GC: Hello everyone! We are here for another videocast. Master Gualberto is here with us again. Gratitude, Master, for being here once again. Master, today I want to read an excerpt from Joel Goldsmith’s book called “A parenthesis in Eternity.” The excerpt from the book is as follows: “Yesterday and tomorrow, therefore, must be discarded now. Now is the only life, now is the only reality, now is the only time.” Master, can you tell us what this “now” is?
MG: There is a way to approach this issue, Gilson. First, removing this illusion we have about what we call “the now.” For us, “now” has, psychologically, the meaning of this instant, this present moment, but the Truth about the Now is that we are dealing with something far beyond that. We are not necessarily talking about this issue of the present moment, this present instant. When we deal with the question of the importance, the beauty, and the value of the Now, we are dealing with the end of time that thought has formulated. So, the Truth about the Now is the end of time that thought has engendered and built.
Thought has constructed a time, which is the time that we determine as “past, present and future,” for this “I,” for this experiencer of this moment. This is actually psychological time. This is the time we need to let go of. Thus, the understanding of the Truth of Now is the understanding of the end of this illusion of this psychological time created by thought.
It is not a question, Gilson, of getting rid of the past, nor the future, nor the present moment. The past, the present moment and the future, chronologically speaking, are important. In this dream of life, in this dream of existence, we need time. It is in time that we organize ourselves for tasks, for commitments. So, our chronological agenda is important. Therefore, the past had an importance, the present is having an importance and tomorrow will have an importance, only the importance of chronological time.
So, it’s not about putting an end to this “yesterday,” or this “tomorrow,” or this “today,” but rather the psychological past. The psychological past, the “I” element, ego, the notion in thought of someone existing now, who existed yesterday and will exist tomorrow, this psychological time, this “someone” who lives in this time, which is the time of the “I,” of the ego, needs to disappear. So, this is the end of this illusory notion of someone present here and now, who is coming from the past and going into the future.
So, this issue is a very important issue, of great relevance within these meetings here, because, basically, the ego in us lives in time. It depends on knowledge, which is memory, which is past, which is thought, to maintain its continuity. It is a very simple subject and, at the same time, with a complexity that seems absurd to the ego. We need to approach this in a very clear way, investigating the nature of psychological time, which is the nature of this ego, which has thought as its structure and basis… accumulated thought, stored thought: the past! This is what we need to get rid of.
When we talk, for example, about the death of the “I,” the ego death, we are not talking about the death of a real entity, we are simply talking about the end of the past. This is the true approach we have to have about the Truth of death. So, it's another issue that we can, at another time, delve into here: the grace, the beauty of the understanding of what to die is in fact. This “dying” moment by moment is not dying to this chronological moment, it is dying to this psychological moment, which is the past, which is the “I,” which is the ego.
The encounter, Gilson, with this Realization of your Being is the Revelation of your Being Now, and this Reality is Now! It’s not “always now,” it’s Now! All this notion of time disappears. The word “always” still denotes time, and here the Reality of this instant is the Reality of this Being now, which is this Truth, which is the Divine Truth, the Only Reality, the Only Truth in this instant, in this – now let’s put it this way – present moment, but it transcends this so-called “now” of the present moment.
I see people say: “It’s important to live in the Now.” One cannot live in the Now! When the Now is, there is no person. I see people talking about the importance of living in the Now because they have read about it, heard someone talk about it – Eckhart Tolle, for example, talks a lot about the Now –, but what I notice is that people, when they make questions here, they sometimes ask, in this particular vision of what they have read by Eckhart Tolle or someone else, and there is this confusion in their heads. They do not understand Eckhart Tolle's Real Vision on this issue of the Now. Eckhart Tolle is not talking about this matter of chronological time.
When he was going to give a conference, a lecture, like us here... we have a meeting, and we have a moment set on the clock and the day is set. This is part of chronological time; we cannot eliminate it. This is not what needs to be eliminated, but rather the illusion of this illusory center, which is the “I,” which lives in psychological time, in this mistaken notion that it came from the past, is living in the present moment and is heading towards the future. This is how the ego lives!
