This is the true way, the right way to approach life. We have a wrong way of doing it, it's the way through thought, through what experience represents. Perhaps you have this question inside you: how to get rid of suffering? The truth is that your approach to life is wrong. We approach this instant with thought, with experience.
When you go through situations, you keep them inside you, and when you approach that moment, you approach that moment with those situations that have been stored. It's very curious that we approach to look and see this, that our action at that moment is an adjustment to an intention, a desire, a motive of ours, a thought and a past experience. In my relationship with someone, there is no freedom, so in this contact, conflict is present.
Life is a mysterious movement. Life is always a new moment, but we approach life in this new moment with our past, with our experience, with our thoughts. So, we don't have new eyes for the moment, we don't have a new feeling for the instant. So, we have no contact with the other from that moment on, it's always from the past. Look and you'll see this, the thought in you translating the experience.
You bring experience from the past, thought translates that experience into the present moment, and all it does is take that present moment and interpret it. Your contact with your wife, with your children, with your family, with the people in your relationship are never free relationships, free from the past, free from thought, and this implies confusion.
You like some people, but you don't like other people. The people you like are an interpretation of you, of your experience, of your thoughts. The people you like and the people you don't like are all part of your past, all part of your fear, your desire, your problems. So, these people are projections of the “I.” This ” I ” is the one who, at that moment, is trying to adjust itself to what is happening in order to get something out of it.
When you come to these meetings, I talk to you about Reality, about Happiness. This is Something Real when thought is no longer present, when the experience of the past no longer interferes in these relationships. So, your relationship with people based on this Joy, this Freedom, this awareness of the Truth is a relationship in Peace, it's a Real relationship.
What you feel about another person says a lot about how you feel about yourself. If you are Free, the other person is part of your Freedom. If you're Happy, the other person is part of your Happiness. If you are unhappy because you see yourself in trouble, with difficulties, with various forms of conflict, and in this internal contradiction between what you think, feel and do, if there is all this internal confusion, your relationship with the other is also this.
In general, we want people to make us happy, we want people to give us peace, we want them to offer us happiness. That's why we have this question: why do I suffer so much? Or: what can I do, how can I get rid of suffering? For you, the problem is that people cause suffering, it's the world that causes us suffering. But is that true? Is it the world that makes us suffer? Is it the other person who makes us suffer? Is it true that people don't understand us? Is that true? Do I have problems with people? Do people have problems with me? Or the truth is that I'm the problem?
The problem of the world, the problem of “my world” is “me.” The question is “Who am I?” The question is “How do I interpret experience?” What is this thought? What is this experience? Why are we always, in this moment, making this moment an old moment? It's not old, it's not outdated, there's nothing ugly about it. And why is this happening?
We absorb the new, which is this moment, into the old of our past. Look what a curious thing happens: the moment is new, but we absorb the new into our old, so our old is the new altered, distorted, problematic, suffering. So, what I want to tell you is that there is no problem in life, there is no problem with the other, there is no problem in this moment. It's just a question of absorbing the new into my old “I,” my judgment, my comparison, my evaluation, my liking, my disliking, and my experience.
It's just a particular way of looking at life, the particular way of the “I,” of interpreting everything. “Okay, you've shown me the problem. So, I'm suffering because I'm someone. My idea, my judgment, my comparison and evaluation are something very important, and it's wrong. Now I understand that I'm absorbing the present moment within my past, I'm interpreting the new with the old, the people, with the images I have of them. My demands are the real reason for my suffering.” Do you realize that? “Now I realize it. Okay, you've presented me with the situation. How can I deal with this?” What would you say to me if I came to you and said: “I have problems”? What would you say to me? How can I approach it? How can I go beyond that?
So now, in a few minutes, let's touch on that. How can I approach this moment without this past? That's possible, but you need to understand that this moment, you can't approach it in the same way as you always have done. That's why I've been inviting people to the art of Being Consciousness. This is Awakening, this is getting out of this condition. From that condition I've just described, which I call the dream – the dream of the “I,” the dream of the ego.
So, how should I approach this moment? Without the “I,” without the ego, without thought. It's not complicated. I've talked about this a lot with you. When you look at a person, if you look carefully, you'll notice the play of the image that thought presents when you look at them. So, when you look at someone you know, immediately a set of images appear; they're just memories of the past, of moments of pleasure and pain, of moments of joy and sadness that you had with her. So, something inside you says “I like her,” or something inside you says “I don't like her.”
When we come into contact with people, we are not in contact with them, but with the idea we have of them. Have you noticed that? That's why some people make us happy and others make us sad. Is that true? Do they give us joy? Do they make us sad or is it our thoughts about who they are, about what they represent to me? What is this “me?” Can we separate this “me” from the set of images that arise in this relationship? Do you perceive it? Or is this set of images this “me?” So, when I'm sad, what's sad? The “I.” What is happening to this set of images? Is it in discomfort? Perceive that. This is the sense of our relationships with each other. That's the point! The question is: does it make sense?
