is the arrogant way of behaving in front of the Guru.

The Guru accepts and expels whoever he or she wants! Seeing justice or injustice in this is up to those outside the kingdom. If you're part of the kingdom, you don't argue about the king's decisions.

So, what is the way to be before God, which is the Presence, Consciousness? Without mind! No opinions, no judgments, no comparisons, no conclusions... Because you are before Grace! You depend on this Grace! And you cannot forget this: you are coming to me! I am not coming to you! You are coming to me to receive this favor, this Grace, which is the release of this lie, this arrogance. So, the real way to be here is to know what it means to be before a Sage, before the Presence, before Grace!

This arrogance drives you away from yourselves! You have to come here with tears, not screams, and with an inner sadness in your heart, for seeing everything with a background of fear, frustration, disappointment, anger... It's not time to scream. It's time to cry, to regret. It's time to ask, "Master, what's going on? The fear is here, the pain is here, help me out with this!" That's the attitude you should have when you're with me! If it's true that you only have me to help you out with this mire of arrogance, prepotency, vanity, fear, then learn to look at me. Come here and say, "Master, help me out with this!" Do it here, in person, and also when you're away! You are not talking to a physical form, but to Consciousness, to God!

You don't go to the Guru to question him or her. You go to the Guru to give up being "someone" in front of his or her gracious Presence, blessing Presence, enlightened Presence. Serving the Guru is not serving another person. It is surrendering to the Truth! When there is this surrender to the Truth, the hidden Guru in the disciple's heart reveals as the disciple's own Self. This is Enlightenment! This is Realization!

Don't demand me for Realization. Deserve that! Be worthy of that Grace – even though Grace is not earned by merits. When you are "deserving" this Realization, you will receive it by Grace, not because you deserved it. This is how Enlightenment happens: it has to come to an end, then there is no "someone," only Enlightenment.

You can see on the stories of those who attained Realization through Zen: hearing absurd things from the Guru, getting nose-pulled, being thrown out of a window, being punched, being hit with a baton, sitting in front of a wall, witnessing and hearing absurd things like Koans. All this for many, many years! And apparently, it is like nothing was happening, not even a slap on the back from the master saying, "you're fine, you're evolving." No acknowledgment, no applause for deeds, for obedience. On the contrary, the "rope" gets shorter and shorter; the demands, greater, year after year. But questioning the Guru, never! Doubting the Guru, never! Thinking about desertion, don't even think about it! Year after year! Apparently, nothing is happening, and there comes a day, like a stumble – or a literal stumble on a small rock – and the ego crashes!

The disciple ceases to be a disciple, when he or she makes oneself worthy of this Grace, through surrender. This Grace comes without merits to a disciple who ceases to be a disciple, only because the inner Guru has flourished, has taken over... Because the "king" returned to the throne and recognized his royalty. By grace? Yes. By merit? Yes. By merit? No. For all those years? Yes. For all those years? No.

Don't go to the Guru asking him or her for what you cannot receive, even if the Guru has that to share with you. Go to the Guru and surrender, surrender yourself, deserve to touch the Guru's feet, enable yourself to do so. It is not possible to realize God by being someone. It is not possible to realize God while still having many dreams, being too attached to other things.

Your place is in this space: in the space of meditation, surrender, renunciation, liberation from the world and its fantasies of paradise, happiness on earth. This is the path of Grace: surrender. It's the only way to be worthy of what you can receive without any merit. You either believe in yourself or trust Grace in the form of the Guru.

One day Christ said, "He who remains till the end will be free, he will be saved; if you truly abide in my words, you will truly be my disciples, then you will know the Truth, and the Truth will be that Freedom, and the Truth will set you free."

One day, Buddha said, in his last sermon, "be a light to yourselves." Is it possible? In the ego, no! In Consciousness, yes! And Consciousness is present when the Guru is present, when Grace is present, when Truth is present. So, the Light is there.

It is a huge mistake to see the Guru as just another person. The Guru is not just another person. The Guru is God, Consciousness. The Guru is infallible. The Guru is a solved case!

