GC: Hello everyone! We are here for another videocast. Again, Master Gualberto is here with us. Thank you very much, Master, for your presence.
Master, today I'm going to read an excerpt from Joel Goldsmith's book, called “Arrows on the Infinite Way.” In an excerpt from this book, Master, Joel says the following: “Every moment we waste living in the past is a moment of life without God.” Master, can you give us your vision of what it is to live in the now, how to live in the now?
MG: This question of “now” is something we have to understand. For example, the person, in general, has this doubt, he believes – and that is why he asks questions exactly of this type – he asks: “How can I live in the now?” There is something here, Gilson, that we need to understand. What is the true nature of the person, this personal sense, this “being someone”? Note, this is nothing other than a movement within us, in this psychological model of being, where what is present is only memory, only remembrance, only thought, and that is, by nature, the past. Anything you, for example, tell me about yourself, you will be reporting, declaring, making a statement based on thought. And this thought is memory and, therefore, part of the past.
So, what we consider as a present person, an entity present in this moment, and we talk about it, and we act from it, we feel from it, we move from it, this movement is always the movement, naturally, of the past. So, this sense of person is the past! When someone asks, “How can I live in the Now?”... You simply cannot live in the Now! The presence of Now, this Now, is not the presence of someone, it is the presence of Divine Reality. So, you see, all we need is to become aware, in reality, of this Being, to become aware of this Now, this Reality that is beyond the known, that is beyond clock time, that is beyond this time that we call “present,” which stands between the past and the future.
So, the Reality of Being is now, but it is not the person living in the Now. The person is time. The image we have about who we are will always be dealing with the present moment from the viewpoint of the past. Let's make this clearer here: for example, my relationship with you based on the memories I have about who you are and based on the idea I have about who I am, is a relationship based on the past, and it is how our egoic life has been constituted. We are constantly living in the past, because we are living in this identification with the person, in this personal sense of being someone. We are always living within this self-image pattern, having images of everything around us based on the past, based on remembrances, which are thoughts.
We need to go beyond this condition, because this is the condition of the present person, the present egoic entity, and if it is present, there is no Reality of this Being, this Truth of Now, this Divine Truth. So, our work here consists of becoming aware of the Reality of Being, discovering what life is, outside this consciousness of “I,” which is a consciousness that moves in time: past, present and future. Notice that we are constantly, Gilson, moving into the past based on memories that arise, on remembrances that arise. The person is present and they are captured by a memory, by a remembrance, and they go to the past or they go to the future.
The future is what thought imagines, naturally, based on the past. So, we live in the ego – in this model of egoic identity, of person, in this sense of “I” – in the past or in the future, and the only interest of the ego, of the “I,” in this present moment, is what it will take from here to get something for itself in the future. Or something it will take from this moment to get rid of something from the past! This is quite interesting: this present moment holds no interest for the ego, unless it can take something from this present moment for itself. So, the person, for example, is currently distressed. His anguish has nothing to do with this moment, it has to do with a past condition. So, at this moment, the only thing that the person does, because of this addictive pattern of living as an entity in time, as an ego-identity, as a person, is to extract something from this moment to get anguished, to become depressed, to punish oneself, to regret. And all this is a movement of the past.
In the ego we live, Gilson, within a condition where we are alienated from the Divine Reality, since this Divine Reality is this Being, here and now, when the ego is not. We live either in the past or in the future. So, the person is present imagining what they will gain or imagining what they need to get rid of, or they are in the present – that is the person, the sense of “I”... or they are in the present suffering for what happened, punishing themselves, or feeling all kinds of feelings, where the sense of “I” takes on a great importance, in this state of suffering, where basically the ego lives on, in this self-compassion, in this look at himself, feeling like a victim, feeling like he is suffering and trying to find an explanation, even to justify why he is suffering so much. But this suffering is just a model of thinking that comes from the past.
So, the ego lives within this condition and this, naturally, is an alienation from the Divine Reality, which is present at this moment. The interesting thing here, Gilson, is that we don't become aware of the beauty of this moment, because psychologically we are living in the person. And that's why I said just now: a person does not know and will never know what it is to live in the Now, because all a person knows is the movement of the own egoic center, the own “I,” and that is the movement of this psychological time that thought has constructed. It's basically like this.
GC: Master, within this theme, within spirituality, there is this concept of practicing “being present.” In other words, I am doing an action and I am present – me doing the action and thinking at that moment. But the Master has a very broad and different view of this. Can the Master talk a little about it?
