September 1, 2021

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.

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