When you go to a living Master, you are going to encounter Freedom. You can't steal it from Him or Her. You're not going to understand Him or Her. You're not going to take a little piece of Him or Her and take it with you. You will not learn anything from Him or Her. There is nothing you can take from Him or Her, but The Guru is as generous as the sea to receive you into His or Her waters. You cannot steal anything from Him or Her. Either you give up on doing this with seawater and plunge into the sea, or you will fall into this illusion of trying to grab a part, which will end up returning to itself. So, when you go to a living Master, it is better to bathe in the waters of His or Her Freedom and be free with Him or Her.

You have to come to me to be One with me, not to draw conclusions about who I am, who you are, what I know or don't know, what I've learned or not, what I can or can't... This is nonsense! You have to come to me to be in that Silence, to dive into my eyes, my heart, my absence, my Presence. Plunge into that Meditation which is where I am, where I am What I Am.

Stop thinking about your personal, private life, your relationships where there are things to hide or to say in private. When you are with me, come to dive in this sea, come to forget about this "someone's" story. "Someone" who has to make a trip, to have distractions... What for? Come to this sea, travel into this ocean of Liberty! Otherwise, you will keep taking that ego to those trips with you.

Live without ego! Live without the sense of separation! Live in Supreme Happiness, in Freedom! Live without fear, without conflict, desires, anxiety about future, without worrying about the past, without personal stories! When you come, come in and immerse yourself in my art, in the art of Being, in the art of being nothing, of being nobody! Without being born and without dying! Nobody is ever born, and nobody ever dies! Nobody ever gets married. Nobody ever gets divorced! No one ever is or isn't...

This is so simple... but you make things complicated…

*Presential meeting transcription, originally held in Fortaleza city, Brazil. First published in Portuguese on February 25, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

A room without walls

As long as there is a sense of separation, the notion about a "me" inside the body with its beliefs and feelings, you will not stand before the experience as it shows itself, as it presents itself – the pure experience of this moment. This sense of separation falsifies the experience of Reality. The experience of this moment is the Reality of Happiness, of Freedom, of Peace. The thought/feeling is a veil, a curtain over This. When you get lost in this identification with thoughts and feelings, you ward yourself off from the present Reality, your Real Nature, your Being.

This present moment, which is Reality, is the moment of Love and Beauty, it is always the moment of God. This is not the moment of the "person," which is just a belief, conditioning, something you were educated to believe. That is, you believe you are a person present here, right now, but there is no "person" in this moment! Consciousness is present, so what we have right now is this Presence-Consciousness, but there is no "person." Thoughts always represent shapes in the space. Thus, the thought, which is only the imagination of shapes, gives "reality" to a personal world since the "person" needs shapes – the shape of other people, objects and all kinds of images. There is no thought without images. Thought revolves around images, shapes. When thought comes, it always approaches with images.

Remember something, right now, at this moment... For that, you need images. Thoughts are images that are in the Space, and you cannot imagine that Space. The Space is a formless void, a room without walls, and there are no rooms like that. You cannot imagine a room without walls – this is the Space. This Space is the Presence-Consciousness, without shape, without a name, without story; it is the Nature of Reality, of God, of Being; it is your True Nature, and therefore You were never born. Some "walls" were built and a "room" appeared, but the Space was already there, before these "walls." The Space inside is the same Space outside. The "walls" created an illusory separation between inside and outside and did not give reality to the Space, only creating an illusory limitation.

When you identify with thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations, you are imposing a limitation on yourself – the limitation of being "someone," a separate entity, a "room." So, you say you have no freedom since you have become a prisoner of your own beliefs. Fear is self-created, so are desire and suffering, and these are the "walls" that apparently limited and imprisoned the Space. In Reality, Space is not a prisoner, but the illusory sensation is of being imprisoned. This is the sense of separation in the illusion "my space" is one and "your space" is another; "me and the world," "me and others."

Participant: Why did Space allow Itself to be imprisoned?

Master Gualberto: There is no prison for Space since, actually, It does not exist. These "walls" are beliefs, mental concepts, cultural conditionings, imaginations. Space is not a prisoner, and there are no real walls. These "walls" have "bricks," which are the thoughts, the feelings and the sensations. When you identify with thoughts, the "walls" are raised, and when you trust them, they are strengthened. When you trust feelings, the "walls" are reinforced, that is, it is pure conditioning, it is cultural. The ego is a cultural, social product, the result of education. You were educated to be miserable.

