What is Satsang? The word Satsang is a Sanskrit word that means “an encounter with the Self.” Sat is Being or Truth and Sang means “the encounter.” That encounter with the Self, that encounter with the Divine Reality of your Being is Satsang. This word in India is used in the sense of an encounter with a Realized Being; if you go to meet an Awakened Being, who is living in his Real Nature, that is, free from the psychological conditioning – and we are going to talk about it here and now, in this moment, with you –, you are before Satsang.
What is a Realized Being? He is the one who has awakened to his Real Nature, to his True Nature. An encounter with a Realized Being is, in fact, an encounter with yourself, with the one who has awakened to the Truth of your own Being, which is the Being of each one of us. Som this encounter is called Satsang. And here I want to investigate with you a fundamental aspect regarding this Awakening of your Essential Nature. Here I want to refer, I want to investigate with you this question of the conditioned mind. And yes, it is possible to go beyond this conditioning of the mind.
What is this conditioned mind? It is everything that over many, many years we have acquired within society, culture, the world, everything that we repeat within patterns of habits and behavior, holding us within a pattern, a model of egoism, of separation and, therefore, of duality, because there is this “the other and I,” “life and I,” “the reality of God and I.” This behavior, this pattern, this model of mind is something present because of this psychological conditioning. Our minds are conditioned, they are programmed. Our psychological life is reflected externally in our social life, in our actions, in this contact with people and the world around us, always presenting this conditioning.
The central idea of this “I” is to be a separate entity, living its own world, living its own history, living its own condition of perception of reality. So, this framing is, in fact, a psychological prison, that’s what this conditioning in us consists of, within each one of us. Here in these meetings, we are working to end this psychological conditioning, the end to this conditioned mind, in reality, the deconditioning of the mind. Unless we have a free mind, psychologically speaking, internally free from this model of thinking, feeling, and acting based on this center of this false “I,” grounded in an egocentric behavior, unless this sense of “I” loses this foundation, dissolves and disappears, our whole life will continue within this same pattern of behavior until the end of our days. The illusion about who we are gives us an illusion about who the other is and what life is all about.
So, this program of feeling and thinking, this psychological programming of being “someone” in the world, of moving in the world within this egoic center, this egocentrism, this pattern of behavior, always guided by ambition, envy, and violence because of the different fears that we bring, of which we are not even aware that they are present, all of this is part of this mental conditioning, of this conditioned mind. This work, with this approach of yourself, possible within Satsang, is what makes the investigation of the nature of the “I” possible for you.
Here we are together for this study of ourselves, for this investigation of ourselves, for this observation of this movement, which is the movement of this psychological person, this image, this idea, this mental representation that we have about ourselves. That is the purpose of these meetings, to study ourselves, to understand what goes on inside each one of us, that feeling, that thinking that leads us to action.
The thought in us is something that needs to be understood. How do we process this thing called thought? What is the truth of thought present within us? Observe that thought is nothing else in each of us but memory, recollection, and remembrance. Each and every thought present in you is a recollection, a memory. You cannot have a single thought that is not arising from a memory, a representation of an idea. Every idea is just a thought and every thought is just a remembrance, it’s just memory. Our way of thinking is within this frame of memory. We don't know what thinking is, we have a conditioned way of thinking. Our thinking always revolves around ideas, concepts, and beliefs. Watch your mind and you will realize how many conditionings or psychological memories you have. This is what I have called this model of thinking with this background of conditioning: psychological memory or psychological thinking. Observe the amount of psychological memory or thoughts around the history of your family, your culture, close relationships, things you've heard, read, which, in fact, are the result of advertising, the result of all that that has been passed on to you over these years.
Notice how much your life revolves around these expressions in speaking, thinking and acting. So, we are programmed to think, speak, and act within this programming of memory, family culture, social culture, and world culture. We have a conditioned mind, an already programmed behavior, there is no freedom in the egoic mind. This egoic mind – we call it the egoic mind because it has a center around which thoughts are happening, feelings are happening, emotions are happening, actions are happening, and sensations are being experienced – has an illusory center that has been taking over our lives. When you say “my life,” you are referring to this center, this illusory center, this “I,” this ego, and all behavior that arises from this center, this ego, is conditioned; and if it is conditioned, this is something stuck in a psychological pattern. This psychological pattern behaves in this relationship with life as it is, here and now, in a totally inappropriate way.
