GC: Hello, everyone! We are here for another videocast. Once again, Master Gualberto is here with us. Thank you, Master, for being here. Today, I am going to read an excerpt from Joel Goldsmith’s book called “Arrow on the Infinite Way.” In an excerpt from this book, Master, Joel gives the following comment: “The reason we believe in what is good for us is the memory of yesterday’s manna, that is, of the things we liked in our past and that we would like to have more of. Forgetful, as we are, that every moment of each day is a new beginning.” Master, in this excerpt Joel comments on what we believe to be good for ourselves, on memories, on desires. Can the Master share his vision of how to overcome these limitations, how to overcome desires?
MG: Gilson, to fear and desires is to overcome the past. You ask how to overcome desires… It is something similar to how to overcome fears. In general, we do not realize that, in the presence of desire, some level of fear is hidden, in a veiled form. Fear carries desire and desire carries fear, and this is something that is sustained in this psychological condition, which is the psychological condition of the “I,” of the ego. You ask how to overcome fear and desire, something like overcoming the past: by becoming aware of the movement of the past, as well as of fear and desire.
In general, we are not aware of the movement of consciousness itself. This consciousness in us, which is the consciousness of the “I,” is a movement of thought that comes from the past and that is constantly projecting itself into the future based on memories, on remembrances. We do not investigate, Gilson, the nature and structure of the “I,” the basis of its existence, the basis of the existence of this “me,” of this person. So, we are living within this condition, within the present conflicts and contradictions, both in fear and in desire. Breaking with the past means ending fear, ending desire, but that is the end of this “I,” this ego, this “me.”
Your question is: “How does this become possible?” By learning about ourselves. Once you start becoming aware of your reactions, you will realize what you are, you will become aware that we are nothing else in the egoic mind other than envy, jealousy, anger, guilt, desires, and fears.
We are nothing else but a reaction that comes from the past and takes over this moment. So, the experience of the moment – since this past is present, interfering, interacting with the moment – the truth of this moment is the truth of the “I,” it is the truth of the ego. That is why there is so much complication in our lives, there is so much disorder and suffering, because our relationship with people, for example, is a relationship that is based on the past.
It may seem that you know the people you deal with every day. Maybe you say: “Oh, I have known my wife for fifteen years, my husband for twenty years.” The question for you is: how do you know him if, in fact, you do not even know yourself yet? Because we have a belief, which is the belief that we know who we are. All you have about yourself is a thought about who you are, conclusions and beliefs about who you are, something that is nothing more than an imagination. The greatest certainty about yourself is that which thought gives you.
But what is basically thought? It is memory, it is the past. The images that come from the past give you the idea of who you are now here. So, what you have about yourself is the past, it is an imagination! What you have about the other is also an imagination, because they are remembrances that you have kept of him or her, of experiences that you had with him or her, but they are records of memory, something linked to thought. And what is the truth about thought? Thought is a reaction of memory. For example: I ask your name and you tell me your name, but a name is not you, it is a word, which is a thought.
When, for example, I ask you to tell me something about yourself, all you can tell me about yourself is what thought has established there, as a remembrance of everything you did or happened to you – to this body, to this mind –, and you tell me about it. This report is a story, it is a remembrance, it is a memory, it is something that thought is telling, but you have not yet told me who you are when you tell your story, just as when you say your name, and when you make affirmations, also called “spiritual”: “I am the Self,” “I am Consciousness,” “I am the Spirit,” “I am the son of God” ... These are also reports of thought, which you tell me, but you continue to bring a report of thought, you have not yet managed to tell me the Truth about yourself. And why not? Because the Reality about you is not in the known, it is not part of thought, it is not part of this story, it is not part of your images, of any image you have about yourself.
That is what we are investigating here, becoming aware of, here. Once this is clear, there comes the end of the past and, when the past ends, the conflict of desires disappears, the conflict of fear disappears. The Reality of your Being, in this Reality, there is no fear, there are no desires, there are no conflicts, there is no suffering. It is essential that we have an approach to ourselves, within a new understanding; an understanding that only becomes possible when thought is not there, and not when it gives answers based on knowledge, on experiences, which are remembrances, which are memories.
