GC: Hello everyone! We're here for another videocast! One more opportunity Master Gualberto gives, to clarify doubts about questions you ask us and, also, to comment and bring a deepening of texts that we read here by Joel Goldsmith. Gratitude, Master, for this opportunity.
Today we are going to read an excerpt from Joel’s book: “Living now.” In this passage, Master, Joel says: “Mortal man needs to earn his living by the sweat of his brow. The spiritual man is a joint-heir with Christ in God of all heavenly riches. You are that spiritual man when the spirit of God dwells in you, when you get to the place where he recognizes that he does not live under the law of cause and effect, which is not really a law. It arises only from a belief in an individuality separate from God, resulting from a false sense of ‘I’ that allows itself to be placed under the law.”
I would like Master to talk specifically about this false feeling of “I,” this false feeling that “I” exists, that “I am” somebody. And, within that, also answer the question that a subscriber Gabriel Felismino asked. He asked: “Master, does my ego not have free will?” The word is with you, then, Master.
MG: Okay, let’s go then! Our way of approaching life through this “seeing,” this “hearing,” this “perceiving,” and this “feeling” is in this dimensional sphere, in the sphere of this consciousness within time. This is the way to approach each and every experience. This way of getting closer gives us an illusory notion: the illusion of identity present within that experience, be it listening, speaking, feeling, seeing... It is a contact in the dimension of that time.
This time has two formats: this format, which is chronological time, and it has another format, which is the time of the mind, of the mind itself, of the thought itself in us, which is psychological time. So, our experience, when it is based on that time, be it chronological or psychological, gives us an illusion: the illusion that we are present within that experience, being the main element of that experience, being that experiencer of the experience.
In other words, the feeling is that you are hearing, you are seeing, you are perceiving, and you are feeling. This is a perception of the senses, the body and the mind, but it gives us an illusion: the illusion that there is an entity present here at this moment. That entity is the “I.” That “I” is an idea, it is a concept, it is a belief. The sense of an “I” present in this experience of “seeing,” “feeling,” and “perceiving” is an illusion. We have to look at what we are and realize the existence of this illusory identity.
When we have the perception of this illusory identity, which is the “I,” we get rid of this illusion. And when there is this Freedom, when we are free from the “I,” Life as It is becomes clear. As It is, there is no sense of an egoic identity present. So, this notion of free will is for that identity that we believe we are, that believes it has a will, that believes it can accomplish what it wants, get rid of what it wants...
When we look at it very closely, we realize that this is just a belief, it’s just an idea, it’s just an illusion. Life happens as It is, and as It happens, there is no entity present. Part of life as it happens is in this feeling, hearing, perceiving, seeing... However, there is no entity present in this. The body is involved in it, the senses are involved in it, and it’s all part of one experience. It is the experience of this Real Consciousness, not the experience of a particular identity, which is that particular “I” identity.
I have differentiated this consciousness and have called this particular consciousness of “I” as egoic consciousness or mental consciousness, because there is an entity present. Although it is illusory, there is a feeling of an identity holding memories, remembrances, recording these experiences and attributing to oneself the author of these experiences. This is “I” consciousness, it is egoic consciousness. It is not the Real or True Consciousness which is beyond this sense of separation. So, this consciousness that we know, Gilson, this perception is within this consciousness of the “I.” And we confuse ourselves with this “I” consciousness and believe that this is our Real Consciousness. This is just an egoic consciousness, a consciousness that isolates itself, that separates itself, and it is a purely mental consciousness, with this whole notion of clock time – which is chronological time – and psychological time: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
The moment of the hour now is a perception of mental consciousness. The moment of clock time is a perception of mental consciousness. This is the illusion of this identity that we believe ourselves to be. We need to investigate this Truth about who we are and discard this illusion, which is the illusion of this illusory identity that attributes to oneself control, will, freedom, power of action…This is something that has to be investigated, because it is something completely false.
Life is as It is. You determine absolutely nothing! It’s just the idea of existing as “someone” that gives you this illusion that you're making choices, sorting out life and making it happen the way you want it to. It’s not like that, Life is what It is! The Freedom to remain free from the “I,” from this illusory center, that ego, that false identity, or that mental consciousness allows you a Life in God, a Life in Love, a Life in Freedom, a Life free of the ego.
Notice that Christ said, “I don’t do the work, but the Father.” The vision is clear in Christ: there is not a separate entity called Jesus doing anything. Everything is happening in this True Consciousness, which is God Consciousness. And that is the Consciousness of all of us! This Consciousness is pure Freedom, it is not a personal consciousness, it is not an individual consciousness making choices, having its own will, deciding, resolving, living experiences, and being in control of them. It’s basically like that.
GC: Master, there is another biblical passage that Joel quotes a lot, which is that passage from Paul – I don't know exactly, but it’s something like that – where Paul says: “I live, but not I. Christ lives my life.” Can you comment on this as well, Master?
MG: The sense of a present “I” is what gives us the feeling that we have a life, a particular life. So, we have the illusion of seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinking. That thinker in us is a thought creating the illusion, the idea of someone called “I” producing those thoughts.