In this world, the more human beings study, the more stupid they become. It is a "breadwinner" education. You study, but the thinking remains stupid, narrow, limited. You study a lot, but the "walls" are still standing – jealousy, envy, desire, fear, concepts, prejudices. You may earn a little more money since you studied and now you can buy a luxury car. You are now rich, but a miserable one! There is the miserable poor and the miserable rich. When they die, one goes under the ground and the other goes to a mausoleum. It is a big difference, isn't it?

*Online meeting transcription originally held on May 5th, 2017. First published in Portuguese on January 22nd, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

You are God and there is only Him

It is neither present inside nor outside. What is really present is this Reality, which is not inside or outside. We can call this Reality as Grace, Consciousness, Presence, God... It is always present, outside every notion of space and time.

The reference of thought is the reference of forms. So, you have learned that God is within, and I am here questioning that. It is not inside. It is not outside. Inside and outside are always from thought's perspective and not from Reality. Reality is this Presence always present, here and now.

This Reality makes the birds sing and the flowers bloom. It makes waves crash against rocks and allows your heart to beat. It makes these clouds float in this blue space, which we call the sky, It makes them run smoother or faster...

That Presence always present, always here, always present... here. It is not inside. It is not outside.

Do you know why I invited you? To show you that you are that Presence! This has been my invitation to all who come. Some people are at the right time to receive that invitation, welcome and receive it deeply in their hearts. And others are not at that moment. But my message to the world is: You are Love, You are Happiness, You are Beauty, You are Silence, You are God!

It has been bitter, hard, difficult because you switch What You are for what you are not. You artificially replace this present Reality with this illusory movement of thought within time, which places you into the past and into the future, which creates this notion of inside and outside, making you trust this illusion of the person – of this person that is just a belief. This is an illusion.

You are the Happiness I am. I am the Happiness You are. Time and space... just imagination. Body, mind... just an idea. In and out as well.

You do not need to live in that illusion, in the illusion created, nurtured, fostered by thought. You can be free! And that Freedom can only be realized, seen, demonstrated to you as You to Yourself, here, now! That is why I invite you to abandon the ego, to abandon the sense of being someone who places oneself in an illusory relationship with the world.

An example of this is our so-called affectionate, loving relationships – all based on fear, on the desire to be someone to someone or to have someone to someone you believe you are.

Truth is not that! The Truth is this present Reality that makes the birds sing, the flowers open, each one with its uniqueness, with its scent. The Truth makes every cloud in the sky unique, every dewdrop, every flower that turns into fruit on a tree, and each of those fruits being unique. However, only one Reality is present beyond these shapes, names, colors, flavors and fragrances...

In Satsang, I am giving you a choice, which has always been denied to you. Every choice you know is the choice thought engenders, something imaginary. This means going around in circles, which, in fact, is not a choice. Living in the ego is not a choice, it is going around in circles.

All your conquests, accomplishments, all your satisfaction, pleasure and fulfillment in these relationships – which you end up turning into egoic relationships, where the ego splits in two, into observer and observed thing, into the loved one and the one who loves – always end up in a vicious circle of pain and suffering.

I am giving you a choice – the only one possible, the only real one. This choice means to stop choosing, to stop being in time as a separate entity. It means to be in everyone's heart and to have everyone's heart inside you. It means abandoning the notion of inside and outside to be everything and nothing, to be here and everywhere.

Satsang is to encounter What Is, the association with Reality, the association with Yourself.

You are God! God seeing Himself. God looking at Himself. God in love with Himself. God meeting Himself. Only here exists the one who loves and the one who is loved, God and the devotee, the Guru and the disciple. It is in this sense that the Guru is essential since the Guru is the one who shows you this.

