GC: Hello everyone! We are here for another videocast. Once again, Master Gualberto is willing to be here with us to bring a deepening and profound investigation about the nature of the “I,” the nature of Reality.
Master, I'm going to bring you an excerpt from Joel Goldsmith’s book, the book is “The Contemplative Life,” and, in this excerpt, Joel talks a little bit about fear. I'll read it here: “Whenever fear is gone, the object of fear is gone, because the object of fear is just fear itself externalized. And there can be no fear in the presence of a Realization of Spiritual Law.” I want you, Master, to bring your view on fear.
MG: This question of fear is very interesting. If there is something very relevant to be investigated by us, within this work of Realizing the Truth about who we are, it is the investigation of fear. What is the truth about fear? What is fear? Who is that in fear? I didn't say who is feeling this fear. My question is: who is this in fear?
For fear to be present, there must always be a relationship between two things: someone and the object of fear. If I'm afraid, I'm afraid of something. So, the human being lives in fear, but he didn't understand that the basis and what sustains this structure of fear is not an agent outside of himself, an external agent.
We believe that we are afraid, we feel fear of something. There are always two things involved in this process of fear. The fear of the wife, of the husband, of the children, of the boss, of the employees, of something that happened in the past that could suddenly happen again, there’s the fear of remembering something that made “me” suffer and that could come back to frighten “me” and make “me” suffer here and now, again... Fear is always related to something: fear of people, fear of situations, fear of the past, fear of the future... So, fear is something very present in human beings. There is fear: the fear of losing, the fear of not winning, the fear of not achieving... You see, it’s always like that, we always have two things in fear: the “I” and what causes it, or seems to be the reason for the fear.
This fear, in our view, is something that happens to this “me,” this “I,” this “person” that I believe I am. There is something, Gilson, that we didn't realize about fear: fear is the presence of the one who fears, fear is the presence of the “I.” It is the “I” in fear! There is only this “me” in the experience of fear! And notice: fear is always linked to an internal movement in that “I,” which is the movement of thought. You don't have any psychological fear without thought. The fear of the wife is an internal fear, of thought, of an image you have of someone who is that wife. Fear of the boss, fear of the employee, fear of the children, fear of the past. Note: we always have the thought element in this “me” being, in fact, the reason, the cause of fear.
So, actually, when we talk about two present things – which is this “I” and the cause or reason for the fear – we don't realize that the only present thing that is sustaining that fear is thought; and it is the thought of that “I.” It is this “I” that sees itself in a situation that it does not want for itself. This question of fear is something present while the “I” is present, this “I,” this “me,” and thought regarding that given thing, that person, that situation, that past, or that future. The fear of old age, the fear of illness, the fear of an accident... all of this is within thought! If we eliminate the “thought” element, there comes the elimination of “I” element. And without that “I” element, without thought, there is no fear.
So, the existence of fear in us, Gilson... We are not going to overcome fear, because “we,” this “I,” in this movement of thought, is what sustains fear. People have a desire to get rid of fear without understanding the structure of fear, the truth, the nature of fear, what is thought. It is the presence of thought, always! In every moment of fear in your life, if you observe it, thought is there.
When you are faced with an imminent, real danger – for example, when you are faced with a serpent, a snake, or a car coming towards you –, at that moment there will be a response from the body itself, and this response will be a smart answer to get rid of it right away. We can call it fear too, but it’s not quite the psychological fear we know. This is something objective, simple, natural. The brain reacts quickly to protect the body from that situation and, in that moment, there is no thought, there is only an action taking place. When the car comes, you jump. When a snake appears, you jump. When something comes up, you immediately have an out-of-thought action of self-defense and self-protection.
So, this issue of this so-called “fear” is a reaction of the body to an experience of danger, in which the body, the brain itself, reacts to that experience. At that moment of this experience, it reacts quickly, in the sense of self-protection. This is a very interesting aspect of fear, which is physical fear, but just now I was talking to you about a fear that is the fear that makes us suffer the most, which is psychological fear. People suffer psychologically from fear. Fear is something present when the sense of the “thinker,” which is the “I,” which is the ego, is producing, in thought, imaginations and images that frighten you, that terrify you.
So, the presence of fear is the fearful one! The presence of this fearful person is the presence of fear; it doesn't separate. We cannot separate fear from the fearful one. If there is fear, it is because there is this “I,” this “someone” in fear. And here it is psychologically, because at the moment of physical danger there is no such interval to suffer from fear, there is immediate action. So, we don't talk about this fear, natural, biological, physical, that arises in front of a danger, and that is not the human problem.
