Enlightenment is the blossoming of the Unknown

One of these days, on a social media page of this work, someone asked me: "Do you have free time so we can talk? I would like to know a little more about your life story." I have no problem talking to you a little bit about my story. However, I see this is not the most important thing. Maybe I will tell you a little bit about my story, just for you to realize that your story is no different from mine. It has quite different aspects, of course, but the search for something beyond the mind, beyond a story, is the same.

Now, you wrote here "this peace is the most beautiful thing that exists." Yes, that is the foremost thing! Here, the foremost thing is You! The story is always the same. I have been sharing this with you for some time already and I don't see anything real about this story since it is just about a character's past. You cannot be open to the New if you are stuck in the character's story. Your reason for being here must be to know who You are. The mere curiosity about someone's story will not help you. Discovering the Truth about Yourself is discovering the real meaning of Life, and if This is present, Peace is present.

So, I do not really know what to say about the story since stories are all alike. The purpose here is for you to discover What You are, here and now. That must be the reason for you to be here. For that you need to be open to the New, to be completely open to the Unknown. I want you to find out the Truth internally present, in what You are. Only then you will know Freedom, including Freedom about the known, time, story, the past of this person you believe you are. As a matter of fact, all your problems are absolutely there, centered on a character's story. Enlightenment is the blossoming of the Unknown. So, Peace settles, because Peace is your Natural State, free from this character, free from this story.

You always need the past to reassert yourself as someone, but you do not need the past to be in your Being, in your Natural State – the State free from ego, from the sense of a separate "me," a separate entity with conflicts, dilemmas, dramas, problems… And person has a lot of problems! People do not stop having problems! Actually, people are the problems! You do not come here to improve the "person." For that, you have to go to a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, psychologist, therapist, or a counselor… They are experts in helping people. My specialty here is to help you find out the Truth about who You are, and not empower you to be a better person, to face adversities, vicissitudes, complexities, difficult situations of life.

So, when people come to me asking about my story, they still do not understand I am not interested in the story. I can have clear memories, because I have a brain that has memories, like any other. Memories of facts, situations, everything that has happened – or has apparently happened – but I do not give an identity to it. I only tell the character's story someone believes to exist.

Right now, you are watching me through this video and you are sure you are before a person. But I do not see you as a person since I do not see myself like this. I see myself in What I Am. That is what I have when I look at you! To me, This is the Truth! Apart from that, many stories...

Notice that these stories uphold the whole problem. I see people suffering because they are upholding stories about who they are. This is just a belief in what they believe to be since there is no story in what you are. But, in what you believe to be, there is a lot of stories! Guilt, fear, desire, suffering, all this is always part of the story, always of the characters. They desire because they do not feel complete. They feel guilty since they feel responsible because they believe they could have done differently.

We do not see the Truth behind everything. To me, things just happen. Right now, this is just an event. Apparently, you have decided to come and be with me here in Satsang, but that is not how it works. It looks so, but it is not. You are sure that is how it was, and I would question this until the end. Things happen, as well as decisions are made, however, there is no "someone." Things happen, but there is no "someone." Things are solved by themselves, there is no "someone" solving them. That private sense of identity must be broken down internally. This is a fraud, an illusion! Your Being is not stuck to that character's story.

I know this is new for some of you here since you have been hearing other things. There are infinite beliefs within each one. All of the beliefs are learned by culture, by society, by the world around you. You need to know What You are, who You are. Real Intelligence is present when this way of thinking you know, disappears. Real Intelligence is the presence of pure Consciousness, and This is the Unknown. I could call this "Real Thinking." When there is no thought, there is the presence of the Unknown. Intelligence flows when you are open to the Unknown. Everything you know represents what ordinary thought produces.

So, when you say "this Peace is wonderful," this Peace is the presence of Intelligence. It is the presence of the Unknown. You do not have Peace when you think, when you are involved in calculated thinking, looking for results, to gain or trying to get rid of things. Only when you ward yourself off from this conflicting thought process, a Space opens up. And in that Space, there is Something new, which is the Unknown. That's when you are before Intelligence, before Peace.

By thinking, you do not have Peace. By calculating, you have no Peace. By concluding, trying to make things right, you do not have Peace. Actually, all the internal restlessness exists because thought is present. It is thought inside you that upholds the absence of Peace. Does it make any sense to you?

My specialty is the absence of thought, living in Consciousness, as Consciousness, as the Unknown. So, there are no beliefs, there is not the ordinary process of dealing with thoughts, as it happens to people. See, person is synonymous with people who think, which means an entity present, stressed, worried, afflicted, trying to solve situations, looking for solutions – actually, creating problems since that is all the mind does.

Life is happening without thoughts, but thought arises to create problems. Life is already in Its rhythm, in Its form, in Its way, but you think. You are not in control of what is going on there in your life, but you think you are. Once more, it is thought in conflict with what Life represents here, right now. The desire, the fear, the anxiety, the worry, the despair, the attachment, the conflict to try to change things is all part of it. Life as Consciousness is a Life of Love, of Peace, of Intelligence, without conflict.

There is no Peace if you are angry, and you are not free from anger when your ego conflicts. When your ego is upset, when, for example, a desire is denied, your ego becomes resentful and angry. If there is anger, there is no Peace. Peace is the most desired thing! Not by "people." Peace is not desired by the "person." "Person" has other desires before this. "Person" knows nothing about Peace. People only know about what they look for. "Person" only knows what to gain or to get rid of.

When you are free from thoughts, Silence is present. Under thought's movement, you are constantly placing yourself as someone – someone to work things out, to get rid of things. Someone in the past, someone in the future. Even when the thought is "I am happy," that is an idea, a belief. Thought is continually objectifying something. It wants even to objectify a state. Thought says, "I will achieve peace!" This is to objectify a state.