So, when a person says: “It’s important for us to enter the Now” ... We don’t enter the Now! When there is the Now, this “person” disappears! So, there is no way you can be in the Now. It is exactly the Presence of this Real Truth, which is Being, which is Pure Consciousness, which is the absence of this “you,” which is present in this instant, in this Truth of the Now, and not in this time, not in this notion of merely chronological time, where someone enters and is there.
These are distortions of the intellect itself regarding teachings about the Truth of the Now. This explains, Gilson, why people are reading books – including books by Eckhart Tolle and other books – and do not get out of that condition: because, intellectually, they believe they have understood and affirm it as if it were a truth for them, while, in reality, what they have is intellectualism, it's one more belief, one more concept, one more learned thing.
These encounters with the Truth of your Being break the movement of this sense of an “I,” of an ego-identity and, therefore, this limit, which is the limit of intellectual knowledge. That's why the emphasis here is always this: There's no point in studying, there's no point in reading, there's no point in memorizing words, because you'll just repeat something as if it were true for you, and what we have is a belief, it's just one more belief. Belief is not Reality. Reality is one thing; belief is another thing. Belief is intellectual, belief is verbal, belief is conceptual, belief requires the goodwill of the “I” to want to believe – because it may not want to believe or it may believe in a different way. So, belief is in the intellect. This is the Truth of the Now!
GC: Master, I often fell into this trick within the studies of “practicing the Now,” “being in the Now.” In fact, there are many videos on YouTube talking about this. In fact, it is recommended that our thinking be in the present: if we are walking, may we be present walking, taking one step and then another... and it ends up that, in the ego's naughtiness, ego is there present in this “now.” And it's hilarious to realize this now, Master, because, in Satsang, this sharing of this Presence, which the Master brings, this moment happens, which is a Real Now, but then there is a Real Now, there is no longer an “I” in this Now, is it so, Master? So, this prank is the most common thing, and I fell for that for a long time. Only with a Master now, from Satsang to Satsang, did I realize how much the ego, in its naughtiness, kept me in a “pseudo-now.”
MG: What happens, Gilson, is that, in truth, we need this instant, this present moment, to realize the Reality of What is, That which we are, the Truth, yes, of this Now. So far, so good. So, it is in this instant, it is in this present moment, that we need to become aware of the movement of the “I,” the movement of thought, the movement that arises and originates in the past and comes as memory and reacts to this instant. So, the work consists, in fact, in becoming, in this instant, in this present moment, in this chronological instant, [aware] of this psychological “truth,” which is just the past appearing in this instant. So far, so good.
The problem arises when we don't know what, in fact, this observation of this movement means, the awareness of this movement, which is the movement of the past in this instant, in this present moment. So, what does the intellect do? The intellect, conditioned as it is, makes a big deal out of it. So, when you believe that you are really in a certain practice – which is this so-called “practicing the Now,” “practicing the Presence,” as people generally say –, the moment of realizing the illusion of this false identity, yes, is always in this instant, in this present moment. And here I used the words “always,” “right now” and “in this present moment.” Of course, I'm speaking chronologically! It's true, it's right now, but the awareness of that must be done right now... we have to have a careful approach to this, because, if we place the “I” element, which is the “ego” element, to be present in the Now, we are under an illusion, because this “I,” this ego, is the presence of psychological time, it is exactly the presence of the past.
So, this “I,” this ego, this sense of identity, which is the person, is exactly the absence of the Truth of this Being now. So, it is not as simple as the intellect makes it appear to be when it says “I have to practice the Presence,” “I will practice the Presence,” “I need to be in the Now,” and soon, you are in a big trap created by the conditioned intellect itself, which is the ego, behind this movement of practice. So, practicing the Presence, practicing the Now… Who is going to practice the Presence? Who will practice the Now?
