We live by actions. All our relationships in life consist of contact, approaches, in relationship… a relationship where our actions are contradictory. That’s where we are separate, we are present. Why do we suffer?
We need to understand this together. In a very simple way: We suffer because our actions are born of internal contradiction. The contradiction is that position within us, within each one of us… This is the contradiction, where we are ruled by thoughts, but we don´t know what thought is.
Notice that we are, all the time, acting from an idea. These ideas drive us to action. Thus, our actions, in our relationships, are born from ideas. And what are these ideas in us?
These ideas in us are thoughts. And what are these thoughts? They are images within us, pushing us to do, to accomplish, to put our beliefs into action. This is how thoughts act, this is how thoughts are produced and drive us in our relationships.
Here, the situation is that our actions, once they are born, are born from thoughts. They do not concern what is present here and now, but an idea of what is needed for us here and now. That means, thought is born from an imagination about what is missing, about what needs to be done or about what can be done now, and this is a mistake, because life here and now demands, claims, challenges us to an action free of ideas, free of beliefs, thoughts, concepts, and imaginations. And yet our actions are being born from that principle: from the principle of thought, imagination, beliefs, and ideas. Thus, our relationships with each other, with the world around us… all these actions are based on ideas, images.
Placing it this way, in a very practical way: I meet you today. Tomorrow, when I meet you, there will be a background in me that will determine my new contact with you, and this new contact will be based on this meeting that took place yesterday.
So, our relationships with each other… are all based on this principle of imagining what is needed here in this moment, now. So, our actions are contradictory actions, they are not free actions. Our belief is an illusion: our religious belief, our philosophical belief, our psychological belief that we are entities, human beings, free individuals, capable of, in relation to life, knowing what it means.
We do not know what our contact with each other means; they are contacts of contradiction, because they are relationships based on thought: the image that I have of you and that you have of me; these images meet each other. Our relationships are those relationships.
One year of marriage is not ten years of marriage. In ten years of being married or in an intimate relationship with someone, you've already kept many images of that person. This meeting of yours, after ten years, is not like that first date you had, the first time you met him or her. So are our relationships with each other: relationships that are based on beliefs about who the other is, because we assume that we know who the other is, because we know who we are.
What you don't realize is that you also have images about yourself, and the sign of these images present in you can be observed and needs to be observed by you. The guilt you feel, the remorse you feel, the frustration you feel, the fear you feel, the many contradictory desires that you feel internally, within you, all these are a proof that all knowledge that you have about who you are is knowledge based on beliefs, on images, on thoughts that you have about yourself.
So, your relationship with the other is the same way. And how will your contact in life, in a relationship with the world, be different from this?
Our actions are born from this false center, from this illusory center that we believe to be ourselves, and that we believe to have will, choice, freedom to act, capability to understand the other, life and ourselves, which is an illusion... which is an illusion.
There is no free action, there is no freedom of action for this illusion, for the illusion of the person you believe yourself to be. That “sense of person” that you believe yourself to be, the person you believe yourself to be is a set of thoughts, images and beliefs. This is not freedom, this is reaction. Our memory, all of it, is reactive. Memory does not deal with what is shown here and now. Memory deals with images, representations of the past, and it’s what you have about what you are.
So, the question “what is ego?”, “what is the I?”, “what is this center of identity that moves in relationships?” ... This center is a set of images, a set of beliefs. This is not free; this is reactive memory.
What we don't accept – and here’s the problem with philosophy, psychology and with religion… what we don't accept is that there is no such entity, there is no such “me.” They are names we are giving to an illusory identity, [an] illusory individuality that we believe exists and to be ourselves. However, these are just thoughts. Your name is a reaction of memory, a remembrance, an image. Your story is a reaction of memory, it is a remembrance, it is an image; actually, a set of images. What you have about the other is a reaction of memory, it’s a set of memories, a set of images, and all of that is past.
None of that is the Truth that is present here and now.
For you to tell me your name, you have to resort to this resource: the reaction of memory. To tell me a story, you have to resort to this resource: the reaction of memory. To tell me about someone, you have to describe them. You will never be talking of someone or about someone else to someone else; it’s just a set of memories being uttered by memory itself. Secondly, the person you are talking about is a set of opinions, ideas, concepts and prejudices that, too, are coming from this talking memory background, from this illusory center.
There is no action that is free. Every action is trapped, every action, from that center, is a prisoner of a programming, of a conditioning. So, there is this illusory identification with this set of memories, with all this reaction from the past, with which we confuse ourselves.