To investigate yourself means stopping the objectification of internal states. To understand Yourself is to find out this Unknown Reality of your own Being. The thoughts you have about yourself do not represent Understanding. They are mere beliefs cultivated over time. You see yourself as a creature in time, as a person, an entity in time. Peace is apart from time, mind and thought.

Notice that the times you enjoy peace are the times when there is no thought about who you are, about what life represents, or about what is happening within this personal story. When this personal story arises, which is when thought arises, there is no Peace. This is not being before your Being. It is to mistake yourself for a story that thought creates, and this is what people do throughout their lives.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 26th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on April 6th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Your Real Ideal is the association with Silence

Being is something that requires an approach entirely different from what you are generally used to. When we go to a meeting to listen to someone, we hope to learn something there. That is not the purpose of this meeting. I have nothing to teach you here, but you can investigative your life here with me, about how your life is going and what is happening to you.

So, the purpose is not to teach you something, but rather to investigate something with you, which I consider of utmost importance. Satsang can bring a profound change, something that can have tremendous meaning. We are talking about a change in your way of seeing yourself in life. You would not be at this meeting if you were not looking for something beyond this ordinary life that everyone is living. If there was not a real internal search, you would not be here.

Human beings have been living in conflict, and this has been so for millennia! Human beings live on this planet in conflict – with themselves, with others, with everything around them. Human beings are seeking peace and creating war.

So, what we have to say to you at a meeting like this is not something you are not already aware of. You may even know it. What you do not know is what to do with this. What to do with these internal conflicts? How to get rid of suffering? How to discover a quality of life in which you are at rest, in a true internal rest? How to live in peace? How to live intelligently? How to live with that perfume of Freedom, of Love, which is to live a life without conflict?

We are proposing that you investigate this and ask yourself if this is possible or if we are really doomed to live the rest of our days looking for what makes us happy. Perhaps some people are already doomed to live like this until the end of their days, precisely because they are doing what does not need to be done. They are mistaken. The vast majority of people are radically wrong. That is why there is so much conflict, so much suffering, so much despair. There is no Peace. There is no Freedom. And words like "intelligence," "love," "happiness," "freedom" are interpreted in a very superficial way, since no one knows what this is. People do not know what this represents since they are under this doom, this condition of an eternal search for something out there. They are looking outside because they were raised, educated, encouraged to do this. These people are us.

Those who represent humanity live like this. When I was young, I was also somewhat encouraged in that direction. But something internally was saying there was something else. So, when I use the expression "we," I include myself, but actually everything is different here. I do not see anything that way. Not anymore. For me, the words "intelligence," "freedom," "happiness," "love" and "awareness" have a totally different meaning than that which is used by people applying these words.

You cannot keep on depending psychologically, internally, on what others think, on what they accept or reject by the traditional way of seeing themselves, of seeing life and the world around them. Some people have used the expression "Awakening," a word that is already quite emptied of significant, real, profound content. It has also been trivialized. However, This is what human beings need! When I say "human being," I mean you who are here in this room.

All your conflict is with yourself, and your desire is its base. It is your conflict that generates dependence, which upholds fear in relationships, which makes you depend on others – and here, others are anything on the outside. What you lack is the Silence, the Silence of your Real State of Being, of your Divine Natural State of Being. All you need is to find this enchantment for the Truth you carry within yourself. You need to be in touch with This. Otherwise, you will be continually moving under this world of desire, continually looking for something outside. Looking for anything! People are also things, they are nothing but images. They are images of special things. More special are the ones we love, or less, for the ones we do not love so much. They are also special to annoy us, grieve us and make us miserable.

This deep pain of desire upholds this dependence on objects, which are images of these so-called "people" we are in constant contact with. Apparently, they make us happy or sufferer. I say "apparently" since this is not true. The problem is never outside! The problem comes when you trust what thought says about what people are saying about you and themselves. It is always the internal thought.

I have been emphasizing this a lot to people who come to this work. They live in thought, so they are sure of the conclusions they draw. This is so childish. When you trust this, you suffer, you ward you off from yourself, from your Real Ideal. Your Real Ideal is the association with Silence, with the Love of your own Divine Nature. You ward yourself off from your True Nature when you believe what thought says, what mind says, in this relationship mind has with these objects.

You were born for Intelligence, for Freedom, for Consciousness, for Truth, for Love and Happiness. This is the Nature of Being!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 24th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on April 13th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

The adventure of going beyond the “person”

Satsang is not a relationship between two people. It is an adventure for you to find out what abandoning the "person" means. When you go climbing, you have to pay the price to get to the top. Here, the price is to go beyond the person, beyond this personhood sense.

So, we are talking about an adventure whose price is the surrender, the abandonment of the "sense of a person." If you are willing to pay this price, there will be a contact between us. Then, you will be able to ask questions, get closer, look at this closely, to investigate this. This way, there will be a contact, and not a relationship.

Here, we have some difficulties while using the expression "abandoning the person." Actually, I know person will not abandon him or herself. Personality will never be able to give up itself. The only way for it to become possible is the understanding of the illusion "person" is. So, it is not just saying "I want to abandon the person" for this to come true, since you are the very person saying you will abandon the person.

One of the basic things in human beings is the lie: you are born lying, you grow up lying, you become a child, a teenager, a young person, and you are constantly lying. Then, you become an adult, grow old and keep on lying. And you die in the lie! Therefore, you will not tell the truth to yourself. You will say, "I want to give up," but in fact, you do not want to give up.

The difference between a meeting like this and a therapy meeting is that in therapy you will look for help to be a better person, and here the proposal is to abandon the person. As the person will not give up and will lie about it, Satsang is not for someone looking for help to improve as a person. But therapy, yes.

Self-Realization is indeed the end of conflict, the end of suffering, but This has the price of the end of lying. What human beings want is not to stop suffering, but rather to suffer less. That is why people look for help in therapies and, in fact, therapy helps. It is possible to manage well this issue of suffering. But Satsang is the association with the Truth, which is the end of the mistake, the end of lying and the end of this set of beliefs you have about who you are, about what others are, about what life is. So, here the question is "who am I?"