MG: The Reality of this moment does not require the model of the thinker. See how interesting this is. Here, at this moment, the only function of thought is in a practical and objective way for very basic subjects. For example, if you are going to report something to me and you are going to tell me something, you will tell me based on information you have, on knowledge you have. This information is something that, for me, will be useful if it is technical. So, if you have technical information to give me, and we are working together, thought is necessary, because you will be communicating to me technical, functional, practical, objective information, so that we can deal with something professional, which is here at this moment, with a job, with an activity. But, in general, that's not how we're functioning. We are functioning in thought, in what I have called “psychological thought,” the thought that guides a present identity that is placed in images that it has formed.
My contact, for example, with you could be on this practical, objective level, right now, or it could be based on that memory I have about you, of something you did to me, and I'm still offended, or hurt, or upset with that. Who is this one in this way, offended, upset and hurt by that? The image I make of myself in this relationship with you. So, you, for me, are an image. The image of a person I don't like, because they mistreat me. Mistreating who? Me. What is this “I”? A self-image. Who are you? An image that I have formed about you. So, our relationships, at this level, are relationships between images and, therefore, are not real relationships at all. This is how our relationships between people have happened. At this level, we are always within a condition of relationships based on images, and these relationships are conflicting, because there is no truth in it, it is pure insanity, because they are within this dysfunctional thought, present in the ego, present in this self-image.
Our human relationships, Gilson, are situated within this condition, ok? Now I'm going to touch on the other subject: as for dealing with the instant, with the present moment, see, we don't need thought. My contact with you needs to be a contact free from this self-image, the image I have of myself and the image I have of you. It's that simple! For the ego, this is practically impossible, because it lives in this self-image, it needs this self-image. And everything it knows about relationships is based on that. So, this game of love and hate between people, of friendship and enmity, of liking and disliking, it is all a game based on this self-image.
Now, I'll reiterate this: when it comes to dealing with the present moment, we don't need thinking. Notice, thought doesn't deal with what's here. No thought is dealing with anything here, right now. When you come across, for example, with something, thought appears as a memory reaction, as a reaction of the knowledge acquired in the brain to recognize that experience, but this is something that comes from the past. This recognition comes from the past, but this is the model of the addiction of the thought of getting involved in everything. Gilson, we don't need thought, at this moment. We just need this Presence, this Consciousness, this Being, this Natural State of Being. This is the Reality of the Now, not the truth of someone here and now. When someone appears here, now, what there is, is the past, illusion.
So, when people come up to you and say, “Oh, I need to live in the now!”, what are they talking about? They don't know what they are saying! The Reality of this Now is exactly the absence of the person, and dealing with this moment does not require the presence of thought, since thought is something that always comes from the past. Except, I repeat, that functional, technical thinking that we need, like: if you're going to give me the address of your house, you use thought, and that's it, it's finished, but that's not how we're dealing with thought. Thought is constantly interfering in this instant, in this moment, creating a complete alienation from the beauty of what is here. A beauty that can only be contemplated from this gaze free from the center, free from the “I,” free from the ego, free from that “me,” free from the past.
People want to make use of some techniques to discover the beauty of the Now, but the person, whatever he can do, will be within his own movement. That’s why we’ve been saying, Gilson, that meditation, for example – which is this attempt to enter this present moment, this attempt made through a technique, through a practice, through an exercise – it is still the presence of the “I,” of the ego, of the meditator, trying to find something called “meditation.” So, you even obtain a certain psychological result within a certain technique or practice. You can even obtain a certain result through a technique or practice, to be “present” here in the now, but you will still be present.
This is not a real work of Self-awareness, since this work of Self-awareness is the verification of this model of separation between the present Reality and an identity that sees itself separate from this present Reality, based on thoughts, feelings, and very particular stories, happening and having an observer, still, behind it, wanting to do something, managing something, in this sense, managing thoughts, emotions, perceptions. I don't know if this is very clear here, maybe for someone hearing it for the first time, but that's basically it. The Reality of the moment is so complete that, when dealing with this moment without this ego, without this sense of a person, there is a natural flow of Intelligence, of Divine Presence, of Stillness, of Peace, of Silence, and everything takes on a real place, when the “I,” the ego, is not there. That's it.
GC: Master, we have a question here from a subscriber to the channel. He asks the following question: “So the ‘I’, the ego, is the fruit of thought?”
MG: The sense of someone present, which is this sense of “I,” of the ego, is one among many other thoughts. When we use the pronoun “I,” we are in thought – and it is only in thought – identifying a character, a present character, a person present here in this experience, a person who has a name and a story. So, the word or pronoun “I” is something that thought expresses as being its first name, the first name for this supposedly present entity. When we use the expression “I,” we are referring to the idea of someone present within experience. If we make use of this in a way free from the illusion of an egoic identity, fine! It's just a pronoun to make yourself understood. Generally, this is not the case. We use the pronoun “I” giving the idea that there is really a person present, in the sense of an identity that is loaded with a self-image. When it is present, it uses the pronoun “I” to refer to oneself as someone who is important, who cannot be hurt, insulted, offended, or who is feeling depressed, anxious, humiliated, mistreated, rejected.
