GC: Hello everyone! We are here for another videocast. Once again, Master Gualberto was willing to be here with us. Gratitude, Master, again for your presence. Master, today I'm going to bring you an excerpt from Joel Goldsmith's book called “Practicing the Presence”. In this excerpt, Master, Joel says the following: “God is the only life, eternal, immortal, infinite, without beginning and without end. There is only one God, therefore there is only one life.” Master, this statement... I speak for myself: I always had the belief and believed in God, but that didn't resolve my internal conflicts, my problems and I remained, I didn't reach, I didn't have that Divine Peace. Deep down, there was always a restlessness. And then I ask the Master: how can I get rid of this restlessness, this lack of Peace, and attain this State of True Peace?
MG: So, Gilson, here we are faced with a situation. And what is this situation? The theory. Theory gives us concept, gives us formula, gives us word, gives us belief, but that doesn't solve it. Belief is belief. Note that you may believe. You... having a good will to believe, you believe, but if you don't have a good will to believe, maybe you don't want to believe, so you don't believe. But where is belief established? In the intellect! Only the intellect can have the willingness to believe or not have any willingness to believe, and belief does not work. So, this thing of trusting in God based on an intellectual concept that we have about
who is God, because we have heard about it, because we have read about it, this is within this verbal formulation, within this conceptualization.
The Truth does not reveal itself based on a belief. The basis for Truth consists in observation, in becoming aware. Belief is dismissed when you are faced with the realization. You don't need to believe what you experience. If it is your experience, it is directly within your experience. When there is experience, we do not need this good will of the intellect to believe. So does this question of the vision of Truth. All we have are experiences, and experiences give that experiencer an education, an education. So, it starts – due to going through experiences – to believe. And now it believes not only in words, as in the case of a given experience, it believes in what it experienced. And that's not what we're talking about in these meetings either.
It is important to say this here: it is neither a verbal belief, based on words, nor a trust based on an experience that has already been. When we deal with the Reality of God, we are dealing neither with a belief nor with an experience, but rather with a direct verification of the present Reality; and it is now, in this instant! So, this is something fundamental. Without this, we do not have Reality, we have theory, we have experience, but this experience, in the experiencer, is still part of the illusion of the “I,” the illusion of the ego. And why do we say this? Because this is now just part of a remembrance, a memory, an idea, a concept. So, a concept, a remembrance, a memory, is still a form of belief for the experiencer.
What is the truth of this experiencer? It is the one that is present because of memory. Note that every experience becomes a memory, and this memory only has relevance for the experiencer. Without memory, the experiencer does not exist. So, memory, remembrance, and experience are the same thing. It is different from the experience that is here and now. We have lived our lives always in memory, always in the model of the past. We are always within a representation of what was. This is all part of illusion. All this is part of the “I,” all this is part of the ego.
Our focus here is on realizing the truth about who we are. What we are, is what we demonstrate ourselves to be at this moment. At least that's how we appear to be, what we believe we are, what we trust ourselves to be. Here is an identification with this sense of an “I.” So, this is what we are when we do not see Reality, the Truth beyond this “I.” Yes, there is a Reality beyond what we are. This Reality is the Truth of our Real Being, of our Real Consciousness, but This is something that is outside the known. We don't work with that. We work at this moment with the realization, with the understanding of what we are in what we seem to be, which is the “I,” which is the ego, in its confusion, in its disorder, in its suffering, in its fears, in its wishes. And there is no point in trying to gloss this over with beliefs.
Notice that people believe in God, but they are suffering. They believe in God, but they are living violently. They believe in God, but they are ambitious, greedy, envious, angry, depressed, anguished… Note that belief has never solved the problem of human beings. You just believe. People believe and, at the same time, commit barbarities in the name of their beliefs. So, you believe in God, but your God is different from mine, because I believe in God, but I have an idea of what God is and you have another idea about God. So, based on these beliefs, we fight, we clash, we are separate, divided, and creating problems for each other. This in the name of belief, in the name of religion.
So, Gilson, what we need is a real experience of Reality, an authentic experience of the Reality that is God, not the belief, the idea, the concept, of who God is. The whole point is that we can continue to believe and, at the same time, be the same old people. And it is natural that this causes us some feelings of discouragement, suffering, self-censorship, anger, guilt, because we want to get it right, we want to live a divine life, but we have an idea of what a divine life represents, what a divine life means. We have an ideal of what a divine life is, but this is based on a belief, and it doesn't work, because there is no awareness of the reality of what we are. We need to verify the truth about who we are, or about what we express ourselves to be at this moment. We have to empty all this content of this ego identity, this illusory identity that we are, that we demonstrate to be, that we present ourselves to be in life, in our relationships.
Our relationships are with people, with objects, properties, with ourselves, with the world around us. As long as we maintain a conflicting relationship condition, full of dilemmas, conflicts, problems with others, with ourselves, with life, we have no knowledge of the Truth, we have no knowledge of God. So, we just stay on the ground or on the field of belief.
