Hello guys! Welcome to another meeting here on our channel. There is a question people ask: what is Vedanta? Why is Vedanta so relevant?
Well, let me tell you what I actually consider relevant within Vedanta. What I consider relevant is the last part of Vedas, the last part… Vedanta is about Advaita. I want to talk a little bit about Non-Duality… Non-Duality. Advaita Vedanta is about Non-Duality. For me, Non-Duality is the great secret; it is the foremost thing we have within Vedas – The pointing to Non-Duality.
Non-Duality is the awareness of the Truth you are. All you need in life is to see it as It is, and that’s Advaita. The word Advaita means Non-Duality. There are not two things; this is what Advaita means – the first but without the second. There is only the first, and this first is Life, Consciousness, God, your Being, and your Essential Nature.
People have asked, “What is this Freedom you speak of? How to live this Love you talk about in these lines? The answer to that lies in Understanding the Truth about who you are. Self-awareness is pointing to the possibility of the Realization of Truth. Self-awareness is what enables you to approach the Truth of your Being and, therefore, to that Freedom we are discussing with you.
Regarding the issue of Love, I speak of Love without an opposite; Love that doesn't have the other… the world, the sensation, pleasure, hate; it is Love without the second, Love without the opposite, it is non-dual Love. Love is the Nature of Being, Love is the Nature of Existence, it is the Nature of Life, the Nature of Consciousness.
Self-awareness gives you the possibility of having this approach to yourself, to acknowledge the Love that is, essentially, Freedom.
We can’t fully put into words what this represents. That would be impossible! Freedom is the Freedom from psychological suffering – I mean all forms of psychological suffering.
In this world of mental health, when it comes to mental health, we have, today, hundreds of pathologies, internal conditions of psychological disorder, psychological suffering, of unhappiness. And all this is absent, all this disappears, when you, in your Being, reveal yourself as Consciousness, which is Love, which is Freedom.
It is this Freedom we are talking about – the ultimate end to suffering. The suffering of life and the suffering of the expectation of death, of the pain of death.
The sense of duality puts you in fear and all forms of suffering. Our work together is to realize the Reality of who we are, and that’s what Vedanta is all about. So, our subject is the essence of Vedanta. Vedanta points to Happiness.
Our subject here is Self-awareness. Self-awareness points to Truth, the Truth you are here and now. This Acknowledgment is not a theory, concept or belief. We are pointing out something outside psychological time, therefore, something outside the known.
The mind is the known, the mind lives in the known. Your memories, remembrances, recollections, thoughts, knowledge, and experiences, are all linked to the sense of someone present. This lies within the known, this is something of the culture, something of knowing, of psychological conditioning, of time.
And here, when we talk about the Reality of this non-dual Love, this Real Freedom, this Happiness of your Being, we are pointing to something outside the known, something outside psychological time; we are pointing to God!
Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Awakening, is the Consciousness of God. So, there is Intelligence today, there is Intelligence now, there is at this instant Intelligence taking over you; no longer the sense of "I." The "I" is this illusion of the presence of "someone" trying to adjust, control, resolve, to meet life's demands.
That is why people, in this quest, in this search, which is a search for Happiness, are researching, studying, seeking to know, trying to understand better, for example, this issue of stoicism. So, there is this question: “What is stoicism?”
Stoicism points to something quite interesting. It says, “It's not what happens to you in life that makes you unhappy, it's how you react. It’s not what appears to you, for you, but rather the quality of thoughts you have regarding this appearance that will determine your happiness or unhappiness.”
So, people are delighted with this philosophical principle, which, of course, is really very beautiful and very logical. However, there is something you need to understand. What you are, in your Being, doesn’t react; only the mind reacts; it’s just the sense of “someone” present who can react, stupidly or intelligently, to adverse situations, to situations that arise, to situations that appear, but it’s always the sense of “I” that can do this.
When there is no longer that sense of “I,” there is no more reaction. Notice the beauty of what we are putting to you. Realization of Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Awakening, Self-Realization – there are many names for this – is the end of the illusion of an identity present to react to situations, to circumstances.
Yet in philosophy, in stoicism, the idea is “someone” learning to deal with it, and here it is to show you that this “someone” is just psychological conditioning, imagination created by thought. It is thought that says “I,” and thought that has alternatives to deal with situations, for that “I” to be happy or have peace.
We are, therefore, pointing to something beyond philosophy, beyond stoicism, beyond what Socrates said, what Plato, the stoics, the Greeks said... We are pointing to the Truth revealed when you acknowledge, in Yourself, this "Self," and realize that this "Self" is the only Reality.
It is not this “Self” and life, this “Self” and the world, this “Self” and God. This “Self” is the only Reality. Or, to put it another way, the absence of this “yourself” … Then, what remains is Advaita, Non-Duality.
