GC: Hello, everyone! We are here for another videocast. Once again, Master Gualberto is with us. Thank you very much, Master, for being here.
Today I am going to read an excerpt from Joel Goldsmith’s book called “Living between two worlds.” In an excerpt from this book, Master, Joel makes the following comment: “When inner peace comes, it shapes and reforms our outer life.” Master, can you tell us a little about this life chaos in the ego and also about what this True Peace is?
MG: Gilson, this topic of “peace” is something that has been talked about a lot. Since the beginning of time, human beings have talked about peace. Everyone loves to talk about peace! Priests talk about peace, politicians talk about peace, educators talk about peace, and those who give speeches often touch on this topic, which is the issue of peace. Talking about peace... When you say “tell us about peace,” look, Gilson, we have to investigate the truth of what is present here, what is the truth of what is present here, because talking about peace as a concept, an idea, a belief, an ideology, everyone is already doing that, and when we look at the world, we realize that there is no peace in the world.
So, we have to investigate, to get closer, take a closer look at what is present here. And what do we find here? It is not peace. What we find here is conflict, disorder, confusion, fear, contradiction, everything that the sense of “I,” of the ego, represents. We have to get rid of this and not make speeches about peace, and not keep talking about peace, when, in fact, what we are experiencing is something else. So, we are very biased, Gilson, to seek ideologies, to deal with what should be, to talk about what could be, to speculate about it, to write about it, to make speeches about it. And what should it be? It is peace! But what kind of peace is this, that should be?
We never get closer, Gilson, to the Truth of Peace. We always remain in these discourses, in these beliefs, in these concepts, in these sermons about the need for peace, the imperative need for this encounter of harmonious relations between us and so on, while, in fact, what we have is contradiction, is problem, is suffering, is envy, ambition, the search for power. And all of this is what is present here, and we are not dealing with it as it really shows itself. We are theorizing about something we do not know, which is the Truth of Peace.
Peace, Gilson, is something that is present when the ego is not there, when we are free from ambition, envy, jealousy, fear, from all the conflicts implied in the presence of desires, when there is no longer a search for power, personal fulfillment, when there are no longer divergences between opinions, ideas and beliefs… When we look at the world, we see that what there is, is exactly this: divergence of opinions, ideas, beliefs – political beliefs, religious beliefs… and if this is present, we do not know the Truth of Peace, because we do not know the Truth of non-separation, of non-duality.
The sense of the “I,” of the ego, Gilson, in its self-centeredness, does not know Peace. Everything it knows is that which is part of the model of thought, and everything that thought represents to the “I” is within what it seeks as its ideal of self-fulfillment. As long as there is, within each one of us, this way of thinking, acting, moving in the world, in life, based on this conditioning that we have received from this culture, this society, this model of the world, there will be no Peace, there will be no Love, there will be no Freedom, there will be no Happiness. We need to go beyond this, discovering Divine Reality, the Reality of God, becoming aware of something outside this model of the common mind, of the egoic mind, of the human mind as we know: a mind centered on the values of ambition, envy, the search for power, fulfillment, achievement.
This pattern of self-centeredness of the ego is what sustains confusion in the world. As long as there is suffering within each one of us, there will be suffering externally, because we are the confusion in the world. In this sense of the “I,” in this sense of the ego, all we do is sustain the disorder and, therefore, the absence of Peace.
GC: Master, we have a question here, from one of the channel subscribers, Salete. She asks the following question: “How can I abandon the ego that lives in a feeling of guilt?”
MG: Look at her question, it’s a great one: “How do we let go of the ego that carries this feeling of guilt?” In fact, the ego represents your world. The whole vision of the world you have is based on the vision you have about who you are within this context. So, everything we receive from culture, society, and the world has shaped this center that is the “I,” the ego. But is it just the feeling of guilt that is present? No, thought is present. See, it is the present thought bringing a memory, a remembrance, something that comes from the past. Our response to this moment, based on a recollection, a remembrance, a memory, is something that comes from the past. The truth about this is that this is bringing, for each one of us, at this moment, the illusion of an identity. So, this identity, which is the “I,” the ego, this “me,” is in guilt, but this “me,” this ego, is nothing other than thought itself, something that comes from the past.