You look at a rosebush and notice that some flowers are no longer buds, they have bloomed. Some of them are still in bud, and others are in all their Grace, in all their Glory, in all their expressions of rose. The Guru is a rose that has blossomed. The disciples are rosebuds. But they are a promise, a beautiful, gorgeous, indescribable, extraordinary promise. It's all already there! There is no separation in the rosebush! It is only one rosebush, the same Life! The touch in the rose bush is the touch of the same Grace, the same Presence! One Life, one sap, One Being!

Awakening, Enlightenment, Self-Realization, whatever you want to call This, means the blossoming of your Real, innate Nature, What You are, now, here. That is why you are coming. Others will also come.

The music of my flute delights the heart! And when you come, you acknowledge yourself, being in the rosebush, being part of this, being this, being all of this!

You were born to be what You are! Nothing more, nothing less than That! And that means being God! There is only Him! The only rosebush, the only rose, all the roses! Thorns are also part of that. Everything is part of this. The rose is not hurt with the thorns. They do not harm the rose, They never reach its petals, its perfume, its dance in the wind when it blows, its delicacy... the thorns can't hurt it at all.

The Guru arrives first, but here the first and the last are irrelevant. A flower that blooms before does not make it a separate being, a different being, a special being. The Guru is important, not because he is special, but rather because, in Him, we can see That which we are, we can smell the scent that we also have, we can see how beautiful is the dance of the rosebush when the wind is blowing, and also see that the thorns are there, but that everything is part of this rosebush.

I want that, my only interest is that you abandon the illusion of choice, the illusion of being in time, going somewhere to be happy or fulfilled there. My only interest is that you abandon the illusion of looking for this on the outside, of trying that way.

God is the only need, What cannot be replaced, What is not outside, is not in power, in wealth, in relationships, in personal achievements... Absolutely! He is there, looking at me now, behind these eyes!

That's it! And that's only this!

*In-person meeting transcription originally held in Ramanashram Gualberto, in Campos do Jordão city/SP-Brazil, on April 2016. First published in Portuguese on May 31st, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Conscious Immortality

Consciousness does not talk. Consciousness is silent! The mind talks. Consciousness is beyond the sound and the silence. You cannot hear my voice. However, you can enjoy my Silence. In the mind you express thoughts. Consciousness is only Silence and has no expression. What differentiates an Advaita teacher from a Master is that the latter never talks, while the former talks a lot.

With a teacher you learn since he or she has something to teach. With a Master you unlearn. The Master does only one thing: He destroys all your knowledge, once it is useless. Knowledge only deals with the known. The known knowledge is only for dreaming. Through knowledge, you build a rocket and launch it into outer space. Then, the rocket leaves the earth, breaks the law of gravity, and goes into outer space. However, the rocket, the earth, the law of gravity and outer space are part of the dream. They are good for nothing else, just for that. If knowledge is not useful to realize Happiness, then it is useless. Knowledge is going to put a satellite in space, and now the GPS will work, the TV channels will broadcast the signal, but nothing the TV channels show will bring Happiness. So knowledge is useless.

There are doctors here, in this room. Through medical, scientific knowledge, you can cure your patients. They will have a healthy body and they will live longer, miserably. Sorry doctors, your knowledge is useless! It only prolongs the misery. I have just proved to you that knowledge is useless. It is just to prolong the dream.

Silence destroys the dream. Silence represents Conscious Immortality, Supreme Happiness. So, Silence is important, knowledge is not. Sorry doctors, your knowledge is rubbish. Atomic science, quantum physics, nuclear knowledge are useless. None of this can make your eyes shine with happiness.

I am not a doctor. I am just What I Am. And you are just What You Are. That is enough. You do not need to know anything in this world. Just know yourself. This is the only valid knowledge. If you know who You Are, you know you are not inside there. You know there is no one to know oneself. So, you know everything is Him, and He is revered in everything. Then you behold Him and enjoy Him everywhere, and He is your joy. So, the only knowledge that matters is knowing who You are. You were born for this.

It is not my words that are making "this thing" work. This thing called Satsang happens by itself. There is no one there. You do not come back because of the words. There are many writers, philosophers, many scientists... and they are impressive, admirable people. There are many wonderful people in the world. Isn't it? You have to learn to have fun with all this; you cannot take it too seriously. They are playing important people. Let them believe they are impressing you. But do not be impressed. They do not know Conscious Immortality. After death, they all become ghosts. And you know how ghost's life is, some ghosts are friendly and some are not.