This inclination towards the Truth is the inclination for Wisdom, which is Intelligence, the Intelligence of not suffering anymore. This Knowledge about Yourself, this Vision of the Truth about who You are, is the basis of Wisdom. So, Self-knowledge, here, is not what they say out there. Self-knowledge means abandoning the "sense of person," which is the basis of Wisdom, the basis of Intelligence, and when there is Intelligence, Love is present and suffering ends.

Generally, people spend their whole lives in a silly, mediocre way, resigned to the prevailing pattern of confusion, disorder, fear, desire, jealousy, envy, and so on. They are born, grow, live and die like this. They never ask themselves if it is possible to live differently, intelligently, without conflict, without suffering, with the real Consciousness of the Divine Presence controlling everything, doing everything in Its way. They never ask "who is really in control of everything?" or "what is this that governs all things?" On the contrary, people arrogantly seek their own way. They firmly believe they can be happy in their choices, making their decisions. This is not the way the Sage, who is living in this world with Intelligence, lives. That is why Satsang, this space here, is unique!

This climbing, which aims for the top – and, here, the top is the end of this "sense of person" with all the conflicts that this represents – requires surrender, a commitment to deep honesty, and loyalty to oneself. What is the nature of the mind? Who are you? What are your choices? What have you really done? Who is this "me" doing things, deciding, solving, and making things happen? Is this real? Here we go on our climbing!

Personality is not real, but who is willing to pay the price to be sure about this? So far, you are not sure about this, but you have the arrogance of being certain, many forms of certainties, and one of them is the certainty you are a person; and I assure you: personality is not real! That sense of person is a fraud! You will never give up this!

Without the Comprehension, this abandonment is impossible! This Comprehension is the price, and not an understanding. This is like driving a car. You do not drive a car by reading a book on how to drive it. That will not make you a driver. When you go to a driving school, do you take lessons in traffic laws, take a theoretical test, and immediately you have your driver's license? No, that's not the way to become a driver. A driver is not a theory, but a vehicle driver who needs to be approved in a practical test.

You can decide to become a pilot and take an online course. Does it happen like this in civil or military aviation? No. This requires many hours of flight before you can take someone with your little plane somewhere.

Living in Happiness is also something like this. You understand the Truth about Yourself, you stop lying, and then God shows Himself. You know yourself and then you know God. And if you know God, you know everything is right. You know there is nothing wrong going on anywhere. This represents Peace, Freedom, and Happiness.

People come to me and say "I want peace." They talk as if they do not have Peace, as if it is something they have to receive from somewhere, and that is not true. Peace is not something you receive from somewhere. It is not something you are lacking. Peace is your Divine Nature! Your Being is Love, Peace, Truth, Intelligence! So, This is not missing. You just do not know who You are. You are entangled with thoughts, with stories this "sense of person" has created and upheld within you for all these years, a cultural thing that you have learned. These things are learned! We learn to be unhappy, to cling to conclusions, beliefs, material goals, desires... Human beings are strongly prone to quickly learn all the bad things. Once again this shows to be true: You have learned to be a person!

Look at your children, your grandchildren... They are repeating your ambition, your envy, your bad customs, your bad habits, your vices. You have already learned from your parents, your parents have already learned from your grandparents, and we "play the show" that way. It is a performance without rhythm, without tune, without arrangement. So, you come to me and say "I want peace," and I say to you: "This is present when you are in your Being." If you remain in the world, you have no Peace. If you remain in the mind, you have no Peace. If you remain like your parents, society, culture, psychologically speaking, you have no Peace, since there is no Peace in culture, there is no Peace in your parents, there is no Peace in the world!

Peace is inside you. You find out who You are, accept This and "blow up" the world! That's right: you have to "blow up" the world, this confusing world of yours! Comprehension places a bomb on the world and blows it up. Leave the world alone and you will have Peace! In other words, do not meddle with the world, do not meddle with other people's lives, do not meddle with your own life, since you do not have a life of your own. This is a lie, an illusion.

The Sage has Peace, truly. The one who lives in God has Peace. The holy man has Peace, the holy woman has Peace, since they do not live in lies. They do not cultivate confusion, suffering. They do not live in the world. The Sage does not live in the world. The Sage lives in his Being. The Sage's world has already blown up. The Sage is not concerned with what happens in the world.

For example: are you involved in political, economic, social issues? Do you beat the drum for causes of injustice and justice? This is all because you live in the world. The Sage does not live in the world. This world for him has already ended, has already concluded, has already blown up! This is a dream. It has no reality for him.

The Sage has nothing to defend or attack anymore. The Sage is already dead to this world. The Sage is worthless to this world. You cannot say to a Realized Being, "Can you help me fix this or that issue?" You will not be able to count on him, he is "alienated"! The Sage is not only alienated from Life, but he is alienated from the illusion of what life is. People who attack or defend, who want to fix, adjust or resolve issues, are from the world, they are in the world… they are people!

Does it scare you? It is scary because you like that party, that football club, that militancy, you like government A, government B… Yes, I know, you do. People like things. They just do not know what Love is, and that is why they always like things. When there is Love, there is no "liking." When there is Love, you are Happy. When there is Love, you are Peace. When there is Love, you are free from that "liking" and "disliking." There is no dependency. There is no fear. There is no suffering. It is typical of a person to be unhappy, to like and dislike, want and not want, make decisions and make choices, want to fix others, fix the world, fix oneself. You cannot fix yourself, you may "improve." I love therapists, I love doctors, but they do not give health, they make adjustments, they help in some way. There is no cure for the person! Person may get better but not cured.