Here, it is about becoming aware of this movement, which is the movement of thought, something that comes from the past. But it doesn't just bring guilt, it brings the story of the “I,” the story of the experiencer, of the thinker, of the one who supposedly lived that particular thing yesterday, which one regrets today. Then, there comes frustration, remorse, anger, guilt, but also fear, desire, and the way of looking at him or her based on a memory of unpleasant situations that you lived with him or her. See, this image is also something that thought produces, something that comes from the past.
So, our psychological condition, Gilson, in this life of the “I” is a condition of suffering, disorder, confusion, and conflict. Breaking with this is breaking with this model of being someone, and when this is broken, this condition of disorder, confusion, suffering and, therefore, conflict, disappears. That's when there is the presence of Peace, of Real Peace.
As it has already been said, we are unaware of the Truth of this Peace. We talk about it, but we don't know it; we talk about love, but we don't know it; about freedom, but we don’t know it; we talk about the absence of the ego and, therefore, about the freedom of not feeling guilty, but we don’t know the beauty of this absence of the ego. I say again: it’s not just guilt, it’s everything that the ego represents in this sense of being someone, in this old model that comes from the past, sustaining this present and moving towards this future that it also idealizes.
A closer look at the truth about yourself is the end of all this. You ask: “How can I abandon the ego?” By becoming aware of its movement at this moment, by perceiving all this play that thought builds, that it brings to this moment. And when it arrives here, at this moment, it brings “someone” with it, who is this “thinker,” who is this “experiencer,” who is the one who arrives, observes and wants to get rid of it. This “observer” is the one who appears and, upon seeing something that one doesn’t like, wants to get rid of it.
Notice how confusing this model of the “I” is! It wants to get rid of guilt, but it doesn’t want to get rid of pleasure. See, guilt here is a memory, something that comes from the past, but pleasure here is also a memory that comes from the past. So, the functioning of the ego is very confusing! It wants to get rid of what is unpleasant, but it wants to sustain what is pleasant. This sustaining of one thing is also the sustaining of the other, because it is the sustaining of the ego. We want to get rid of an ego that feels guilt, that feels anger, that feels fear, that suffers, but we do not want to get rid of the ego that is attached to pleasure, to desire, to the search for fulfillment and achievement, for satisfaction. We do not realize that all of this is still part of the movement of the ego. The one who sustains desire is the same one who sustains fear; the one who sustains pain is the same one who sustains pleasure. Breaking with all of this is the end of the ego, it is the end of this duality: pleasure/pain, desire/fear, joy/sadness. So, something new is present when illusion ends. The Awareness of this is the Revelation of God, it is the Revelation of your Being.
GC: Master, even on this subject that Salete mentioned, about guilt… I remember that, before I met the Master, I had a very strong feeling of guilt within me. Even, for example, within this spiritual journey, I had a meditation practice and, if I didn’t wake up early to do my meditation practice… wow! I would feel guilty the rest of the day, criticizing myself, condemning myself, because I didn’t wake up early to do what I had set out to do. And it’s interesting, Master, how I was completely unaware of this movement of guilt and I would get caught up in it. And I remember thinking: “Wow, a wasted day!”, just because I didn’t wake up and didn’t do what I had set out to do. So, it’s really impressive how, when we let ourselves be carried away by thoughts, by feelings, it’s just downhill.
MG: Yes, Gilson, the problem lies precisely in this lack of awareness of the thought model that we have. Understand one thing here, we are going to have a very clear approach with you now regarding this: our entire process of consciousness is the process of this mind as we know it, and the mind is nothing other than memories, remembrances. Some divide the mind into conscious and unconscious. So, what are recent memories, we call “consciousness”; the older, stored remembrances, we call “unconscious memory,” but they are also memories, they are still memories, they are still part of memory, therefore they are still thoughts. So, everything is thought!
If you have a recent memory, it easily shows itself. If I ask, for example, your name – we always go back to these very basic examples –, your name is part of this conscious memory, so you tell me your name. The brain has a quick response, practically in a few seconds. The brain has a quick response, you immediately say your name. Now, if I ask something that requires a little more time to emerge... Note, this extra few seconds for a memory to emerge is relative to a memory that is stored somewhere there, as a more remote part of the brain. And some memories are like that. If I ask: “Do you remember your childhood?”, you will stop for a moment and there will be a movement of thought within you, searching for that memory of when you were five years old, for example. You will look for there. This “search” is a movement of the brain itself in search of an answer to this challenge, it is a reaction that will be answered when the memory of when you were five years old appears.