And what changes? Nothing changes! If you do not live your Real Nature here and now, anything internally is still the mind, in a time created by the mind. Reality is here and now. Everything else is mind's creations: spiritual places, heaven, hell, "lower zone" ... If you are identified with the mind, you are in time, you will go to one of these places, it is unavoidable. But if the mind has disappeared, if it has immersed in the Source, the material and immaterial universe disappeared.

That is beautiful, isn't it!? The end of the dream!

Is there anything that distresses you more than that? To desire what is not here and now? To want something to be different than it is? See the peace of the Sage: He wants nothing. The Sage is just having fun, laughing at all this madness.

Do you get that?

God pours Himself out abundantly. Life is Grace, Joy, God, there is only God! His game seems very cruel for you, some are being born, and others are dying... Yesterday, I saw a bird eating an insect. The insect was flying and the bird was faster than it. It is a game. There is nothing wrong with your life. You have no personal life because there is no person. There is only the game. So, whoever has come and has already gone, it is all right, do not demand anything that has already gone, and do not demand anything that has not come yet. Everything will come, and everything will go away. But it is a game. Do not make it personal. Then, you learn to live as a Sage, without attachment, without desire, without fear.

When people ask me, "How can you live like this?" I ask them the same question back: "How can you live like this?" That is the same question. The Sage is asking the same question as the fool. How to explain this? It is a mystery.

Your certainty about everything is huge. Abandon this. Abandon what you believe you know. You know nothing!

There is an expression used out there in a pejorative way. The expression is: "in blissful ignorance." Have you heard the expression? But it is a wonderful expression, since it accurately pictures the Natural State. It is of complete ignorance and of an unbelievable sacredness. Your Natural State is of an in-blissful ignorance. It is quite paradoxical. The one who shares the Real Knowledge, knows nothing!

Isn't it paradoxical?

*In-person meeting transcription originally held at Ramanashram Gualberto in Campos do Jordão city-Brazil, on December 3rd, 2017. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Self-Realization: The end of the sense of separateness

Realization, Enlightenment or Awakening are words generally used as synonymous with this State free from the egoic mind. This is a State simply free from the egoic mind. It has nothing to do with the body's presence or absence.

Realization, Awakening, Enlightenment is not necessarily the end of the dream of this mind-body appearance, but rather the end of the illusion of the sense of separateness. What ends is not the body; the only thing that ends is the sense of separateness. The body is well in its place. The mind, in the sense of memory, cognition, intellect, is also fine in its place. The only thing that ends is the sense of separateness. This sense of separateness is what represents all misery, all suffering, this whole illusion of ignorance. There is no ignorance, as well as there is no suffering! Suffering, as well as ignorance, is within this illusion of separateness. More than that: it is pure fantasy! The body and the mind are only appearances.

The Divine reality, the reality of God is this reality of non-separateness, of non-duality. Duality here implies the idea, the belief, the imagination of "me" present in the experience "body-mind-world." So, the illusion of an identity called "me," "I," in this experience "body-mind-world" is duality. Thus, there is the "I" inside the body, the world outside the body, and the body as part of the world – this is duality. And above that "me" and the world, there was God. This way, this separateness, this sense of separation, is the illusion of duality. It is basically that. What ends is only this. Nothing else changes! You do not become a special being, wonderful, with miraculous powers. None of this!

The body is not the problem, it is just an appearance – the same way at night you have the world's appearance in the dream and a body to live that. And this body is not you either, for as soon as you wake up in the morning, you find out it was only an imagination – both your body and your world in the dream. And the dream experience for you is quite real! If you are bathing in a river, in the dream, the water is quite cold; if you are walking beneath the sun, it is quite hot. If you are thirsty in the dream, the water in the dream quenches your thirst. So, you have a body, a world and an experience in this specific world of dream. This experience is of a dreamer, and this dreamer is only the illusion of an identity present in the dream.