Mind has no cure. Ego has no cure! The end of the "sense of person" is the final solution, and I'll repeat it once more: the person will not give up! The person is not real but sure it exists. The person will not pay the price. The person will not give up on him or herself. If this word and this contact we have here are indeed reaching you on a level quite far from the "person," then it is on this level of pure Comprehension. The only thing that can make the "person" disappear is Comprehension, the pure and straightforward Understanding of the uselessness of that belief. This reaches you outside that "sense of person." It is not in the "person" that This is seen, but rather outside of the "person."

You need to come to an absolute, firm, resolute Understanding that "person" does not exist. This is not a common understanding; it has to be a Comprehension! "Person" does not exist. The "sense of personhood" is not real. This way, you will know directly what it means to no longer identify with yourself, which means no longer identifying with the "sense of personhood," including this will to improve.

Weak people want to make improvements, some tweaks, to fix some parts when everything else is ruined. Those who come closer to God know they are going to "die," and it seems that it is the weak ones who resist. "Dying" in God is Awakening to the Truth there is no point in having just one part fine. This "death" is Integral Life!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 27th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on April 2nd, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

To love the Truth is to not lie to yourself

To love the Truth is to not lie to yourself. That sounds like the simplest thing ever, but it is the rarest thing in this world: being truthful with yourself. In the ego, you put pleasure ahead of the Truth. When you love the Truth, you really appreciate Love, Peace... you love God! The Master fosters this love for the Truth within us since, in this contact with Him, we end up realizing there is so much Beauty, so much Intelligence, so much Freedom in Him. And if This grows within us, the love for the Truth grows, the love for God grows, and then we stop lying.

When you stop lying, you stop suffering since there is no longer "someone" present to come into conflict, to keep thinking, trying to solve things. Everything starts to be delegated to the Divine. In other words, everything starts to be surrendered to God. He knows everything. He decides everything! The secret of Peace is the absence of thoughts. The presence of Peace is "I don't know," "I don't solve anything," "I don't decide," "I don't make choices," and that means not lying. It means love for God. Love for the Guru is love for God, love for Truth, and that is love for Yourself.

You cannot give the world what you do not have. You cannot give Peace to others. You cannot give this to your husband, children, relatives nor people you are in a relationship with. You cannot give others what you do not have for yourself. You realize Peace when you live in this Unknown, in this Reality, which is free from lies, free from this false center, this false "me," which believes it thinks, controls, can do, accomplishes… This is egoic life, a lie's life. There is no Truth in living in the ego. There is no love for God, there is no love for the Guru, there is no love for Consciousness when you are lying to yourself. And all the ego knows is to lie, all the time, inside your head.

You embrace the Truth when you are Happy, and not when you are thinking, choosing, solving, deciding, doing everything your way. Your way is always confused, never real – it is the control way, the "person's" way! The joy of living in Peace and Happiness, without illusion and lies, is very much needed

It is not to others that you lie. It is not to others that you do not give Peace. One of the egoic mind's absurd things is this… it believes it can give Peace, Freedom, Love, Happiness to others. The ego cannot give This, for the ego is in conflict with itself! If you are identified with this false entity, this false "person," living the lie of this false center, of this false "me," you do not know what Love is. You do not know what Freedom is. You do not know what Peace is. You do not know what Happiness is. So, how are you going to give someone This? Be internally Happy first! Find internally Peace and Freedom... Live free from this false "me"! Do not think!

When there is Intelligence, there is no need for thought. When you think, you do not sleep, you lose your hunger and things do not work out. When are you going to understand this? It is exactly the opposite. When there is no thought, things start moving and working out! When you do not think, you go to bed and sleep, you are normally hungry, you eat and you do not feel bad afterward. When you think with a full belly, you feel sick. You have heartburn and other even worse things. All of this when you think!

Thought is a problem! You need to find out what it's like to live without thought. Look at me: I live without thought! I am always here, in this Place! I do not need thought. You do not need thought! You are addicted to it. It is a kind of drug you cannot live without, but see what thought does in your head, in your body, in your relationships – just confusion! Look at the people around you – they are disturbed! Look closely and you will find out the reason: they are thinking, and thinking a lot! Full of suspicions, beliefs, guidelines… They know everything. They just do not know the main thing, which is to be happy! They solve everything by thinking. They just don't solve the foremost thing, which is to live free from the ego, free from suffering. Look at the smartest people you know and see if, deep down, they are really Intelligent.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 26th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on April 9th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Your world is just thought

Satsang is unique since here you are not standing before a theory. You may find theory in books when you listen to a lecturer or classical scholar, someone who knows... This is not what happens here.

So, what makes Satsang unique is that you do not come to learn something from someone. There is nothing to learn here. In a way, this scares you, because if we are listening to a speech and it is not to learn anything, what would be the use of being here after all? When someone gives you an address, the person is just giving you information about how to get to a certain place. That person is not teaching you something, but rather showing you how to get to a certain place. You might even have difficulties after that, but that is another thing! What you are going to do to get to that place is another thing!

Satsang gives you information, but it does not give you knowledge. In other words: Satsang informs you but does not give you knowledge theory of what you are being informed.

We seem to come across a very subtle line here: you cannot mistake theory for information, for direction. Can you see the difference? Here, the goal is not theory, but rather the viewpoint of Reality. Truth does not depend on theory, concept, belief. Actually, when there is theory, concepts and beliefs, there is no Truth, there is just theory, concepts and beliefs indeed.

Here, we deal with Reality Awakening. Whereas it is not about knowledge, This is not learnable. You are not here to learn, since a work like this does not give you knowledge. The Natural State of Being is not the result of knowledge. It is the result of Awakening! We "Awaken to This."

You realize That by an act of Grace, as a result of the blossoming of your Natural State. Your Natural State is innate. So, once again: you have nothing to learn. It is just the Awakening indeed.

A banana tree does not learn to give bananas: that is innate. It is only what that tree can do. It is just what is in the tree to be done! A mango tree will not learn to give mangos: that is innate! It is already there!