We need to go beyond, Gilson, beyond thought, beyond the sense of “I,” of “me,” of this “someone,” beyond this memory, experience, and knowledge. Then, yes, there is a present Reality, but this Reality is not part of thought or of anything else that thought has to say. Anything else that thought has to say, or has to tell us, will still be part of thought, it will still be something within the movement of thought itself. This understanding is very important here: the understanding that thought only deals with what is known, with what it knows and recognizes.
Anything you can say, you will say based on words, and words are symbols, they are images, they are mental representations. Right here, at this moment, it is impossible for us to deal with Reality at the level of words! We can be aware of Reality, because It is the nature of That which we are, but it is not part of the mind, it is not part of the known, it is not part of thought. Can we have access to That? The answer is: yes, when the “I” is not there, the ego is not there, when the mind is silent, when we are beyond the limitation of thoughts. That is when we break with this notion of past, present, and future.
So, when you ask us for a vision of how to overcome this, overcoming it is possible when there is stillness, a silencing of the mind. Looking at how you function here, at this moment, becoming present, conscious, seeing your reactions very clearly, is to place this vision in this moment. This vision, as you put it in your question, is the vision that arises when there is Attention. Bringing Mindfulness to this moment is becoming aware of how the mind works. In general, we are living life completely unaware of the movement of the thinker, of the experiencer, of this present element that is thought, with its feeling, its emotion, its sensation, assuming this space, which is the space of the “I.”
So, there is a consciousness, Gilson, which is a personal consciousness. This personal consciousness moves in this way: when you praise me, I feel happy with you and I like you; when you criticize me, I feel unhappy and I can get angry at you. But who is this element here that one moment is happy when praised and, the next moment, if criticized, becomes sad or angry? We are faced with an element that is functioning based on a mistaken structure, which is the structure of memory. A memory that has created a self-image of itself and placed the illusion of an identity present in this self-image, which is the “I.”
So, this feeling, thought, and sensation that you have as “someone” is this self-image, it is the illusion of a present identity, which is discarded when there is a direct understanding that this is nothing more than an imagination. It is evident that this requires this new look, it requires the presence of this Attention, the understanding that these are habitual, mechanical, unconscious reactions, arising from the past at every moment. In this way we break the continuity of the “I,” the continuity of the ego, we eliminate this movement that comes from the past. This is interesting here: it is a movement that comes from the past, but it sustains itself in this present moment, seeking continuity for the so-called “future” that it projects itself, within this format of action based on reaction.
The feeling you have is the feeling of being someone feeling, just as the thought you have is the thought within illusion, the construct of a thinker thinking. Experiences occur based on an experiencer living these experiences; this is how our psychological life has been situated. And this physical life, this movement of being someone in existence, moves based on this psychological model of egoic existence, of egocentric existence. Thus, our activities are egocentric, our behavior is egocentric, our way of conducting life based on the criteria of the past is totally egoic.
Breaking out of this condition requires work, requires looking, requires paying attention to all of this. This is why we have emphasized the importance of Self-awareness, because it is when you study yourself that you discover the illusion of this movement, the illusion of this sense of someone present moving, desiring something in the future. It is thought that creates this future, based on remembrances, which are remembrances of the past. It is thought that sustains the fear of something bad in the future. You are always afraid based on thoughts, of something that could happen in the future, that you experienced in the past and that could happen again, or something that you do not want for yourself in the future, based on bad and unpleasant memories and remembrances of the past. See, it is always the movement of thought sustaining this continuity, maintaining this way of feeling, of thinking, sustaining fear and desire.
GC: Master, we have a question here from a subscriber on the channel, a subscriber named Raimundo. He asks the following question: “But who is it that observes and understands the illusions or manifestations of the intellect?”
MG: See, Gilson, this is a very interesting question, and it comes up very often. We are so used to the idea of an experience for the experiencer, of a thought for the thinker, of an emotion for a present element, which is this emotional “I,” that we are unable to perceive that Life is possible without this element, that there is a present Reality that makes everything possible, without carrying an identity. So, in our thinking, because of this model of thinking that we have, where there is this duality – which is the presence of the thinker for the thought, of the experiencer for the experience, of the emotion for the emotional one – we are unable to perceive that Life is only what happens and there is no present element that is separate from Life. This element is the idea of the “I.”