There is no point in maintaining these statements. We are too attached to these statements, clinging very much to these statements. This may bring emotions, this may bring pleasant feelings, but all of this is still within the “I,” within the ego, within the illusion of someone present. I don't know if that's clear. It is just about observing, looking at ourselves and we will come across what happens, what takes place when we are just intellectually attached to ideas, to all this bookish, theoretical, conceptual, and word formation about God, about Truth.
We have to let go of that, go beyond that. Thus, we can approach something outside this limitation, this programming; thus, we can directly verify this Truth – the awareness of What we are when the sense of what we present ourselves to be, what we seem to be in the “I,” the ego, is no longer present. This is where we find the contradiction between what we are in the “I,” in the ego – which is what we appear to be – and a whole ideal of being different from that, of achieving something different from that. All of this is still part of this projection, which is the projection of the ego. OK?
GC: Today it is a lightness to be listening to the Master and to be able to embark a little on this sharing of the Master's Presence, because, on this journey, I have always been very dedicated to reading a lot. I read for hours, one, two hours, three hours a day and also did meditation practices, one, two, three hours a day. And yet there was a very strong, deep-down uneasiness. There were moments when it seemed like it wasn't there, but, after a while, I noticed it. And another point that the Master mentioned, which happened to me: when I had an episode in which I was angry, I felt tremendous guilt for feeling angry. Because, wow... I'm studying “there is only God,” “there is only this One Life,” how am I going to be angry? Then, I suppressed that anger as much as possible and went through a process of self-blame, self-punishment, for feeling angry. Can you talk a little more about this?
MG: So, the whole issue, Gilson, lies exactly in this. We don't come into direct contact with what we are, we stay with a theory about what we should be. It's like being here with the idea that we should be there. So, we stay in the field of theory, concept, and ideation.
What is present in this moment is fear or anger, that is what we have. What we have is what we are, and we need to deal with it, deal with this feeling, this feeling. This is what we have to work on, not with a concept, not with a theory. So, it is very common for us to intellectually approach a given thing without a full direct understanding of the truth of its implication. Because we do not have an understanding of the totality of that, we remain intellectually approaching it. What we need to realize is that the intellect does not deal with reality, it deals with words, it deals with ideas, it deals with concepts. We are dealing with this reality here: the reality of what is, of what is here.
Our so-called “spiritual life,” or “religious life,” is very linked to two very interesting aspects. The first is this aspect of intellectuality, of credulity, of beliefs, of concepts, of words, and another second aspect is of experience – and here I refer to the experience that has already been. So, either we trust the words, which are merely intellectual, a set of ideas we have about that, or we trust experiences that have already gone through. We need to be aware of what is here and deal with it. So, this so-called “trust” in ideas – I want to repeat: this does not work – and this trust in experiences that we have already been through is still within this “I,” which is the experiencer, which is the ego.
We here are in touch with the present moment. In this present moment, the “I” is revealing itself, the ego is revealing itself. Examining this, verifying this, becoming aware of this is the basis for going beyond this. So, the vision of this, which is here, in this instant, which manifests here, in this instant, is the end to this condition. So, something new is present when the sense of “I,” of ego, is no longer there. We need to discover the truth about this “I” in order to go beyond it or, otherwise, we will always remain in this movement of guilt, annoyance, and anger. This unexamined, uninvestigated movement, which is the movement of the “I,” is conflict, it is contrariness. It’s like the case you just mentioned: internal states of contradiction – “I am in fact this, but I have an ideal of being that other thing.” It is necessary to let go of this, to get rid of it, thus discovering the truth about this “I,” about this “me.”
So, having an approach of the truth about Self-Awareness, which implies the presence of True Meditation, is something fundamental, it is the only thing that, in reality, matters, it is the only thing that, in reality, matters. All right? This is the point! Every movement foreign to this is still an ego movement, which needs to be investigated, which needs to be seen and thus released; then, it is discarded.
Having an approach to what is present here, at this moment, is essential. We cannot be trapped in this model of feeling and emotion. Reality is something that is beyond emotion, feeling, and intellect. The totality of our Being is something that transcends the particularity of this movement, which is the movement of the “I.” By the way, it is a completely illusory movement, which is based on sensations. This is the cultivation of intellect; this is the cultivation of feeling and emotion. We can't trust that. We have to have an approach of totality, of totality of Being.
A real understanding is something that shows us the Truth of Life as It is, beyond this condition of feeling, emotion, and intellect, because if this is not investigated, it is still in the service of the ego, it is still in the service of the “I”! So, this work on ourselves is fundamental: having a vision of the truth of this entire process of ego-identity. We have to dispense with this idealism, we have to dispense with these ideas, these concepts about what we should be, where we should be, what we should achieve, and deal with what is here. When we learn to deal with it without putting the sense of an identity – which is the “I” – rejecting, fighting, trying to discipline, coordinate it, when we just learn to look at each and every movement of thought, feeling, emotion, and sensation, when we become aware of what the “I,” here, is, then Reality beyond this “I” is present. This requires work on ourselves, an awareness of the Truth about who we are. That´s it!
