In general, we have some beliefs about what spirituality is, right? And it’s a good question: after all, what is spirituality? Another question is: how to attain spiritual growth?
The search of human beings, over time, has been for something beyond what their life has been: a rather tedious, boring, annoyed life, [with] a few brief moments of pleasure, satisfaction, and joy. You experience joy the day you get married, the day your first child is born, the day you pass an exam, the day you start your first job, the day you find your first girlfriend, your first boyfriend... So, we have these big and memorable days of joy, and the rest of life in a lot of complications.
A wedding day is joyous, but 10 years after the wedding, [you] are not so happy, as if something happened over time. The first day of a first job is wonderful, but after 10 years in that job, the routine, the salary situation... all that is gone, all that perfume of joy, of temporary fulfillment, in that given achievement, is no longer there.
So, there is a search by human beings for something beyond that, beyond that thing of first dating, marriage, or even first marriage, because, sometimes, there are several marriages in a row, the children come, then comes work...
Hence, there is something beyond that. So, there is this search: the search for spirituality. And, after something is found, here comes the question: how to grow spiritually? What is spiritual growth? And we have to understand that.
The goal in life, here, is Happiness. But, after all, what’s Happiness? What’s spirituality? How to attain spiritual growth? After all, what does all this represent?
The way I see is that the most important thing is, really, to discover what Happiness is. It’s not figuring out how to be happy. The question is also very common: how to be happy? The idea that one has is “I found Happiness.”
We are going to come back to this subject, but first I want to delve with you into something so we can get there. We'll come back to this point in just a moment. First, I want to look, to approach, to investigate with you, this idea, this idea of “me,” because it’s always the “I” involved in all this: it’s the “I” becoming spiritualized, getting married, having kids, having the first job, finding first love, first date, having the first wedding... It’s always “me,” this “me” element. The “I” is this entity, this “me,” this “person.”
When I say, “Who are you?” You answer: “Oh, I am so and so”. Hence, first comes this pronoun, then comes the definition or explanation of who one is. So, the idea of “I” has to be understood.
“I,” basically, is self-consciousness; self-consciousness is the “I.” The consciousness you have of who you are is the “me.” We must have an understanding approach. I’ve just talked about what Happiness is. If we understand this issue of the “I” clearly, we’ll solve all these other issues: spiritual growth, spirituality, what Happiness is... In short, we just need to discover this: what’s the “I"? What is this consciousness you have about who you are? Let’s call this self-consciousness now, this self-consciousness.
This self-consciousness is basically memory. We don't have much to say about this self-consciousness. Your life is organized, planned, orchestrated, and established in memory. Memory is basically your story, your identity, your feelings. In addition: feelings... What we call love in our relationships is linked to feelings of affection, kindness, care, treatment, good treatment with the other, but these feelings... along with them, there are other contrary feelings, such as indifference, neglect, mistreatment, lack of love, jealousy, possession.
So, when we talk about memory, we also include these feelings. Therefore, what is this “me”? Memories, memories of images, remembrances, words, knowledge… memories also of feelings this “I,” which I believe I am, has in relation to the other in the world, in life.
Now, we include the issue of this spiritual “I” here. So, when talking about spiritual growth, the idea – which is also just a thought – is of an “I” that will grow spiritually, will evolve spiritually, will become spiritualized. Is it possible?
Can we take memory and make it sacred? What’s memory? Tell me what memory is. Memory… You know when you see a bonfire, a big fire and, in the morning, you go to that bonfire and what you find is ashes? That’s memory. The fire was yesterday, the memory is here and now, like these ashes. Vitality and life, the presence, the heat, the energy, the power, and the vivacity were yesterday; what we have here and now are just the ashes.
Let’s spiritualize this! Is it so? Notice the illusion within philosophy, psychology and religion. Notice, I'm not attacking this, I'm looking, perceiving with you a very simple thing: the “I,” this “me,” this ego, this identity, are the leftovers of a bonfire. Life is something happening here and now; what is registered is memory.
We’re not going to spiritualize this. It is impossible to make Divine, Sacred, what is not fire, what has no energy, no vitality, no vivacity, no reality. Are you with me? This is the “I,” the ego.
Then you come and ask me “how to grow spiritually?” or “how to realize spirituality, something beyond this life, this boring, tiring, monotonous, routine life? How to go beyond this temporary joy of a first marriage and the birth of the first child? How to go beyond that?” Because our life has become just that. So, you say “what can I do? How can I spiritualize myself? This “me,” this “I” … There’s no way! It’s like taking ashes and making a fire from it. Is this possible? Is it possible? Ashes are ashes, ashes are ashes… We take the ashes and spread them over the earth. We can’t make fire from ashes.
The Reality of your Being, of that Consciousness, that Divine Nature You carry within You, which is within You… that Reality is asleep. So, what do we have in our lives, in our relationships? This is what explains a tedious, boring, annoyed life, with different expressions of egoic unhappiness. Don't you know about the egoic unhappiness? Worry is unhappiness. When there’s Happiness, there’s no worry. Attachment is unhappiness. Jealousy is unhappiness. Envy is unhappiness. When there’s Love, there’s no jealousy, no attachment, no envy; when there’s Peace, there is no contradiction, no conflict, no suffering. But This is not present, because what is* present are the ashes of this “me,” this “I.” And we want to change it into something else, we want to make it something else, we want to change it.