Enlightenment, Awakening, God Realization – I do not know what you want to call This – it is just the blossoming of your Natural State. You are not a person, although you see yourself like this, since you have been led to believe that. You have been conditioned to feel and think that way. This psychophysical entity, mind-body, is not you. This is just an expression of the thought phenomenon. You are Consciousness. You are the Ultimate Reality! You do not have a body. You do not have a mind. You are not a psychophysical phenomenon. You are neither the body nor the mind. You are what You are! This cannot be learned. This is what is!

Participant: What about all the things that I live, that we are living?

Marcos Gualberto: When you use these pronouns, what do you mean by that? You are giving to this body, this mind, this psychophysical mechanism, this thought expression, a quality of being – of being a real entity and separate from every manifestation, from every phenomenon, which is not Real. Thought is a phenomenon like any other, just like the body.

You use the pronoun "me," give it a name, like Carlos, João, José, Maria, and so on, but that's just a thought. A thought naming itself, talking about itself, using language expressions to create, in a fictitious and imaginary way, a present entity. There is nobody in this! There is no entity present in this! There is nothing in thought but thought.

This is all a little weird, isn't it? What I am saying is that you are not as real as you believe you are.

Participant: What about my feelings?

Marcos Gualberto: Your feeling is attached to this idea of "me." But the feeling itself is only part of the body phenomenon. It is the body that feels, just like it is the mind that thinks.

Your confusion, your suffering, any disturbance you are experiencing right now, is being upheld in this conclusion – of being someone thinking, feeling, doing, getting rid of something, losing friends, losing money, losing family, losing loved ones to Coronavirus, all these kinds of things.

All this lies in thought's fixation. It is thought telling stories, from thought to itself, and you trust it, you mistake yourself for it, you get disturbed, disoriented and suffer.

Once you can, at least, start questioning what you think and what you feel, and the straightforward relations attached to that thinking and feeling, there is a tremendous relief. At first, you begin to feel tremendous freedom since you are no longer attached to things, places, people, that is, thoughts... The world is just a thought!

Are all of you here in the room, sure that you are your grandparents' descendants? Your great-grandparents' descendants? Did you meet your great-great-grandfather? Does anyone in the room know their great-great-grandfather? Your great-great-grandfather is a thought. I talked about him and then he appeared (in your mind). You do not have a great-great-grandfather, a great-grandfather, a grandfather, a mother, a father, a body. What you have is thought, thoughts about these things. You do not have a right foot on your leg. You need thought to remember it.

That's your world – your whole world is in thoughts! When a thought arises, the world arises. Outside of thought, You remain as pure Consciousness, without great-great-grandfather, grandfather, great-grandfather, father, mother, and body.

Imagine what would happen to you if, all of a sudden, you found yourself without thought. Which direction would your house be in? Huh? If you were without thought, who would your husband or wife be? Without thought, what would your name be? Would you have a name? How would the world look to you then? How would you see the world without thought? What would you call this object that you are sitting on right now, without thought? Can you see? Your world is all thought-based.

What about emotions? What is this emotion you feel? What would you call this emotion without thought? Listen to this calmly... Emotions need thought. This neurophysiological sensation, without thought, is just a neurophysiological sensation. So, what you call emotion is also a thought.

What I am trying to show you is that you have certainties, and they are all based on thought. All of this is false! What you feel about someone and what someone represents to that "you" are false, since "you" are not real. Your world is mental, it is just a thought. If you are free from that, you find out your Divine State, free from the illusion of that sense of separation.

The problem with thought is that it paralyzes you, in every way. Thought puts you in a condition of limitation, causing a "reality" for you, a "make-believe." So, you find this and stay within this limitation.

So, there is no Truth since there is no Freedom. If there is no Truth or Freedom, there cannot be Happiness, and Love remains too far from that. This is the illusion of ignorance – because there is no ignorance, just illusion.

Your Natural State is one of pure Intelligence, pure Consciousness, Freedom, Happiness and Love. It is your Being! But this ignorance, which is an illusion, is assumed in place of Reality, and thought is what is creating this.

Your world is created by thought, and it is important the world have problems, because, in this way, thought can move in this "make-believe" to solve them. This causes a "person" to exist, an "entity" to be present. This is the ego's life, this sense of separation, this sense of "me." You must be somebody!

Actually, thought itself is not the problem, but rather not being aware of the thought presence just as a phenomenon. This becomes a problem. When you don't pay proper attention to thoughts, you end up putting the illusion of identity present in it. Then, all the confusion of the sense of "me," of the sense of separation, arises.

If you do not find out thought is harmless – once it is indeed harmless – it becomes quite offensive. It becomes the creator of your private world. So, the problem is not the story of a great-grandfather, a great-great-grandfather, a grandmother, a mother, a father, a husband, or a boyfriend. The problem is to not see the phenomenon as a phenomenon, the thought as a thought. The problem is to take thought too seriously. The result of that: desire, fears, attachments.

However, when thought no longer matters to you, you can play with it. You will no longer extract from thought the illusion of a present identity. When you are free from thought, thought is no longer the problem, the word itself is no longer the problem.

You may even use the pronoun "I" and have no identity present. You may say "my" boyfriend, "my" wife, "my" child, "my" husband, "my" house, "my" car, but there will be no identifying content present behind expressions like these, since there is no longer the illusion of the possessor. There is no longer the illusion of an identity present to possess this or to be possessed by that.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 8th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on March 10th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Fear cannot get rid of fear

You cannot get rid of fear, because you are the fear! There is no separation between you and the fear when it is present. Fear moves; that is what fear does. You want to get rid of fear just because there is pain involved. So, you ideologically dissociate yourself from that pain since, actually, you are not separate from it. You are the pain of fear when fear is present. That is why analysis does not help. Analysis only camouflages it. It does not give definitive help. It only gives a palliative help, once the analyzed thing and the analyst are not separate.

Notice how this is quite interesting, quite important to see.