The human problem, in terms of anxiety, anguish, depression, guilt, the pain of loneliness, worry, and fear of an illness, is all in thought. It is thought that produces these images of losses in relation to this situation. But when thought is, there is that thinker; when fear is there, there is this fearful one, and that is the existence of fear. Without the sense of an “I,” which is the ego, producing thoughts relating to that given situation, there is no fear.
People ask, “How to deal with fear?” It’s a wrong question. The real question here would be “how to deal with the ‘I’?” because the “I” is the root cause, the root reason for fear. The basic question would be “how to deal with this ‘me’?”, “how to deal with this thought?”, because it is this thought, supported by this “I,” that sustains fear.
So, there is no fear without the fearful one and there is no fear without thought. This thought appears and separates itself from this “thinker,” it is like two things fighting each other, fighting each other. That “I” wanting to win, that “I” wanting to get away, that “I” wanting to do something with that thought. If this is present, what is present is the expansion of this psychological condition of the “I,” which is fear itself, and of fear, which is the “I” itself. So, this movement of resistance, struggle, conflict, in this duality “I and not I” – and here the “not I” is thought: it could be a thought about the wife, about the children, the boss, illness, about old age, a thought... What seems to be the cause of fear, this resistance, this struggle, is the conflict of fear, the suffering of fear, it is what sustains the identity of the “I” in this fear.
Thus, Gilson, the human being spends his entire life, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years, lives and dies in fear. And they are not “with fear,” they are “in fear,” because they are fear. In the “I,” you are the fear. There is no way you can get rid of fear, because you are the “I,” unless you investigate the nature of that “I” and understand, thereby, the nature of fear and getting rid of both, which is fear and the “I.” Otherwise, everything will continue in the same way.
GC: Master, given the context of this topic, we have a question here from Maria Verônica about the issue of suffering. She asks: “Do I have to get out of suffering alone?” She asks another question: “Do I need to overcome myself through love and patience? Can you tell me something?”
MG: Here, it is to understand the nature and structure of this “I.” When you say: “I have to overcome myself,” who overcomes who? Who is this “I” that can be defeated? And by whom? It’s not about overcoming oneself to get rid of suffering, it’s about understanding what this suffering is, Gilson. The understanding of that suffering is not the understanding of what suffering is. When we understand what makes us suffer, it does not free us from this suffering. Intellectual understanding, logical understanding of this matter of suffering is just an intellectual thing. We can walk the path of analysis, the path of research, the path of this understanding, to see what makes us suffer, and what makes us suffer can be understood intellectually, but we are missing the fundamental point. And the fundamental point is: who is this who suffers?
First and foremost, it is important that we understand suffering. And the understanding of suffering is not the understanding of what makes us suffer, but it is the understanding of this “I” that is located in this suffering, producing this psychological condition. There is no suffering, Gilson, without the sufferer. It is this sufferer who sustains the condition of suffering. This suffering feeds the sufferer. This sufferer feeds on suffering. So, it may seem that we want to get rid of suffering, but without investigating what suffering is, what the sufferer is, actually we are accommodated to this suffering condition, we are conformed to this suffering condition. We are not aware of how much we, psychologically, value a “person” here, which is this “I,” in this experience of suffering.
We need to eradicate all suffering from ourselves. Getting rid of it requires getting rid of that “I.” So, we have to look at the nature of that sufferer. And when we look very closely at the internal movement of thought in us, we discover what is sustaining this sufferer: there are images, recollections, remembrances, it is always this. All the images, remembrances, and recollections, which are thoughts that you have of that “someone” who suffers, that are what sustains that sufferer, what that sustains this suffering, what nourishes this “I”!
So, we have to get rid of the illusion of this movement of thought that comes from the past and place “us” – this “me,” this “I” – within this condition of an image that is suffering, that is being abandoned, rejected, criticized, which is not being accepted. We just have to become aware that this is a thought we have about who we are. This movement of thought requires a thinker for it to have continuity, and if it has continuity, that sufferer will continue to suffer. So, it is not about overcoming, it is about verifying the illusion of this “I” that suffers, and verifying this requires understanding that it is the very thought about some present situation, in this very personal story of the “I,” that is producing suffering.
As with fear, suffering does not exist on its own, it is always “from” something: “I suffer from abandonment,” “I suffer from rejection,” “I suffer from non-recognition,” “I suffer from not being loved,” “I suffer because I was rejected,” “I suffer because I was despised,” “I suffer because I compare myself with someone who has more than this ‘me’, which is envy.”
So, this “me,” this “I,” always suffers in a relationship with something. So, this suffering can have different names, but it is always in this involvement of this “I” with something. Envy is like that, jealousy is like that, sense of rejection is like that, every form of suffering, everything that causes you anxiety... What is this anxiety? It is the sense of an “I” in fear of a future.