If we can look without the image, or if we can simply welcome this image from this understanding that it's just an image, does that cause any problems for us? When does it cause a problem? When you do something with that image, when you agree with that image or disagree with it, when you find pleasure in it or displeasure in it.
I've talked a lot about the existence of the “I,” the existence of the ego, and someone might ask: “But what is the ego that you talk about so much? What is the “I?” The “I” is this intention to do something with what appears. What is appearing? The image. When I look at him, an image appears; it's something from the past, it's a memory, it's a memory of a good moment I had with him, I had with her, that's an image. And what is the “I?” What is ego? It's the one that says “I like you,” it's the feeling that arises when this image appears. Can I become aware of this feeling? I can't do anything with the image, because it's automatic, it comes automatically, but I can become aware of the one that arises together with the image, which is the one that will observe the image, that will like the image or dislike the image, that will feel happy or unhappy with that image. That's the “I.” Is that clear?
So, what is the “I”? It's the one or the thing that wants to intervene, that wants to interfere, that wants to translate, interpret, reinterpret this image, which is the past. When this happens, what am I doing? I'm absorbing this present moment, this new moment into my past, I'm confirming the existence of the “I.” Is that clear? I'm saying: “You're important to me” or “You're worthless,” “I like you” or “I don't like you.” I'm giving to this present moment... Notice how subtle it is, how quick it is, how we do it all the time. Isn't it automatic? It's automatic. Thought arises, image arises. That element arises to do something with that thought, to do something with that image, and that “something” is to like it, to dislike it. When you do this, you're absorbing the present moment with your past.
So, after thirty years of being in a relationship, married, forty years, all we have is a set of images, of memories that this “me” carries, that this “I” carries, that “I” have of her and that she has of “me,” that “I” have of the boss, that “I” have of the employer, that “I” have of people. So, I spend my whole life in this process of cultivating “me,” of cultivating this “me,” because I have images of everything around me – not just people, I have images of places.
“I like some places; I don't like other places.” What is really going on? This whole moment is new, but it's always being absorbed by my past, by the sense of an “I” present within the experience, places, in contact with people and situations. Can we disarm this? The sense of an “I” present within the experience, in the relationship with people, with places.
I'm putting an external aspect here, but we also have the internal aspect of all this. It's when we have an image of ourselves. We can be alone and feel good about ourselves, or bad, without knowing the reason, without knowing the cause, without knowing why. It's just an image, a self-projection of the “I.” An image emerges, something unpleasant is here, there's nothing going on around me, no one around me, and I'm unwell. What is this “I unwell”?
If I'm not aware of what my thoughts are bringing up, what the image of the past is bringing up, if I'm not aware, I'm plunged into this condition of not liking that image, and that's sustaining a good or bad feeling. Here we touch on the most important thing for all of us: knowing ourselves, knowing what is happening here, in this instant, in this moment.
What is this “me”? What is this image, what does it represent for this “me”? The image I make of “myself” or the image I make of the other, the image I make of the world around me, the image of places, of situations: I'm always there. This “I” is this centering of an identity in experience, this self-centeredness. To approach this is to approach Self-Awareness. So, Meditation is the revelation of That which is outside of it. I approach this recognition, the recognition of the game, the game of the “I,” this is Self-Awareness.
To perceive Reality outside of this game of the “I” is Meditation. There is something we can call True Meditation, Real Meditation. It's when this Self-Awareness reveals Something outside the “I.” When this “something” shows itself, you are no longer present absorbing the present moment in your past. Your past, which is the “I,” loses relevance and this moment reveals itself. This is Self-Awareness. In this Self-Awareness Something outside of what is known by the “I” presents itself: this is True Meditation.
So, what is meditation? Eyes closed, legs crossed, breathing in a certain way, listening to a mantra? No! Meditation is the awareness of the Truth of this non-I, so it's the end of separation, because if that image is seen and there's no one valuing that image, it can't sustain itself. If pain appears, sadness appears, suffering appears... We start talking like this: “How can I get rid of suffering?” How can I get rid of it? I suffer so much; how can I get rid of it? By becoming aware. You become aware of what's happening here, now, you become aware of the “I”; and when you become aware of the “I,” there's no you; the brain quiets down to observe its own movement when you're aware of the game. The brain quiets down, the mind silences, something new emerges out of the game. This “something” is the Presence of Reality, the Presence of Truth, it is the Revelation that True Meditation brings.
Right now, all that is present is Truth. If that “I,” that “me,” doesn't appear and tries to absorb this present moment into its game, all that is present is Beauty, is Love, is Truth, is Silence, is Freedom; all that is present is Pure Grace; all that is present is Meditation; all that is present is the absence of the “I.” This is the Truth of God.
“How can I get rid of suffering?” You can't get rid of suffering, you can become, you need to become aware of the one who suffers. You see? The awareness of the sufferer is the end to suffering. It's the sufferer who sustains suffering. There is no suffering without the sufferer. There is nothing in this moment that represents suffering for you if you are not there rejecting, fighting, interpreting, translating or trying to do something with what is here and now. Is that okay?
Everything is here and now, just look at it, become aware of it. That's True Meditation. Okay?
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