We cannot correspond to this present moment, we cannot give a Real answer to this instant; as this answer for Life, for Existence is claimed, we cannot give a Real answer, an adequate answer, because our action is all modeled within a behavior already structured in a programming that comes from the past. That pattern of behavior from the past, which is the behavior of the “I,” does not find a Real answer in life, a True answer, a complete response. Thus, there is always a contradiction between this thinking, feeling, and acting and this response to this present moment. It is the present moment that requires an intelligent response, free of the past, but all that “I” represents is the past, because it is that conditioning. What I want you to understand here, and you can observe this in your relationship with yourself, with others, and with life...
It’s curious when we use the expression “with yourself,” as if you were in a relationship with yourself. When there is this totality of Being, you do not exist in a relationship with yourself, there is only this Consciousness, there are not two, so it is not a question of a relationship with yourself. This relationship with yourself implies the presence of an illusory identity, which is the “I,” having an image of itself and trying to adjust to a behavior in which it, this “I,” feels comfortable with itself. This already shows us this contradiction, this duality, this sense of duplicity: “me and myself,” “me with myself,” “me fine with myself” – here we are already faced with this duality. With regard to life, to the other, the same thing happens, this “I,” this ego, carries an image of itself, and in this relationship with the other, it wants to keep feeling good about itself; so, its action is always an action that tries to adjust itself, adapt to what others expect from it.
We are here with you working on the end of the “I,” the end of the ego and, therefore, the end of that sense of separation between “you and the other,” between “you and life,” between “you and this Reality,” which is Existence as it shows itself here and now. However, this Truth of Non-Separation is not possible as long as this sense of “I” is present, because this sense of “I” is this conditioning that comes from the past trying to fit into this mysterious movement, which is the movement of life going on here and now, and it never happens. This is the psychological pattern of life that we have been experiencing and living. All the psychological disorders in the world, all the disorder, also of physical nature, in the relationship with the other, with the world, is something based on this internal disorder within each one of us, this internal confusion within each one of us, this pattern of conditioning that we are carrying.
To look at that movement of thought right now, of feeling right now, of emotion, of sensation, to become aware of that conditioning, when the mind approaches itself and observes its own movement, that’s when something new begins to happen, that’s when, through the awareness of the mind, seeing its own movement, it quiets down to observe, it silences to observe; in a very natural way, it begins to become aware of itself, of the psychological conditioning, of this pattern of history, culture, memory, and habit. What we express in our speeches, the behavior we have in our relationships with each other, our gestures, our way of acting, all of this is observed. The mind now becomes aware of this movement.
This approach of the mind to observe the inner, psychological conditioning is the mind becoming aware of itself, conscious of itself and therefore being open to the end of this egoic conditioning; it is when the mind enters into something entirely new, which is this deconditioning of everything it has accumulated, of everything it has kept, of all its beliefs, of everything it has been carrying over these years – in us there are thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years, but in humanity it has been for millennia; it is an extraordinary psychological conditioning. It is a conditioning that has imprisoned the mind within this pattern of behavior, feeling, emotion, and sensation.
When we approach this look at ourselves, here and now, that is when the mind is still and silent, and this movement of the “I” is observed; it is when the mind is open to this emptying of all the psychological conditioning. We need to know this deconditioning of the “I,” this deconditioning of the mind, this approach of that look, that simple and direct look at oneself, here and now. This is something that brings you closer to the end of the “I,” the end of the ego.
This is the subject we are bringing here for you. If this is something that makes sense to you, leave your “like” and subscribe to the channel. I want to remind you: we have online meetings, face-to-face meetings, and also retreats, where we are working with those who approach. OK?
If that’s something that makes sense to you, join us! Thanks for the meeting!
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