When you have a visual perception, it is a perception of pure Consciousness. There is no entity in that observing, in that seeing. There is the perception of seeing, not someone in that perception. When a thought is present, there is a thought present, not a thinker producing that thought. This is a phenomenon of Intelligence itself, of Consciousness itself, of this Real Consciousness, but the “I,” the ego, attributes to itself this freedom to think and this freedom to see. So, here is the illusory sense of separation.
In reality there is only experience, not the experiencer; there is only thought appearing and passing away, there is no thinker producing it; there is only this visual perception, there is no observer of this perception. So, we are under a trap, a belief, an illusion, a hypnosis created by the “I” itself, by this illusory “I,” which is thought itself pretending to be an entity present in that moment, in the moment of experience, be it seeing, feeling, hearing, or thinking.
So, here, when Paulo says: “I no longer live this ‘I’, now it’s Christ,” at that moment the illusion of the illusory sense of separation, which until then was producing a present identity called “Paul,” became clear to him. Now there was no more room, in this view of Reality, for this so-called “Paul” or “Saul.” Now it was the Reality of the present Christ: “I don't live. That ‘me’, that ‘I’ is no longer present.” That’s what happens, Gilson, with Realization.
In Realization, the sense of “Gualberto” or “Gilson” no longer dictates anything, because that sense is illusory. The only Reality of “Gilson” is the Reality of Pure Consciousness! That perception, that hearing, that seeing, that hearing, that thinking, takes place without a present identity, and that is Freedom from the “I,” from this “me,” from the ego. When this is not present, Truth of God prevails, which is Love, Peace, Freedom, Happiness, and Intelligence, because there is no longer any sense of separation between That which is Truth and this illusory perception of an entity calling itself “I,” present in Gilson, Gualberto, or whoever. It disappears, it is not Real, it has no Truth in That which You are. It is that Reality of your Being which is Consciousness, which is the Reality of God. To Christ it was “the Father": “The Father in me”; “I and the Father are One”; “It is not I who do the work.” And for Paul it is: “There is no longer this ‘I’, now it is this Christ who lives this ‘Me’.”
GC: Even taking advantage of the fact that Master has already made this comment, José Manoel Virgílio also made a comment on the channel exactly asking Master to talk a little more about this biblical quotation: “I and the Father are One.”
MG: It’s very clear that there’s not something else going on, there’s not another reality appearing. This whole experience of body, mind and world is only one experience, it is the experience of Pure Consciousness, which I could call here “Pure Experiencing.” In that Experiencing, there is no space for an entity that separates itself from God. There is only God living this instant, this moment. He assumes all these apparent forms of diverse experiences. However, all these experiences are a single experience, which is the experience of Absolute Consciousness itself, which is God Consciousness. There is no experiencer within that experience.
So, these experiences may seem diverse and may apparently assume different forms, but here it is a matter of a single present Reality. So, the only experiencing present is the experiencing of Pure Consciousness, which is God Consciousness. There is no sense of an “I” present. All of our suffering, all of our confusion of separate existence, laden with anxiety, fear, despair, and every form of suffering caused by this sense of separateness, all of this dissolves when the Truth of That which is You in your Being, which is that Reality of God, is present.
So, the whole problem, Gilson, is in this sense of a separate “I” seeing itself as the owner and in control of its own life, its own existence. This is not real! Just look at what happens and we will realize that we control absolutely nothing! You decide absolutely nothing, from the day you are born: the day you were born, the parents you had…Whatever is happening in this so-called “my life” has no reality other than the Reality of God, then it’s God’s Life, it’s God’s Truth, and it’s God living it all. OK?
GC: There is only God, right, Master? It’s like the Master says: “There is only God.” But really, at this human level of life, this belief that “I exist,” that “I am someone” is very strong. I remember, I think I even commented here in a videocast, that during an online Satsang – those weekend intensives with Master where this self-investigation is deepened –, there was a moment that I felt like “having turned a key,” of having an understanding of how this sense of being someone is just a thought. I was laughing, because this “me” that I believe myself to be is just a thought!
And it’s something extraordinary to be able to see that and how real the quotes are. For example, there is only God. But repeating “there is only God” gets you nowhere! Now, by the Grace of the Master, in this self-investigation that the Master provides in Satsangs, there was “a key turn,” where it was understood that the thought “I,” this belief that “I exist,” is just a thought. And Master, we have one more question from Nira Alves. I'll read her question. She asks: “When you react to feelings, do you break this state of Real Meditation?”
MG: When you react to a feeling, a thought, an emotion, a sensation, that reaction is the non-perception of the Reality of experience. Let me put this here in a very simple way for you to understand. When thought arises, our model, our habit, our psychological conditioning format is always to react to that thought. Either we like that thought or we reject that thought. So, we are always judging what presents itself as an experience, be it visual, be it external – like sense perception, like seeing, hearing – or internal, when a thought appears or a feeling arises.
Our direct reaction is to accept or reject. When we do this, we are not in direct contact with the experience. We don't realize what the experience is. We are stepping in, interfering, and when we do that, naturally the sense of identity of the “I,” of this separate entity, accustomed to separating itself from experience, is there. And that, of course, is the absence of self-observation, which is the beginning of contact with the True Meditation.