So, it is in this sense that we use the pronoun “I” referring to this self-image, which is basically a construct of thought, because it has no reality other than the illusion of an identity, where there is this feeling, thought, emotion and sensation, but it is something completely produced by this psychological condition of conditioning in which human beings have been living for millennia. Discarding this is the Realization of Truth, it is the Awareness that there is something, yes, present, but that something present is not thought, it is not the “I,” it is not the sense of someone... It is this Reality that is outside of all of it! So, yes, the “I”-thought is a thought, and this sense of the “I,” of the ego, of this “me,” is entirely a creation of thought.
Thought is the basis that gives structure to this dream of duality, of separation. This “I” lives in this model, protecting itself, supporting itself and projecting itself in this time, which is a time that thought has created. So, it has the idea of coming from the past, of living in this present moment and moving towards the future, always thinking about achieving something in the future or getting rid of something there, something it brings from the past. And that's how we've been functioning.
GC: I'll take this opportunity to comment: the Master brings these meetings, Satsangs, which are weekend meetings, both intensive online and in person. And there was a meeting, one of the first meetings I participated in, in an intensive online meeting, where the Master was carrying out this investigation, exactly of this nature of thought, of the “I”… and after a while, it became very clear to me, there was a clarity, an internal understanding of how much this “I” that I think I am, that this center is just another thought repeating itself, and how this is accompanied by humanity, a story not only of this life, but a story of the past, it ends up that it always repeats itself, repeating itself... And, in Satsang, by being in the company of the Master, in this Silence of the Master, I was able to embark on this ride of the Master's Presence to realize how much this “I,” this ego, it's just an idea, just a thought.
When we talk about this, Gilson, it sounds very strange to someone who listens at first, because he has no idea of all the noise that thought produces inside his head. Thoughts are constantly moving in our brains and are mere responses or reactions to the present moment, to what is happening and what is being perceived by the senses, eyes, ears or touch. So, thought is always reacting to all stimuli, both external and internal, in such a quick and voluminous way – and there is in us, at first, such a great unconsciousness – that a speech like this doesn't make any sense at all, because we have the absolute certainty that we are present and that we are someone, and that we are thinking, we are feeling, we are doing... which, in fact, is not real, because everything we are, at the moment, doing is just happening, There is no one in this movement. What there is, is a response from this body-mind to a conditioning program, in a way so unconscious and mechanical that we cannot even be aware of it, at first.
Once you approach a work like this, you have the opportunity to investigate the nature of thought, that structure and nature of feeling, of emotion, of sensation, of your reactions. So, at that moment, a space of silence opens up in the brain, where new attention emerges and the penny begins to drop. But, at first, the psychological conditioning is so strong, so powerful, that we are not aware of the truth of what is happening here, in the brain, inside each one of us, because the sense of “I” has completely taken over this structure, this body-mind.
So, in that contact, you have the opportunity, by a mysterious action of Silence, of this Presence, of this Grace, to begin to have some glimpses of something beyond this condition, because, yes, it is a psychological condition of insanity. This is the condition in which human beings find themselves, and it is very simple for us to perceive this: the presence of fear, anger, envy, jealousy, all forms of internal confusion, restlessness, internal chatter, which human beings live… It's very simple for us to understand this. After a certain moment of investigation, it begins to become clear, but this requires, yes, the presence of this Silence, this Grace, of something that touches us, until, in fact, we turn to this investigation and have these glimpses of the realization of this Reality. That's it.
GC: Master, that's exactly what happened to me, for example, because I was completely unaware of the madness of thoughts and thoughts and thoughts. From the moment I started to get closer to this work, to participate in the intensive weekend meetings, something was being noticed, something was being investigated, as the Master does in Satsangs, he helps us in this investigation. Until it becomes clear, we begin to see this internal madness and how complete the identification with thoughts and feelings is. And then, by Grace and in this “embarking” in the Presence of the Master, we begin to have these glimpses, which are beyond words, beyond what can be translated into words.
But, Master, our time is already over. Thank you for this videocast. For those of you who are watching the video, leave a “like,” bring any comments, any doubts, any questions for us to bring to the next meetings and, above all, for you who want to intensify this investigation, be able to actually see these thoughts, you are invited to participate in the intensive weekend meeting, which are these Satsang meetings, online and in person. The first comment, pinned, will have the WhatsApp link for additional information.
Master, gratitude for this meeting.
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