Then, human being's experience is also the same thing. In the egoic mind, you see yourself as a human being. You see rocks, animals, plants, rivers, oceans, forests, deserts, Sun, Moon, stars, and so on. You see all of this as a human being, as something separate from you. And this is also only in imagination. It is only the magical movement of the mind. This is the sense of separateness, and all this ends in Awakening, in the Realization. It seems very little, but I do not know if we can measure the volume of this "thing," if we can measure this. The end of duality, which is the end of this separateness, is the end of the world, of all this "your world."

Participant: What about the extraordinary experiences they tell us?

Master Gualberto: The Sages do not talk about these extraordinary experiences. There is no extraordinary experience in the Awakening. Awakening is the end of all experiences. While there is an experiencer, there will be experiences, and the more subtle and spiritual the experiencer is, the more subtle and spiritual will be their experiences.

Participant: And what about the Satoris, Samadhis?

Master Gualberto: Satori is a Zen word, and if you observe, you will discover within Zen that satori is the end of the experience, not really an experience. Samadhi is also the end of the experience, it is not an experience. Satori and Samadhi refer to your Natural State. In your Natural State, God is not spiritual. I refer to that Divine Reality that is you in your Real Nature. You are God in your Real Nature, and this is not spiritual; this is quite natural. It is not ordinary in the sense that we use this word, it is not common, but it is quite natural.

The state free from the egoic mind, free from the separatist mind, the mind that divides, compares, evaluates, the mind that judges, prejudges, desires, fears its end. The mind that may have a glimpse of That, "insights" of That. We can call it as Satori or Samadhi. But if this does not establish in the body, in this body-mind mechanism, it will also be just one more experience the mind will recall, will remember. This is not real in the mind, and then what does it do? The mind reports it as an experience. It can only tell it as an experience, but this is not the Awakening. In the Awakening there is no experiencer anymore. Without the experiencer, there is no experience, and then there is no "someone" left to tell something.

When Peace, Freedom, Happiness, Love, the Divine, Consciousness, God is present, there is no experiencer. That is the end of this "you" you know.

Today, we are talking directly from the Ashram, in this space here in Campos do Jordão city (Brazil). We have about thirty participants with us here in Ramanashram hall, and we have you here in this virtual Paltalk room. We are more than ten here, so we are in about forty people. This seems to be so, but it is not true either. This is the magic of this Divine world, this world of Grace, this world of God.

The appearances are appearances in What never appears, in What never takes shape, is never separated into boys and girls, men and women, plants, animals, sky, stars, moon, virtual and not virtual rooms.

This work does not require specialized technical understanding. It is not like studying Chemistry, Physics or Medicine. You do not need specialized knowledge. Actually, the unusual side of this work is that here it is essential to unlearn everything you have learned. Here, it is rather a deconstruction of everything that has been built over the years, throughout history, in every culture, in every civilization, of all spirituality, in short, all of that. Here, the Awakening, which is the flourishing of Wisdom, the blossoming of Happiness, which is the acknowledgment of God's Supreme Truth, is only the acknowledgment of your Real Nature. It has nothing to do with specialization, degree, capability, not at all. Here you unlearn! When you unlearn everything, the Sage blooms!

The Sage is in the opposite direction. Everyone is going in one direction and the Sage is coming back. For a long time, all of you have been trained to walk in one direction. When Satsang comes (Satsang means "to encounter what is," an Indian word for "association with the Truth") we receive an internal call for the acknowledgement of this Reality we are, and that means "going back." All our conditioning is about walking in one direction, and now the invitation is to go back. We have to make the way back. All this was only for us to ward ourselves off from home, and now we have to go back... go back home. We ward ourselves off from home with our projects, our dreams, our desires, our pursuits, our achievements, our accumulations... The idea was to "be someone," and now we are coming back home. We are disappearing. We are abandoning this venture, this endeavor. We are seeing the mistake of striving to be while we forget to be. Every effort to "be" wards you off from Being. Every pursuit of happiness is the very impediment to the acknowledgement of this Happiness that should not be sought. Searching for Self-realization wards you off from the acknowledgement that everything is in its place and already ready. There is nothing to be accomplished, much less by "someone." So, you end up going the opposite way. You are now going back home, back to your Real Nature, which is Consciousness, Presence, God, Truth. If you do not like one of those words, you can cut out one of them. We will not need any of them anyway.