When you want to get rid of pain, you are the pain. There is no way of getting rid of it! This is the very own pain in discomfort moving reactively. When fear is present, the discomfort of fear is the fear itself. Who is trying to get rid of this discomfort if not fear itself?

So, this is reactivity, it does not work. Fear is fear and it will never stop being fear. Pain is pain and it will never stop being a pain. Do not think that it is you with the pain, that it is you with the fear – you are the fear, you are the pain.

Some days ago, I was asked on Paltalk: "Is 'me' the fear?" It seems that someone had this insight, this glimpse. I replied: "The 'I' is not only fear but also suffering, anguish, sadness, joy, frustration, desire…" You do not separate them, since there is no separation.

So, here the first point is: if you want to get rid of fear, fear is that desire, and that is you; then, it is not going to work out. There comes the question: "How to get rid of fear?" Forget about getting rid of fear! And there comes another question: "What do I do with fear?" Nothing, as it would be fear itself making the action.

The one who analyzes is the one who is being analyzed: there is no separation. So, the therapist is no real help, since the therapist also needs to abandon the illusion that someone can be helped. That is why therapists look for therapists to treat themselves, once they are never fine. The "I" is never fine, even the "I" specialized in treating the "I." The mind is never fine, even the mind that knows how the mind works.

I have never said it, but I am going to say it for the first time: ego has no cure, the mind is a hopeless case, and that's it. Ego's nature is fear. Mind's nature is fear. It is not only fear but also desires, conflict, reactivity, search, escape, misery. That is what I have been saying "misery" all these years and some of you have not understood. I say that human life, without the awareness of what is the Truth of this "human being," is misery.

Everyone who is suffering some situation, listen carefully: you will not get rid of it! This is bad news, I know, but the good news is that you do not have to get rid of this for it to disappear! This is available to disappear, continually available to disappear without effort. So, that is where the good news comes in: suffering is not real; it does not have to be present there.

See what I said: you do not have to get rid of it since this is not real! So, I broke the bad news and now I am breaking the good ones. The bad news is: you will not get rid of suffering. Every move you make to get rid of suffering will make it stronger.

Here is the key: surrender! Since you are not separate from fear, since you are not separate from suffering, there is only this surrender, as any other movement is resistance. All that is needed is surrender, surrender to the truth. Is the truth fear? So, surrender. Is the truth the pain? So, surrender. Is the truth boredom, is it loneliness, anger? So, surrender. Resistance is based on the assumption that all this can be overcome, but this resistance is the strengthening of ego-identity, of this fear, of this suffering, of this anger, of this pain.

Where is the ego living? In this attempt to do something. You cannot do something. You can stay with it, that's all. This is surrender to the Truth! You surrender, you do not resist, and you stop formulating internally something different from what is happening. What is happening to you right now concerning work, relationships, body health, financial, physical, or psychological problems, in this idea of the "I," of the mind, in this thought process? What is happening? Is there discomfort? That is your challenge, for that is where your "me" is alive, where your ego shows to still be alive. So, you have a test, a training ahead of you. This is the time you have to abandon the ego.

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

Thought is the biggest drug of all

Master Gualberto: Why is there this interest within you? What brings you to Satsang? What is so precious about Satsang? Why is a meeting like this so interesting?

Participant 1: It is an unparalleled silence.

Participant 2: Because thoughts cease.

Master Gualberto: Why is there Silence here? Is that already clear to you? This is a Silence that is not the absence of sound. The thought revolving inside your head is the noise. Everything you do in search of peace is actually in search of this Silence. If you are in search of peace, you are in search of this Silence. Peace has nothing to do with what is happening externally, but rather internally. If the mind is busy with thoughts, there is no Peace. In a few brief moments, you perceive Peace. If you look inside your head right now, here in Satsang, you will find out that there are no thoughts.

Thought is a phenomenon, just like breathing. Notice the link, the intimate connection between both. The greater the stream of thoughts, the more you breathe. For example, when you are nervous, stressed, you breathe a lot and when you are not nervous, when you are calm, your breathing happens slowly and more smoothly. The amount of inhalation and exhalation is much less.

When there is this internal Silence, you breathe very little. If this Silence is deep, because of a complete absence of thoughts, and you notice the body at this moment, you will see that it "stops" breathing. Breathing is maintained only at a level to nourish the cells with enough oxygen. When you are nervous, stressed, you breathe in a way; when you are afraid, you breathe in another way; when anger is present, you breathe differently; and when there is no thought, you also breathe in another way.

Silence is the nature of Consciousness, which represents the absence of thoughts. Identified with the egoic mind, you live in this common and ordinary "person's" state. This is a heavy breathing state because there is a lot of stress. There are many desires, conflicts, fears and thoughts.

The addiction to thinking is huge! We get a little scared when we hear that someone snorts cocaine or smokes crack, but that is not a dangerous addiction. The dangerous addiction is to thinking. This thinking addiction is what leads you to other addictions.

Human being, in general, is living like a drugged creature. When you wake up in the morning, you are already under the influence of the drug. You wake up and the drug "thinking" begins to enter your system. That happens because thought is not seen. You do not see the thought! It captures you and you have no idea you are under its effect. It is an invisible drug. You do not see it, but you are under the drug's effect the whole day.

This drug puts you in a state of unconsciousness, of sleep. This drug has complete control! Using this drug, you experience all its effects – the feelings, the emotions, the way of perceiving what is happening externally and internally... All of this happens in unconsciousness!

Under the influence of thought, you adopt various forms of escape from all this conflict thought itself represents in this unconsciousness. You do all this, actually, because thought is a very heavy burden. Thought in control is disorder, confusion, conflict, suffering, unconsciousness. So, what I have just called "sleep" is this unconsciousness brought on by this drug called "thought." It is important to see the movement of thought; otherwise, you will not be aware of this unconsciousness.