Right now, there is no “someone” listening, watching; there is watching this video, listening to this speech, not “someone” listening or “someone” watching. Because the whole conditioning since childhood – this has been corroborated by philosophy, psychology, and religion – is that you carry something within you and that something is separate from Existence; this "I."
So, we have a lot of ideas about this “I.” There is the “higher self” and there is the “lower self”, a “self of shadow” and a “self of light.” We create so many stories about this “I”! An “I” that will evolve, an “I” that will become spiritualized.
We talk, for example, about personal development – it is the idea of this “I,” this “person,” to develop to function better in the world, to achieve fulfillment, peace, and happiness, to improve as a person, to develop and achieve good results professionally.
That's our culture. That's what we were taught. And, here, I want to invite you to look at this, to look inside yourself and see if there is this “self” to be found; look inside yourself and see if there is a difference between this “yourself” and what appears here, at this moment. And to look and see that means abandoning psychological conditioning, because in this conditioning, we believe that there is “me” … there is “I,” this “I” here and you there; there is thought that arises and a thinker thinking. So, the idea of the thinker... There is no thinker! The thinker is just thought! When there is no thought, where is the thinker?
If there was a thinker, you could tell me, right now, at this instant, what's the next thought you're going to have in 5 minutes. Come on, try! What's the next thought 2 minutes from now that you're going to have? Do you know what the next thought will be? No. So, where is the thinker? Because if there is a thinker, he is the one who produces thoughts, and if he produces, he knows, he knows it, he is the owner of the factory, he is the owner of the industry of thoughts, he is the technician in charge, he is the engineer, he is the artist.
However, there is no such thinker, this one who idealizes ideas, who thinks thoughts. There is only thought! The illusion is that there is a thinker present – that is conditioning; the illusion is that there is someone to feel this sadness. We have gone through states of sadness many times, and when going through states of sadness, the feeling-thought... the thought-feeling, the feeling-thought is "someone sad."
This is a conditioning, we have been taught this, that there is "someone" sad, there is "someone" thinking - so there is the thinker and the thought - someone is feeling - so someone is feeling and something is being felt. And when there is this conditioning, there is always this idea of controlling… controlling thought, controlling feeling, controlling emotion.
Thus, I ask you: can you do it? Can you control your thoughts? You just say “I won't think about it” and does it work? When there is a feeling present, you say “I will not feel it.” Is it that simple? Is it a decision? Is there a movement of volition and willingness that can determine being free from a feeling when it is present, free from the thought when it is present? No, this doesn't work!
This confirms what we are saying: there is the feeling, but there is no “someone” in control of it; there is thought, but there is no “someone” in control of it; there is an emotion, but there is no “someone” in that emotion. After a few seconds, thought appears and says “I can't keep feeling these things. Next time, I'll control myself. I can't keep thinking like that! I'm going to learn to control thoughts, I'm going to perform a technique, a practice... There's a course there that teaches us how to deal with thoughts.” So, the idea is the illusion of “someone” to deal with thoughts.
There is no such duality, such separation. This is something completely false! This is psychological conditioning; this is a belief! There is a chaotic movement of thought, feeling, emotions, and misperceptions about life. Thought is this overlap over Reality as It appears at this instant, at this present moment, and you mistake yourself for this thought, creating the illusion that you are in it. And yet, it’s just a movement of thought without control, disordered, since there is no “someone.”
Self-awareness will show you how to break this pattern of thinking, feeling, emotion, and perception… how to go beyond this sense of “someone” present in this experience, and, therefore, how to go beyond this experience.
Notice what we are saying! Is it possible to go beyond thought? Yes! All you need is to be beyond the egoic mind, beyond this conditioning, beyond this condition, beyond this psychological disorder, this psychological suffering. This puts an end to the illusion of the ego, of this "me." Then, this Natural State, which is non-dual, shows itself as your Natural State. And when that Natural State is present, there is no conflict anymore.
Conflict is always established between the idea and “someone” in the idea; the thought and “someone” thinking; the feeling and “someone” feeling; the fear and “someone” in fear; the fears and “someone” feeling those fears, living those fears. When that separation ends, the conflict ends, and the experience ends.
This is because of Meditation, this approach to Meditation – I speak of True Meditation; it's getting closer to that movement of duality and letting go of that movement. And you abandon that when you realize that there is a union between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed thing, the one who feels and what is felt, the one who sees and what is seen, then the end of illusion takes place, the end of this “me,” of this “I,” of this ego. This is Advaita Vedanta, This is the Vision of Non-Duality, This is the Vision of your Being, This is Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Realization, or Self-Realization.
This is the encounter with Happiness! Not according to psychology, to philosophy, according to the teachings of organized religion... This is the encounter of Truth with What you are, here and now, at this instant. This is Self-Realization!
If this makes sense to you – and this is the subject we deal with here on our channel – leave your “like,” subscribe to the channel… Reminding you that we have online meetings and also face-to-face meetings. We can work this out together! Ok?
See you next meeting.
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