So, we live trapped in this psychological condition of “I” and if this is not seen... The path to this is direct observation, which I call Real or True Self-Awareness. Without this True Self-Awareness, we do not have an approach of this look to what this “I” is and what this “I” represents in this condition that makes it suffer.
This is very interesting, how much the ego has invested in this continuity, both fear and suffering, to stay alive. And it will not be possible to get rid of this without an investigation of this structure, this nature, this truth about this “I.” Without the observation of what it represents, there will be no end to this “I,” to this ego, and therefore no end to fear, no end to suffering. However, when you assume that you are living life at that moment and whatever it is presenting to you, without putting a sense of someone present with a self-image to protect, to safeguard, to resist this movement, we have a real approach to True Meditation, the True Self-Awareness, True Recognition that there is something outside of this “I.”
So, this requires work, work on oneself, which, in general, people are not interested in doing. A few are already being called and touched for this important issue of Awakening of the Truth of your Being, which is the end of fear, which is the end of suffering.
GC: Master, talking a little more about suffering, specifically, there is, as Master said, this psychological fear and this suffering. Where does it come in, Master, what is also called suffering when there is a physical pain of this body-structure, which is also called suffering?
MG: Yes. Gilson, physical pain is very punctual and it is connected to the body. The body does not know suffering, the mind knows suffering. The body knows pain and pleasure. Your foot knows no suffering, your arm knows no suffering, your nose knows no suffering, it knows pain. Our body knows pleasure and pain. Now, if your arm is hurting and you're suffering, that’s another thing; if the body is sick and you are suffering, that is something else, because it is the sick body, it is the body enduring fragility, weakness, pain, and you internalize an identity present in that body, in that arm, in that leg, in that pain. That is suffering, but it is the suffering of the “I,” it has nothing to do with the body.
Gilson, the body feels hungry, the body feels thirsty, cold, hot, pleasure, and pain, the rest are all on that “me,” that “I.” This “I” lives in internal frames of unhappiness. This is suffering. It has nothing to do with what the body is going through. If you realize What you are, you disidentify yourself from the body, and disidentifying yourself from the body is not freedom from the pain that the body represents. The body will represent pain as long as it is functioning. It will always represent pain. Pain is a defense, self-protection mechanism and signals that something is wrong with that part of the body. It has nothing to do with suffering, it’s a neurophysiological thing. Body pain is a warning sign of attention and care that it is asking for.
When you feel hungry, it’s not you feeling hungry, it’s the body asking for food, it has nothing to do with you. In deep sleep, you have no body to feel the pain of being sick. A terminally ill person doesn't worry about dying while in deep sleep. When he or she wakes up and sees his or her body connected to devices and the thought of having to leave everything now in death, then it scares him or her. This is suffering. So, fear is psychological. Fear is in the mind, not in the body. The body has a very natural survival reactive response. It reacts, It tries to defend itself, it tries to protect itself, and it even reacts, producing pain and calling attention, saying: “Look, there is something wrong here.” That’s the sign of pain, a toothache, a pain in the foot, a pain in the arm...
Now, look at the human situation: a toothache makes you depressed, a pain in your big toe makes you depressed. This is suffering. It has nothing to do with the pain in the big toe or the toothache, it has to do with your inner psychological state, of the “I,” which is being forbidden to do something that you would like to do and cannot do, as you are unable to do because of toothache; or you are struggling, resisting the experience of pain in your big toe, and that is suffering.
Let’s not confuse this. Here, the proposal is to go beyond suffering, which is to go beyond the “I.” The body issue, no. The body has its beginning, middle, and end. From the very beginning, it’s been in a complicated situation, but you are not the body. Now, if you are identified with the body, a weakness, a disease in the body... if you are identified with the body, the illusion is that you are sick. We have to realize the Truth of That which we are. When there is no body, there is no mind and there is no world. This Realization is your Natural State of Happiness, Being, Consciousness, it is the Truth of What You Are, outside of that dream where everything has an expiration date. Everything appears, remains for a while and disappears. Everything is like that, everything that begins ends. And in this phenomenal world, the world of dreams, which is the world of these so-called “relationships” with the experiences of the senses, all of this is part of, all of this is part of a great game of appearance and disappearance.
So, in this game of appearance and disappearance, we always have duality. The positive/negative duality, being born or dying, health and illness, the new and the old. This duality or this dualism is part of this dream of the world, where everything has an expiration date, has a deadline, has a beginning and will end. Everything here appears in time and disappears in time.
The Reality of your Being is not in time and it is not in that dream of the world, although that dream of the world is an apparition in that Mystery, which is the Mystery of Divine Consciousness, which is the Mystery of the Truth of your Being, which is God. Was it clear there? Suffering is one thing; pain is another thing. This pain is a pain that is part of this apparition. Now, you can actually stop suffering, because it is not the nature of the Truth of your Being to suffer. So, this suffering is optional. Once the illusion of this sufferer is seen, it becomes clear that it is very stupid to have this option of suffering in this life of “I.” Then, that option itself also disappears when that Realization is present.