All this needs to be seen, all this needs to be understood. The difficulty is in reading, studying, listening to lectures… This doesn’t work! You can spend a long time, and perhaps a lifetime, occupied with listening to lectures and reading books, and nothing real, nothing meaningful, will happen, because there is no Truth of this direct Understanding.
This is a matter of the Power of this Grace, of the Power of this Presence. That makes It possible. And one of the things that I have noticed is that, in the ego, we have eliminated this mysterious factor, which is the very Power of this Presence, which is the Power of Grace, to realize This. It's not the person who does it, it's Grace! It's an extensive subject, because then we would have to get into this question of Meditation, what the Truth of Meditation is, what the approach of the Truth of Self-awareness is, because, without Self-awareness, there is no Meditation, and, without True Meditation, there is not this Real Vision of what this Now is. Alright? So, that's the point, Gilson!
GC: Master, it's funny, because, for example, I – bringing back memories… but I remember saying: “Ah, I feel really good when I practice the Presence, when I'm in the Now!” And then comes another trick of the ego, because there was “Ah, I’m practicing being present,” then, after a while, a feeling of peace came… and then the ego took over… very present there: “I’m feeling peace!” And the trick, this ego trick, continues to flow, right, Master? The same way with meditation: I meditated… “I feel good when I meditate!” So, this now opens the door for the Master to talk a little about True Meditation.
MG: This Truth about Meditation is something very, very delicate. Delicate why? Because, in general, we make a very unreasonable simplification, out of ignorance. We believe that whatever we are practicing is meditation. So, we learned here, in our culture, in our western world, that meditation can be done even while sleeping! You download an app on your cell phone and practice meditation, or you turn to techniques designed and built by meditation experts. What we did here, Gilson, in the West, was to take this word from the East and transform it into a convenience for us. So, intellectually, people build meditation systems, techniques and practices, and they believe they are meditating, they believe they are part of a meditative practice.
We don't know what Meditation is. First, Gilson, first of all: Meditation requires emptying – understand this, guys! –, requires an emptying of this psychological content of this mind as we know it. People want to sit and concentrate, they want to sit and say affirmations with words, they want to sit listening to silent music, relax their body, and then relax their mind. And they believe that by relaxing the body and relaxing the mind, and through concentration or repeating a mantra, or a phrase, or breathing in a certain way, they are in meditation.
Understand one thing, guys: Meditation requires a free mind. Meditation is only present when the mind has been purged, it has been emptied of the weight of psychological content that it carries. So, the Truth about Meditation is that the mind needs to be modified, and here, modified in the sense of being purified, purged, emptied of its contents. When it is emptied of its old contents, there is a space that opens, of Stillness, of Silence… Then something reveals itself! This is an action of the power of Grace itself, of Presence itself, and this does not occur without, first, awareness of the movement of the mind itself, which is Self-awareness, which is the awareness of looking at this movement of the “I,” which is this background of present psychological conditioning, which is all this content of the mind.
When the mind is emptied of this content, because its movement is being observed, there is awareness of this observation of this movement, and this, evidently, is something that occurs in this instant, in this present moment, in this Now. So, when this occurs, it is possible to empty this content, purify the mind, and naturally to silence this mind. Then, That which is indescribable, which is beyond psychological time, which is beyond chronological time itself, begins to reveal itself, which is the Reality that is outside the known, so we are, in truth, facing True Meditation.
That's why I have called it “Real Meditation,” “True Meditation,” because it is the correct Meditation. It is contact with a Reality where the “I” is not. Now, whatever people are doing, setting aside moments, setting aside minutes, setting aside hours to meditate, it can quiet the mind, it can silence the mind based on discipline. And it is important that we touch on this issue of discipline here. The Truth of Meditation does not require discipline, does not require concentration. Why, Gilson? Concentration is what is present when a desire is being contradicted and another appears to bring order to it. So, concentration is forcing the mind to get rid of one desire because it has another one.