In general, people don't know what Meditation is. Meditation starts when you start noticing this movement of unconsciousness, this movement of the accelerated mind, of the accelerated and disordered thoughts going on internally. People say they think… They are not present, thought is. So, thought thinks. The "person" is the thought that thinks. Do you see it? Thought thinks – this is what you call a "person." You are not someone thinking. The thought is the "person" who thinks. The thought passes for "someone thinking." I do not know if you see what I mean... You are not thinking, you are the thought, and if there is only thought, there is no Consciousness.

That explains all the confusion, all the mess, all the suffering in the world. You are the world! The world in confusion, in conflict, in pain, suffering – this crazy world is you! You get free from thought and then there is no "you." There is no more world and there is no more confusion either. There is no more drug, since there is no more unconsciousness.

Everything the mind knows is everything you know, which is everything thought knows: confusion, disorder, imagination, fantasies, desires, fears… noise! Actually, this is the absence of your Being since your Being is not that. Your Being is the Divine, Intelligence, Wisdom, Love, Peace, Consciousness. People come to me and say, "What is this?" and I ask them "this What?" So, they say "where does this Intelligence, this Freedom and all that come from?" When I hear people asking that, I don't know exactly what they are asking. The only thing I can say to you is that This is your Real Nature, which is Being, Consciousness, Intelligence, Wisdom, Peace.

Everything you need is already present in What You are. Therefore, if you assume the Truth about yourself, you are Free in your Being. There is no need for drugs since free from thought, you are free from all drugs.

You mistake yourself for thoughts, as well as mistaking yourself for the idea of being "someone," which you call "you." You mistake yourself for the experience of the temporary relief sensation when the mind is forced, by a chemical effect, to decrease the volume of thoughts. It is evident that under the influence of marijuana, or alcohol, or some other drug, there is a temporary relief from this psychological pressure that thought exerts on the brain. The body relaxes, breathing slows down. This well-being is not coming from the drug's effect. The mind says it comes from the drug's effect and wants to seek that experience again.

The Nature of your Being is well-being. The egoic mind captures the experience of well-being and attributes it to the drug's effect. But you can be without any drug effects – like before sunset, sitting on a beach, looking at the sea – where your brain will also calm down. Your breathing rate will decrease, as well as the volume of thoughts, so there will also be well-being. However, your Real Nature is beyond the brain!

What you can get by using drugs, some people can get by hang-gliding or practicing an extreme sport. But what each one is experiencing is a temporary contact with their own Being. Some people are taking drugs and becoming addicted. Other people are practicing extreme sport and also getting addicted. In this way, all dependence on an experience to obtain this Silence, this Peace, this internal Freedom is, actually, a prison.

You need to find out your Being and live in It. If you remain in your Being, you remain in Peace, in Joy, in Freedom, in Happiness. Your Natural State is the same as "getting stoned." Your Being is Consciousness, pure Joy. To live in this Freedom, in this Peace, in this Happiness, is to live drunk with the Divine, it is to live "stoned" by the Divine. So, you do not need the egoic mind, you do not need thoughts nor drugs to suppress the burden the thought drug produces.

The problem with drug use is that the egoic state is already a huge drug since thought is already producing this. So, when you use a drug, not only are you not becoming free from the thought, but also you are becoming a slave, a victim of another trap of thought itself. It is the thought trying to deal with itself through a chemical substance. Therefore, this is inadvisable for those who want to Awaken.

Here, the aim is to go beyond the mind, and not numb the mind, have a slowing effect on it. Here, the purpose is a highly capable brain of a clear and complete speed – a quite objective brain. However, drugs reduce this, numb the brain, make it sluggish, lazy. Actually, drugs dull the brain. Drug does not make you Intelligent, it makes you stupid.

People do all of this just because thoughts are heavy, not a soft drug. So, people do this to temporarily escape from themselves, from this chaotic, disturbed, suffering, conflicted movement that is thought. People use drugs or chemicals since they are disturbed. If people were really happy, in peace, they would not use these substances. If they were already free from thought, they would not use these substances. So, the problem is still thoughts. The presence of thought is suffering, it is what makes you look for ways to escape the affliction it causes.

When you find out it's possible to live free from the mind, from all the confusion it creates, you acknowledge within yourself something much greater than chemical substances. The effect of Freedom, Peace and Joy due to the absence of thoughts and conflict, is inside you. You do not need a drug to produce This!

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 3rd, 2021. First published in Portuguese on March 2nd, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Suffering is resistance to Life

We are here working on this matter of the mind and its movement. After all, what is the mind? How does it move internally? The question is if you are truly conscious of yourself. When you explore this matter, you see how dispersed you are. The identification with the mind is the ordinary state. So, you are never really conscious of yourself, of your actions, thoughts, feelings and reactions.

It is quite important and essential that you see this, otherwise you will be stuck to a psychological prison. The egoic mind is a prison! The paradox of this situation is that this is an imaginary prison for an imaginary prisoner, but this prison is quite real for you, with a living prisoner inside it.

So, there is continuous tension. There is one or another form of conflict, continually. Actually, the clash with others and the world, has become a conflict with yourself. So, there is a lot of tension, a lot of fear you are not even aware of. There is constantly some form of resistance, an unconscious reaction, an ever-present conflict, anxiety, fear, stress... Suffering is the most ordinary thing in the mind, and that is what I have just called as tension. There is a lot of tension!

Here, the point is the mind is "very smart," and it is against Life. Deep down, the mind knows there is no room for it in Life, in Life as It is, as It shows itself, so in a way, the mind is against Life and tries to protect itself from Life. With this sense of self-protection, the mind creates this tension that manifests as resistance, conflict, anxiety, fear and every form of negative imagination. So, there is this mind's "smartness," a pretty tricky, cunning self-protective movement, which is actually a movement against Life as It is. Mind knows there is no room for it, so it tries to protect itself.

I would dare to say, being quite generous, that you live like this for 98% of your day, and only 2% stay out of it. Thus, 98% of your day is of complete identification with every psychological movement. That means a movement of beliefs standing in a cunning and sharp way against Life. This is how the egoic mind works! I was generous in saying you have 2% of some level of awareness, of consciousness, as this is not entirely true. This unconsciousness represents the absence of Peace, Intelligence, Freedom, Happiness and Love.