GC: The Master touched on a point that I would like you to explore and investigate further. I, for example, when studying... It was very common for me to feel an emotion, a joy, studying, reading, being moved, being touched by beautiful words. And, for me, I was taught, within this spiritual journey, that “intellectual” was only when we read it coldly, but when there was an emotion, a feeling, it would be real, and in that I believed until I was able to come across the Master and see that this real approach is something completely different. But can the Master further explore and investigate this difference from what is a real understanding to what is a mere feeling, sensation, and emotion?
MG: That's the mistake, Gilson! The “I,” the ego, lives in sensation. So, everything we, in the ego, learned throughout a lifetime centered on this “I” was to live in this movement of sensation. Truth is not a sensation. It is not within a feeling, an emotion, and, as we have just said, it is not within a set of ideas, that is, it is not within thought. Reality is Reality. It is not part of that which is within the known or recognizable by this body-mind model, it is not part of this model structure of feeling and thinking as the ego knows and recognizes. The Truth… when It is present, we have something else. It is nameless, It is indescribable, It is outside the movement of the recognizable, memory, and experience!
Maybe, you try to imagine It. Every imagination is something within the still recognizable. Imagination is still a projection of thought, within its old model, creating something that, apparently, it does not know, but, in fact, as it is part of it, it is still part of what is recognizable to it. It's still just a projection! Reality is present when there is this Silence, this Stillness.
We have some contact in this way with the Reality of this indescribable and immeasurable thing. When, for example, we are in contact with nature and the mind has a complete emptying of all its content... When you, for example, look at a landscape and, in that look, the sense of “I” does not enter. There is something present in this look when this landscape and this look are no longer distinct and separate things. There is only one contact, and that contact is contact with a new feeling. Every thought, at that moment, disappears; all emotion, all feeling is gone. There is something present that is indescribable... a state of Bliss, of Freedom, of intense presence of something that thought cannot capture, that feeling cannot capture, that emotion cannot capture. That lasts a few seconds, then thought arises trying to name That, describe That, make That recognizable to itself, but it can't! We cannot capture these moments.
So, we all go through moments in life where the sense of “I,” of the ego, of this model of thinking and feeling common to all of us, is not present: on the edge of a beach, in front of a lake, in front of a sunset.... when you come across a starry night and there is just this look, this new and indescribable feeling, which is not the old feeling based on sensation, imagination, desire, thought... none of that is present. So, we have a moment here of contact with a Reality, which is the Reality of the Unknown, which is the Reality of God.
Becoming aware, at this moment, of this same Reality, driving the car or talking to someone, dealing with business, in living, moment by moment, that is what we are dealing with here; to become aware of this Divine Reality that is here and now, in this instant, in this moment, then we have the presence of the Truth, the Truth of this Real Consciousness, which is Meditation.
GC: The Master touched a point... for me, what happened, Master: when something bothered me or I was angry – I have two small children, so for children to get a father out of his mind, who is immersed the ego, is very easy... and then what happened to me, Master: I ran to my little room to meditate, to enter into “peace” again. And, with the Master, by Grace, after I met the Master, I saw what a tremendous escape it was, and, by Grace – this was in the first Satsang… first or second Satsang with Master –, this was swept away from my consciousness, in the sense that this feeling of guilt no longer appears and to really lives, staying in this experience, as the Master mention.
MG: This so-called “meditation” is what everyone practices, but what is the truth of this model of meditation? It's an escape, it's an escape! I have been saying that we entered a trench and were temporarily protected there. This is not Real Meditation. There is no truth of the understanding of what we are when we are in this self-forgetfulness, due to this model of placing ourselves within a condition. Gilson, we put thought within a model. This is not the truth of Meditation. The truth of Meditation is nothing like what we know. The reality of Meditation is in the contact with what is here, at this moment. When we go into a psychological trench and protect ourselves from this emotional pain, this emotional suffering, we are simply in a state of self-hypnosis. This is not Meditation. There is no truth to this pattern, to this model of meditation.
The truth of Meditation requires Self-Awareness, it requires an approach to ourselves in this moment, here in this instant, in the face of what is presented here. We have to discover this, we have to understand this, we have therefore to study ourselves. So, we have the opportunity to have contact with the truth of who we are. Otherwise, we will just be in another deception, in another illusion, in another fantasy of the “I” itself.
GC: Master, our time has passed, thank you for this videocast. And for you who are watching the video: leave a comment, already mark the “like” on the video... in the comment, you can ask questions for us to bring to the next videocasts, and, mainly, for you who feel something different about look into Master Gualberto's eyes, you are invited to come to face-to-face and online meetings, which are called Satsangs, which take place on weekends, and also retreats, to be able to delve deeper into this investigation and to be able to embark on this sharing of Presence of the Master, which is the Real Freedom that is beyond words, that is beyond beliefs. It is an experience out of words, I am really thankful, Master. Thank you for this videocast.
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