GC: At this point that Master just touched on, I realize that, within this journey of studies, much is said about illusion: the illusion of this, the illusion of that... and when it is said about suffering or about fear. And the Master also brings this reality that fear is an illusion of that “I” itself. Within True Meditation, the Master says that we have to approach, in the sense of seeing what appears. For example, if there is fear here, in Gilson’s body-mind structure, it’s staying with fear. It’s no use for me to keep repeating “no, this is an illusion, this is an illusion.” This is not the practice, is it, Master? It’s simply not separating yourself from the experience, right?
MG: That separation from experience is the presence of the experiencer. That’s what we've been doing all these years of life and it’s a cultural, psychological conditioning thing, as I've been calling it. Human beings have been trying to overcome fear for millennia and, until today, they haven't won. For millennia he has been trying to overcome jealousy, and he has not won; envy, and he did not overcome. People take self-improvement courses, do different practices to improve themselves, to improve as people, but they cannot get rid of fear, they cannot get rid of envy, jealousy, violence, irritation, or annoyance, nor of concern. And why can't they, Gilson? Because they are always sustaining the experiencer within the experience. If you sustain the fearful one in fear, it continues. And to support the fearful one, you only need to show courage when what is present is fear.
It’s very weird! People say to each other: “Have courage!” People, understand this: if you are afraid, it is only fear that is present. It is not possible for someone in fear to show courage, because courage, based on fear, is fear in disguise. You disguise courage when you're actually trembling with fear. This is not the way of understanding fear. Notice, it’s not getting rid of fear. In the ego, we want to get rid of what we don't like: fear, jealousy, envy, the desire that makes us suffer... everything we don't like, we want to get rid of. That is the idea in the ego. And we want to get rid of it by resisting, fighting, trying to throw it away. What is pleasurable we want to cultivate, we want to hold. This movement, both holding on to what is pleasant and letting go of what is painful, sustains the “I.” So, this “I” is the one in us that sustains, over millennia, fear, envy, and jealousy, because that same “I” is sustaining pleasure, satisfaction, fulfillment, and accomplishment.
So here, what I have been saying is: look without the “I.” Feel – sounds strange and crazy – feel without the feeler. Watch... watch without the watcher, observe without the observer, without the watcher. That thought is there, don't put a thinker in that thought. And how do we do that, Gilson? I'll give you an example with a thought, which is very simple. This goes for feeling, for emotion or for a sensation, which is something that is arising here in this “I.” You see, it has nothing to do with the external. That’s the whole problem too: we believe it’s something outside that is creating it. Abandon it! Watch and you will see that it is coming from your own egoic mind, your own “I,” your own movement of memory. How do we deal with thinking? It is neither accepting nor rejecting. We neither say “yes” nor say “no,” we just look. If it is a feeling, which we are calling fear, this has a representation in the body, it can create something in the body, and you just experience it, approach it, without resisting, without fighting, without attacking that sensation, that emotion, that feeling, without rejecting it, also without getting confused with it, without victimizing yourself, without creating ideas.
So, this requires, Gilson, a work on oneself, a certain amount of attention, which I call Full Attention on oneself, here and now. That is possible, yes, when you stop blaming the external or something as being the cause of it, which is what we have been doing.
So, Gilson, what’s been the problem? The problem is that we always believe that it is something outside that is creating fear, that is creating annoyance, that is bothering us, that is making us sad. It’s always something outside: it’s him, her, that situation, that other situation... And we always have this “little me” here to try to get rid of him, her, that situation, and we believe that, freed from that, we will be free from suffering ... free from suffering, free from fear, free from that situation, while in reality the situation is inside: it is the sense of an “I,” the illusion of an ego-identity sustained by thought itself, with pictures, with images , which, when presented, we reject; with feelings, with emotions, which, when they present themselves, we are always trying to fight against. And that only does one thing, Gilson: to strengthen the sense of ego, giving identity to what has no identity. The “I” has no identity and neither does fear, nor suffering, nor anger, resentment, guilt, regret, loneliness, this present pain, depression, anguish, none of that has an identity, unless that “I” puts identity into it. Then things get complicated, and that’s what we've been doing.
GC: Master, thank you very much! Thanks for this videocast! We've reached the end; our time is over. Here is the invitation: whoever feels something and has an internal desire to delve deeper into this self-investigation, the Satsangs – which are weekend intensive meetings with Master, both online and face-to-face – are a Grace for this self-investigation. And also leave your “like,” leave the comment, that helps the channel. Master, gratitude for this chat. Thank you very much!
MG: Okay, everyone. See you soon!
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