So, when we talk about free will, when we talk about will, when we talk about choice, when we talk, as here and now, about this matter of action... There is no action that is not reactive when the basis of that action is this false center, this illusory center, this set of thoughts, imaginations, memories, and images.
All right there?
So, the problem we don't realize is this. When we touch on the subject of suffering, we don't realize that it’s inevitable; there is no way to no avoid it. Suffering is trying here and now, in life, in our life of relationships with each other, to find balance, truth, peace, intelligence, love... As we can’t, because all this action is an action of the past, an action which is born of these contradictions, these conflicts, these imaginations, our life with each other is one of violence, of fear, of aggression, struggle, and suffering.
So, suffering is something that is present in our lives, in our relationships, because we are internally attached to this set of images, memories, concepts, prejudices, thoughts, which we call the psychological conditioning.
So, there is no action right here and now that is real. All this action is reactive, arising from this “I,” this “ego,” this false identity. So, here is the problem with philosophy, with psychology, with religion. We demand that the one that does not exist, which is this “I,” has an individuality and that it is right in its choices, accomplishments, in its actions, and its deeds. We demand that this “I,” as an individuality, find happiness, love, peace, have a relationship with the world around it – and even with the other – peaceful, true, real, honest, without corruption, which is impossible, because it is the nature of that “center,” that “I,” to be corrupt, to be unhappy, to be stupid, to be mediocre, to be greedy, envious, avaricious, possessive, aggressive… fear.
But we want to change this, we want to reform this, we want to transform this into something else. It’s impossible! It can disappear, but not be transformed into something else. This can disappear if seen. This is where we lack the vision of who we are; it is here that we lack Self-awareness, the realization that what operates in us has a false foundation. Based on that foundation, our choices are like this. They are not “our choices” because there is no “someone” to choose. So, the expression “free will” does not fit as being something real. Free will presupposes the presence of one who has a will, who has determination, who recognizes what is and what is not. It does not exist for this false center. We don't have an individuality to improve, to be happy, to live in peace, to know God, to know love...
So, this idea “I will go to God” ... It takes an “I” to go to God, and that “I” does not exist! What we can have here is the Divine Reality coming in and undoing this illusion of “I.” So, it is God who arrives, it is not you who go to Him. It is the Truth that comes, not the illusion that deals with this issue.
This concerns action, volition, will, choice, whatever it may be... harmonious, peaceful relationships, where there is Love, where there is Peace. All this is possible only when the “I” is not there, when that “center” is not there. So, God is the Reality of your Being, Love is the Reality of those actions freed from that memory reaction impulse. So, we have the Presence of Truth when there is no illusion.
Our work together is to show that it’s possible to go beyond the illusion, the illusion of this “I,” of this person you believe you are, that thought tells you that it is you, with which you are confused.
The matter of Self-awareness, the importance of Self-awareness, is raised here for this reason. Without Self-awareness, there is no Self-realization. Without this Self-realization, it is not verified that this “I” has no identity. That Intelligence, that Presence, that Consciousness, that Reality is the One that can give you Real Freedom, but It is Freedom itself. It doesn't separate as It is something and you are something else. That Freedom comes when the illusion of this “I” completely dissolves.
Are we together?
So, what is Meditation? Meditation is the consciousness of Reality, of That which is here and now. It opens the door to this non-contradictory action, to this new action, to this free action of the “I.”
At the beginning of the speech, I started by saying that our actions are contradictory and they cannot be different, because they are born from this psychological background, from this condition of memory reaction. And now you see: free action is possible, yes, if the “I” is not there.
So, if the psychological conditioning… [if] you are free of it… And, certainly, it is what passes for you, it is what you get mixed up with, and being free of it means seeing, just seeing. Seeing this is enough; to see!
It’s not about doing something, it’s not about imposing a new discipline on yourself, a new regulation, an attempt to change that center, as I said a moment ago, to become something else. This will never be anything other than what it actually is.
So, in systems of psychology, behavior, therapy or some new technique, whatever we apply on the basis that this “I” can be changed, altered, that something can be done with the conscious and unconscious of this “I” ... Conscious and unconscious are the “I” itself; this is a set of images.
It is when this ends that Reality shows itself. So, the Truth about who You are is at the end of the illusion of that “I.” This is possible when there is this direct work of the Realization of the Truth of Self-awareness, based on Self-awareness and the True Meditation.
OK?
That’s the point, that’s the subject, and we have to work on it!
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