When there is a perception of experience without the perceiver, when there is the observation of thought without the perceiver, of feeling without the one who is involved in it, we are in direct contact with the experience, because we do not separate ourselves to react. So, the difficulty, Gilson, lies in the fact that when faced with a thought, the sense of an “I” appears to like or dislike, to judge, compare, reject or identify with the thought. This goes for any and all experience. This is where we fail, because the experience is this one, unique experience without the sense of a present “I.”
When the thinker’s sense, the observer’s sense, when the experiencer’s sense, which is the “I,” arises, it arises to alter, to judge, to compare, to do something. When this occurs, we are back in the sense of an ego-identity within the experience. That’s how our lives have been over all these years. We didn't learn, Gilson, to approach the experience without placing the experiencer. We don't learn to observe all this movement of the “I” when it appears wanting to alter, change, do something with what appears. So, we are always living within that sense of separate identity, with that ego consciousness, with that mental consciousness, which is actually a background of psychological conditioning and programming. This is something we carry with us since childhood.
Contact with Meditation, which requires self-observation, which requires Self-Awareness – this puts us in touch with True Meditation – requires us to discover what it means to look, just to look; observe, just observe; feel, just feel; perceive, just perceiving, not evaluating, judging, or rejecting whatever is arising.
If we get in touch with experience in this way, we realize that there is a complete change in this model of experience, because there is no entity present. It is when thought dissolves, it is when perception no longer has the element of an identity in conflict with that perception, with that feeling. Then, everything that, until then, was sustained within that illusion of resistance, struggle, rejection, or identification, undergoes a profound alteration, a profound change. It is when we can be in touch with Life as It shows itself, without this sense of a present identity. This is the contact with Meditation, with the Truth of Meditation; it is the contact with what is present, without the “I,” without this “me,” without this “ego.”
GC: Master, your approach and this work are revolutionary. It is a work that, as Master has already mentioned in another videocast or in a video on the channel, is simple, but it demands a lot of energy, because the identification, within that human pattern, the identification with thoughts, feelings and sensations is from many years. And then this work that the Master brings, this self-observation, which is the basis for Meditation, is something incredible! To see how much the mind wanders and we, being unconscious, go with that! We go with thoughts, identify with them, then we suffer if it is something “bad,” or rejoice if it is a feeling, something “good.” And the “heart of the matter,” of this work that the Master brings and shares... shares, because in Satsangs with the Master, here in the videocasts, it is, due to this sharing of the Consciousness of the Master, easier to enter this state of Attention and look at this noisy mind without identifying and wandering with thoughts.
MG: What happens, Gilson, is that we don't assume the Truth of What we are, because we are, by force of habit, by force of this conditioning, always attached to an identity. This identity is this background of memory and psychological conditioning.
When we start to pay attention to this movement of psychological conditioning, we can perceive the movement of the “I,” which is the movement of this conditioning. And by perceiving it that way, without getting involved with it, it starts to undo. Then, there is what I have called an emptying of all this psychological content.
The “I” is nothing more than a set of memories, remembrances, and conditioning at the intellectual level, at the sentimental, emotional, sensation level… When you give yourself that opportunity for self-observation, that internal content begins to show itself, it begins to reveal itself and begins to be undone. It is when this Real Consciousness comes into evidence. Until then, you were confused, tangled up with these reactions, and now you are aware, conscious of this movement, which is a movement of memory. So, Self-realization is the result of this emptying of all that “I” content for this Intelligence, for this Presence, for this Consciousness to assume Its space there, in that body-mind.
As long as human beings do not pay attention to this self-observation, to this Self-Awareness, they will continue to live in unhappiness. This unhappiness is the result of ignorance. However, when you look at yourself and begin to observe this movement, the Revelation of your Essential Nature happens, through Self-Awareness, through self-observation, through the Revelation that True Meditation brings. That’s when Wisdom settles in; it is when your Natural State takes the place of that old “I.” It means stepping into this death of the old man.
We need something new here and now. That something new is the Reality of your Being, when that old “I,” when that ego, when that sense of separateness is no longer there. So, we are facing the Real Life, the Abundant Life spoken by Christ, which is the Life of the Divine Consciousness itself, which is the Consciousness of God.
GC: Master, gratitude! Thank you for this videocast! Our time has run out. So, for those watching the video, if it makes sense to you – as Master always states on his videos – leave a “like,” make a comment. And if you have questions, queries, doubts, leave them in the comments, which, depending on the possibilities, we will bring here for the videocasts. And for those who feel something beyond what is being said, in the gaze, when looking into the eyes of the Master, there is an invitation to deepen this self-investigation through these weekend immersions, which are the intensive online Satsangs, and, even better, the face-to-face meetings and face-to-face retreats. By the way, now in July there is a ten-day retreat, with a gigantic deepening of this self-investigation, under the Grace of the Master.
So here’s the invitation! If you are interested, here in the first comment you will find a link to Leo Ortega, who organizes the meetings. Just get in touch with him. Thanks again, Master! Gratitude.
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