People want to force themselves to silence their mind, to stop their mind. This is just a desire of the mind itself, which is still the ego, imposing self-discipline on itself. This is resistance, this is conflict, this is exactly the absence of Meditation! So, not only does the practice of concentration not bring you closer to the Truth of Meditation, but in this resistance, the ego strengthens even more!
Of course, over time, the mind, in a mechanical way, begins to quiet down due to discipline, but it is a stillness of the mind by the mind. After the person leaves meditation, one remains the same person, without any awareness of the movement of the “I,” of the emptying of this content, because there is no emptying at all! This is why, Gilson, people practice meditation for forty years, for fifty years and continue in this “sense of person,” still worried, anxious, angry, choleric, full of fear: because the ego is present!
There is no Truth in this so-called “meditation” with goals. And what is this goal? It is basically achieving purposes that the ego itself is establishing for itself, which are: stopping the mind, calming down, de-stressing... And the purpose of Real, True Meditation is the end of this sense of the ego, Gilson. It is the Realization of That which is You in your Being, is God Realization, and no one deals with it, and no one talks about it! It's simple why no one talks about this: because it's not in the ego's interest! Everything the ego wants is what it wants, and everything it wants is part of it! Do you see?
So, this is what we have to understand! We cannot dissociate Truth from Self-awareness. And here, the word “Self-Awareness” – those who have been following us have already realized it – has nothing to do with what psychology deals with, nor with what philosophy deals with by that name or with any other science out there dealing with this... We are not dealing with something that we can do, technically, mechanically, based on a system. Self-Awareness requires an approach to oneself, where there is a natural Truth revealing itself beyond this self-discipline engendered by the ego.
I am not denying, Gilson, here, the beauty of this “burning” for the Truth and having this deep interest in the Revelation of It. This, yes, requires something that is a discipline of another order; It is not this discipline of imposing on oneself, through one desire, the end of another desire. It is the discipline that arises very naturally from this deep interest and from being “burning” for the Truth, to look… just look, without resisting, without fighting, without doing anything with this movement of thought that appears at this moment, without separating yourself from it.
Our time here is too short for us to put this more broadly, but Meditation is the awareness of observing the movement of the mind, just becoming aware of that movement. This may seem simple speaking, but in evidence, showing this in a real way, in the practice of living, this requires an energy of being, moment by moment, instant by instant, aware of oneself, just becoming aware of this movement, which is the movement of the “I.” So, at that moment, yes, the awareness of this Truth becomes possible, this indescribable, nameless Presence, which is beyond time, beyond everything that is known, beyond this clock time, beyond this psychological time, beyond this sense of an “I,” beyond this past, present and future; we have the revelation of this Silence, this Stillness, this Presence, this nameless “thing,” which is the Truth of Meditation, which is the Truth of this Power of the Now, this Power of this Beauty, this unspeakable “thing.” That's it.
GC: Gratitude, gratitude, Master! This vision that the Master brings of what this Power of the Now really is, of what this True Meditation really is, is truly incredible and unique. I had many years of meditation practice, of sitting and meditating and, by Grace, as I met the Master, this illusion was swept away, that it had become a therapeutic technique to alleviate internal conflicts, but it was just masking something that had to be seen. And, by Grace, in these intensives, in Satsang with the Master, I am able to see this “I,” these thoughts, this identity, this illusion.
But, Master, our time has come. Thank you for this videocast. For those of you watching the video, leave a “like,” make a comment, bring questions, you can ask questions here. And also, in the first comment, pinned, there will be the link to the playlist of the meetings – we have already had several videocasts –, if you want to watch others, and also the link to the WhatsApp group with information about the intensive meetings, called “Satsangs,” together with the Master, which are a unique opportunity to deepen this self-investigation and discover this true Now, discover it by living this True Meditation. See you soon! Gratitude, Master.
MG: Ok, guys. See you soon!
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