So, some memories in us require a little more time to emerge, to appear. It is not like remembering your name or your address, or how old you are. If I ask you how old your mother is, you will stop for a moment to think about it. Your father's age, your grandmother's full name... you're going to look for it, and this “looking” is stopping for a bit and waiting, and waiting for this movement of brain response to emerge, for memory reaction to appear. This is a more hidden memory. So, we have more recent memories, easily accessible, and other more hidden memories, but all of this is part of this mind. So, what is the mind? It is this movement of memory. The mind divided into conscious and unconscious is nothing other than a set of recollections and remembrances.
That's how we function. This is the sense of the present “I,” this is the sense of being someone present here, in this moment. Everything you respond to from thought is responding from memory. So, in this sense of the “I,” of the ego, of this consciousness that we divide into conscious and unconscious mind, we are nothing other than recollections and remembrances. We are not aware of this movement, we have not discovered what it is to look at this movement, which is the movement of thought present in each one of us. We have not discovered the importance of following this, of becoming aware of this movement. We are confusing ourselves with this movement, which is the movement of thought. Thus, some remembrances arise and, with these remembrances, we get confused, we identify ourselves. In other words, we sustain an identity present in remembrances.
Notice how delicate all this is. When a memory arises, what is present is a response of the brain to a given stimulus that it has received. Whether this occurs consciously or unconsciously, whether you are clearly aware of it – in this sense, whether you are conscious of it – or whether you are not clearly aware of it, that means, whether it is processed or occurs unconsciously, all we are doing, all the time, is, based on memory, responding to a conscious or unconscious reaction.
Here, this happens to us throughout the day and we have not yet discovered the value of looking at this movement, which is the movement of consciousness, which is the movement of the mind. Thus, throughout the day, we are going through internal, psychophysical states of emotion, feeling, perception, sensation, based on thoughts, based on this structure that comes from the past. Thus, our reactions and responses in a dialogue with someone, or in a form of behavior, or in the expression of feeling or emotion, occur to us in a totally unconscious way, because we are not aware of the movement of thought itself, of these reactions. This is the movement of the ego.
Here, we are telling you, putting it in front of you, making you aware of the opportunity, of the great blessing of going beyond this model of unconsciousness through Self-awareness. Self-awareness is the approach of this look at these reactions, becoming aware of this model of thinking, feeling, getting emotional, acting in the relationship with him or her, in the relationship with life, in a relationship with yourself … Becoming aware of this is Self-awareness. When there is this basis, which is the basis of Self-awareness, there is a door that opens up, which reveals something beyond this way of feeling, thinking, getting emotional, responding, reacting to life, which is the old movement of the ego.
So, can we free ourselves from this condition of ego-identity? The answer to this is: yes, when we become aware of the movement of the “I” itself, when we learn to get closer to our reactions, when we learn to observe the mind. This observation requires a gaze free from the element that, when seeing something, may like or dislike it, may want more of that or less of that. This element is the “I,” it is the ego, it is the observer.
So, Gilson, the end of this condition of guilt or fear, or reaction of anger, of indifference, and everything else that we know in this ego-identity, the end of all this requires the presence of this looking without the observer. So, we are always being victimized by psychological states of suffering, conflict, contradiction, and emotional disorder, because we do not know ourselves, we do not perceive all this unconscious movement that takes place. We do not know how this mind works, how this consciousness works, how we are functioning in life.
GC: Thank you, Master! Our time has ended. Thank you for this videocast.
And for those of you who are truly interested in delving deeper, in understanding these subjects, we invite you to participate in the meetings that Master Gualberto provides, which are these meetings called “Satsang,” where the Master, in addition to answering our questions, because he already lives in this State of Awakened Consciousness, shares a Power, a Presence, a Grace, which makes it much easier for us to understand and investigate ourselves.
In the first comment pinned, there is the WhatsApp link to be able to participate in these meetings. Also, “like” the video, make a comment, bring questions for us to take to the next videocasts, and that’s it.
Thank you, Master!
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