Once someone told me he liked my speech a lot, but he was not comfortable when I used the word "God." Then I was quite generous with him – in every meeting then I just used the word "God." Instead of using the word "Consciousness," "Presence," "Being," I said, "God," "God," "God," "God." Either you abandon me or you abandon yourself and all your prejudices.

In this work, you all need to go beyond the entire egoic mind configuration. This has a reach, an extent and complexity you have no idea. You only begin to have a slight notion of this in Satsang. A slight one, since you have to go slowly, in homeopathic doses. The egoic mind carries so much burden, so much conditioning... thousands of years of conditioning! Maybe you are only three decades old. There are some in this room, in the Ashram, and also here on the virtual Paltalk room, who are maybe three, four, five, six or seven decades old. That is nothing! Seven decades are nothing! Eight decades are nothing! We are talking about millions of years. Since when you were an amoeba, a unicellular being, you were already learning, discovering the outside, starting your journey to the outside, physiologically and psychologically.

Do not underestimate the plants, not even the stones. They all have mind and consciousness. You cannot forget that when we talk about consciousness. We are not talking about cognitive ability, judgment, comparison. This is only within this intellect of this so-called human being, and some animal species. When we talk about consciousness, we are talking about experiences, the power to experience and "separate oneself." When this is very advanced, as in humans, this consciousness experiences itself in this illusion of "being the agent," the author of the actions. Therein emerges the sense of "me," an experiencer in the experience, in a quite "clear," "precise," "responsible" way. But that is for another Satsang. For now, it is enough for us to stay here, in this moment, aware of all this movement, without identifying with it, without giving it this uniqueness sense of an experiencer, an observer, a present author in it. We call it Meditation.

Meditation is this freedom of Being. The experience is just the experience without "someone" inside it. Thought is just a thought without "someone" responsible for it. A feeling is just a feeling without "someone" responsible for it. The same is true for emotion.

I feel very comfortable in these speeches since I do not feel responsible for your ability to understand them, because I do not understand anything either. Here, the foremost thing is to listen.

If we could frame Wisdom within the reasonable understanding of our intellect, Wisdom would not be what it is. The intellect would not be what it is. But as you can have only one thing and not another, you cannot keep both.

This channel here on Paltalk, is an opportunity for us to have a first contact. The thing "for real" happens in the in-person meeting. I know it is very comfortable now to be sitting on the sofa at home, listening to this speech, taking a juice or a glass of soda, but you must get out of that comfort zone and come to Satsang, being in Satsang in person.

We are constantly talking about the same Presence, the same Reality. This is a great opportunity, an opportunity to be together in this Silence.

The "I" is a tremendous illusion, a great illusion, the only illusion, as it was said just now here.

Participant: Master, if the "I" is an illusion, what, or who seeks self-realization, self-transcendence?

Master Gualberto: It is a good question you need to do for yourself, "Who am I?" If you go deep into the investigation of this element that seeks this self-realization or transcendence, you will find out this element does not exist. So, we are facing a paradox. That is the beauty of the Truth! This Consciousness present, always present, does not care about this illusion of separateness. This Consciousness does not recognize it as real thing. This illusion of separateness, this supposed separate entity does not exist. So, how can it look for this truth of its own end? Therefore, there is no answer to the question "Who am I?", but there is an end to this question – the end of the illusion of "someone" to ask this question, the end of the questioner. The one who asks the question is not real, so one cannot find an answer. And the one who asks the question has no one to ask the question to, and then there is no answer to be found.

Actually, this self-inquiring is not self-inquiring. It is just an investigation without an investigator, with nothing to investigate. Now it's much easier! (laughs)

In fact, the world or the experience "me, in the world," is only apparent. That is the key! We are not dealing with reality, since we do not exist. The reality is the one dealing with all this... a great cosmic joke... a great joke! Awakening reveals this! All this is a great joke, a great Divine game!

Let us stop here. See you on our next meeting. Namaste!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on May 6th, 2016. First published in Portuguese on May 17th, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.