When you ask: “And who becomes aware of these illusions?” There is only the awareness of illusion! The Truth of the awareness of illusion is the end of illusion; it is simply like that. There is no one becoming aware of illusions, there is only awareness, and the awareness of illusion is the Truth. In other words, when there is a comprehension of illusion, there is no more illusion; when there is a comprehension of duality, there is no more duality. It is not an element that becomes aware of duality, it is not an element that becomes aware of illusion. You have some moments in your life when Life is present and, curiously, you are not. But these moments are not perceived! Exactly, they are not perceived because they do not receive the value of the perceiver. They are not observed because, at that moment, the observer is not there, but there are moments in your life when there is only Life and there is no “someone.”
When you, for example, are before a sunset, there is a moment of stillness and silence, of complete absence of separation between you and that splendor, and that beauty, and that moment. It is an instant of cerebral, intellectual, mental, also emotional and physical stillness. In front of the immensity of a starry sky at night, when your face turns and contemplates that, that immensity… In that instant, a moment of silence, for a few seconds, is present, and in that instant, there is no observer observing, there is only observation. This is because there is no thought at that moment, coming in like a curtain between that starry sky and you. There is no “you,” there is only the starry sky, just as on that beach there is only that immensity of water, those rocks or that sunset.
This is why we enjoy contact with nature, because in some moments, for a few seconds, the sense of “I,” of the ego, of that “me,” disappears. This is when only the realization of Reality, which is Life, is present. Thus, the Truth of the Revelation of your Being is here, it is now. It is this Reality present without the observer, without the thinker, without this element in feeling. So, it is Life happening! Thus, emotion is present, sensation, perception or thought, but there is no longer the element that separates itself as being the thinker, the element of sensation in feeling or of perception.
Life is what happens without this element that stands as the thinker, as the experiencer, as the observer. And when this ends, something new is present. This new something is the Unknown. So, yes, there is a new way of feeling, thinking and acting, but this no longer comes from the past, it is no longer born from this element present in this format of duality: the thinker and thought, the experiencer and experience, the observer and the one who observes. It is Life, Life happening. So, the awareness of illusion is possible, but not for someone in this awareness, because the awareness of illusion is the end of illusion. There is a Reality that is unnamable, indescribable, present, that is outside of thought, outside of memory, outside of the past. This is the Reality of your Being; it is the Divine Reality.
GC: Master, we have another question from another subscriber here on the channel. Salete asks the following question: “Master, are these thoughts memories and is the ego an illusion, an idea of the past that is gone?”
MG: Wait, wait… This idea that the ego is a memory of the past, something that is gone, that is just a thought. We are dealing with what is here, at this moment. What shows itself as a reaction that comes from the past is something that is present here. In this sense, the presence of the “I,” of the ego, is the presence of the reaction. So, it is not something that is gone, it is something that shows itself here and that is constantly reacting in this movement that comes from the past, which is thought. Once you become aware of this, it is clear that it disappears, and then there is the end of the “I,” the end of the ego, in this moment… the end of this illusion.
We have to be careful with this approach. Work is necessary to truly have the end of this identity that is the “I,” which is the ego, which is, in fact, a movement that comes from the past, but which is sustained by this inattention. That is why we are working on this together, becoming aware of this Truth, and the awareness of this Truth is the Truth taking its place, ending this illusion, ending this continuity of the reactive movement of thought.
GC: Thank you, Master, our time is over now. Thank you for this videocast.
And for those of you who are following the videocast until the end and have a sincere, real yearning for understanding these truths, I invite you to participate in the meetings that Master Gualberto offers, which are meetings called Satsang. These are live, weekend meetings, in an online format, and there are also in-person meetings, including retreats. These meetings are much deeper than these videos, because the meetings are live, so we can ask the Master our questions directly.
And, in addition, the most interesting thing about these meetings is that the Master shares this State of Presence in which he lives, and, in this sharing of Presence, we end up getting a lift with Master's energy. And when we get involved in this State of Presence, which is Silence, which is Grace, which the Master lives in, it ends up making it much easier for us to perceive all this madness of our thoughts within ourselves, so that we can have a vision beyond all the limitations of the intellect. So, here is the invitation.
In the first comment, pinned, there is the WhatsApp link to be able to participate in these meetings. In addition, give the “like” to the video and ask questions for us to bring to the next videocasts.
And, once again, gratitude for the videocast, Master.
No comments:
Post a Comment