The burden of psychological beliefs the egoic mind upholds is a total dispersion of energy. Mind lives in duality. It sees the world and itself as distinct and separate things – the mind sees itself being the subject, and the world or others being the object. There is no truth in this psychological memory based on beliefs, creating constant conflict, innumerable problems of every kind. All this remains in the field of unconsciousness. Only 2% of energy is being used practically in your life, whereas 98% is involved with this false "me," with this false entity you believe you are, living in conflict, in resistance, in fear, in desire, against Life.

So, what is missing? Actually, there is no shortage. It is a matter of excess! What you already bring in Yourself is not being used, since you are not aware of It. You are not aware of the Consciousness you bring, the Consciousness You are! So, you are in this psychological dispersion, in this psychological memory, upholding this personality, this "sense of person."

My emphasis is on discovering the beauty of Meditation. Meditation means abandoning that false center, that false "me," that false identity, the "person" you believe you are. So, when that personality – which is this prisoner in an imaginary prison – no longer moves, it is no longer upheld, since there is no longer this belief, this psychological memory, this energy dispersed psychologically in activities led by imagination.

When you find out the uselessness of this movement of thoughts, this movement of images thought creates all the time, about the past and the future, which is nothing more than imagination, your energy is available for Silence, for Consciousness, for Intelligence. There will be a functional memory, naturally, but that psychological memory has no longer any reason to exist. This is my invitation to you in Satsang, an invitation to Silence, to Consciousness, to Intelligence. Here, time and space are no longer needed, thoughts are no longer needed.

Thought is a dysfunction! This is a huge discovery in Awakening, in Self-Realization. Egoic mind uses thought as that is all it has, but this is a dysfunction, a kind of chronic disease. You, in your Being, do not need the egoic mind. You do not need this psychological memory. There is a functional memory, and it is natural. Remembrance is part of this functional memory. But, what is the purpose of this psychological remembrance of a trauma, for example? This is a dysfunction; it is not natural. This traumatic memory, this psychological pain of memory, such as guilt, fear, anxiety, craving, are all part of this dysfunction. There is no longer any reason for this in Consciousness, in your State of Pure Intelligence, in your Real State and Natural State.

Suffering is part of this, and you were not born to suffer. The purpose of your birth is to find out Reality – the Truth of your Very Being, of What in You is not born and therefore does not die. You are born to find out you are not born! You are born to find out you do not die! You are born to live as Pure Consciousness! This Consciousness, this Silence, this Truth, is not in time. This is not part of space. This is not part of this resistance, of this conflict, of this cunning, tricky and "sharp" movement egoic mind has against Life. This Consciousness, this Intelligence, is the background, the basis, the groundwork, which sustains everything!

So, when you are no longer stuck in a personal viewpoint, you become naturally efficient, there is economical expenditure of energy there. Before, this energy was dispersed, involved in these activities of ego-identity – fear, desire, choice, imagination, anticipation, psychological memory – but this is no longer present. Interesting, isn't it?

So, as I invite you to this Silence, I am inviting you to this Intelligence, to this Freedom, the Freedom to live outside this prison. I have just talked about the prison to an imaginary prisoner... In this prison, there is a constant battle, a constant struggle. You are not economically efficient in living like this. This is a stupid way of living! I have called this "miserable mind" since this is living in misery. Living apart from Consciousness means living apart from the Truth, from Love, from God, from Sanity. Does it interest you or not? Is this important to you or not?

Look at people, they are not fine. No person is fine! Living in this "sense of person" is conflict, suffering. You need to look inside yourself and completely discard this cunning, this "smartness" of being against Life as It is; to look within yourself and abandon this egoic movement. This "smartness" is stupidity. This resistance is sheer ignorance! To look inside yourself and abandon this is crucial. Otherwise, you will always be welcoming nervousness, stress, anxiety, worry, and this or that form of suffering.

The moment you realize you are no longer living in this false center, in this false identity, you clearly realize that Life begins to take its place, without any effort on your part. Everywhere you look, you see Life in Its movement. You are no longer in that unwillingness against Life. Then, you realize everything is in place and internal suffering ends. Do you see the beauty of this? You are relaxed in your Natural State. You are not tense. It is always in the egoic mind that this tension takes place.

To know yourself is not to psychologically understand yourself, but rather to know there is no one present in the experience. There is no prisoner. There is no prison. There is no reason to think. There is no reason to live in this dysfunction, in this ignorance, in this internal disorder. I have talked a lot about the importance of understanding yourself, but not as a "person," and rather outside of "person." The common approach is: "Know yourself." Mine is: "Unlearn everything about yourself, everything you have learned about yourself."

Society, the world around you, is a beautiful mirror – how people feel, move, do things, think, speak, desire, what they look for, where they go... Look at this mirror! See that people are confused, and what you are seeing is just a reflection of yourself. Society is the mirror where you see yourself. As a "person," this is how you move in the world. Society is your face. So, as it is not possible to escape society, the best thing here is to become aware of it and face this mirror, look at it. When you look at this mirror, you can see what is going on internally – your reactions, your remembrances, your memories, your way of feeling, of thinking, of believing, of living.

You need to go beyond that, beyond society, allowing yourself to abandon this condition, this mediocre condition. Find out the real cure of this chronic disease, this congenital disease, only then can you find out what it means to live in Joy, in Freedom, a life without resistance, a life that is an expression of the Divine, of the Truth.

You were not born to suffer! Suffering is resistance, it is being against what Life represents. You are the same Presence, the same Consciousness that Life is, you simply cannot be in conflict. If you are in conflict, it is based on that resistance, which is in this attitude of the egoic mind, in this ignorance, in this condition of congenital disease.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on January 29th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on February 23rd, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.