Now, let’s touch the point here: What is Happiness? We’ve just gotten back… What is Happiness? That’s the question: what is Happiness? Happiness is discovering the fire and abandoning the ashes. If I need heat, energy, vivacity, brilliance, light, power, I need fire; I abandon the ashes and approach the fire. This fire is Enlightenment!
Will it be the reason why they gave this Awakening of Consciousness the word Enlightenment? Because light reminds us of vivacity, energy, power, fire. When there’s Happiness, what is present is this: Vivacity, Light, Power, Love, and Peace. The point is that Happiness is not for the “I.”
So, when we talk about spiritual growth, we have to clear this ground right away, we have to abandon that imagination of a spirit or an “I” to become spiritual. When talking about spiritual evolution, this idea of time has to be removed since in the idea of time we have the belief of an identity to evolve.
Here, Consciousness is timeless. Reality, which is Truth, God, can’t be in time, can’t be part of time, part of history. Consciousness is something that transcends history. Truth is something that transcends history. God is something that transcends history. Happiness is something that transcends history, something outside of time. It’s in time we find the ashes and the past. Our relationships are conflicted, disoriented, disturbed, distressing, with those brief moments of pleasure, satisfaction and joy, when something externally happens and “me,” the “I,” the ego feels very fulfilled, and soon after, boredom again, tiredness... You know what I'm talking about!
A honeymoon is wonderful, but it’s only a night or two, or three, and that’s it! Ten years later there’s no more honeymoon! If there’s a moon, it’s a waning moon, one of those well... already disappearing; you hardly see any sign of a moon there, let alone honey in the moon. There is not! It’s already gone!
Our life is full of ashes in that “me,” that “I,” that ego. Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Awakening, the Truth of your Being doesn’t need to evolve, It is already timeless. So, here we’re not dealing with spiritual evolution, but rather about the Recognition of your Timeless Nature, of your Nature that carries a new perfume... every moment, a new perfume and the next perfume is also new!
When there’s Love in your life, you’re visiting the office for the first time. You've been working there for 10, 15 years, but if there’s that perfume, which is Love, Consciousness, the Presence of Being, the Presence of God, the office is new. After 10 years of marriage, looking at your partner without images, which are the ashes of a relationship where what exists are only images of mistreatment, harsh words, neglect, emotional, physical, sexual exploitation … when all this disappears – and this disappears when there’s Presence, Consciousness, when there is that perfume of Love – when looking at her or looking at him, there’s no longer “someone” looking at “someone.” It’s not that the other has changed; there is no “you"! Do you get this?
People will advise each other and ask each other, “What can I do?” They go to the therapist, to the marriage counselor, they go on retreats to appease the egoic fight, between egos, they try to save the relationship, resurrect the dead, and it doesn't work well. It adjusts, adjustments are created, right? There are some tricks to renew vows, all that kind of stuff you know, but it doesn't work!
Here I deal with something else; I deal with the end of the ego. The ego of the other is the end of the ego here. If my eyes are new, if my heart is new, I Am who I Am! And this “I Am” is not that “I;” it’s something else in this I. I’ve called this “True Individuality.” For the first time you are Consciousness; it’s only when you really are an individual.
That’s the end of this erroneous, mistaken, false, illusory individuality of the ego, which remains in this clement demand that the other change so that it can be happy. This doesn’t happen! The other will not change! The other is who he is! But when, here, your Natural State, the Truth of your Being settles, your Life is Beauty, Truth, Enchantment, Light, Fire, Heat, it has no ashes, there’s no past.
When people ask me “and the issue of death?” … There is no death when there are no ashes! When you know, you discover what it’s like to live free from the ego, this “me,” this sense of illusory identity. There’s no sense of separation and therefore there’s no fear, so there’s no death!
Human beings are concerned with death; they study about death and afterlife. It’s always the sense of “I” worried about tomorrow. When there’s Love, which is Real Life, there’s no tomorrow, no future, no death, no afterlife. Life is that Fire, Vivacity, Joy, that Freedom. This is Enlightenment because the ego isn’t present.
It’s strange what I'm now going to say to finish: when there’s Happiness, there’s no sense of being happy. I'll end by saying this now for you, the most important thing, I'll say it now: cultivating humility gives you the illusion of the idea of being humble. There’s nothing humble about the one who feels humble. The cultivation of love… There is no Love in the one who cultivates love, because when there’s Love there’s no sense of “I.” If you feel humble, it’s just “your” humility, only others can recognize this “your” humility. How humble are you? When there’s Real Humility, there’s no sense of being humble; when there’s Love, there’s no sense of someone loving; when there’s Kindness there’s no sense of someone kind. All this is the ego, “me,” the illusion of the “I.”
True Spirituality is the end of theoretical, conceptual, credulous, bookish, intellectual spirituality. True Spirituality is being what You are, without any idea of being. Do you get that?
Let’s finish here. Just look at it, look at this... Never mistake ashes for fire. This is possible when you realize What You Are, here and now; and it’s only here and now. Ok?
That’s all!
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