We go through life without a real approach to what it represents, because we are constantly faced with moments we don’t know how to deal with, and our whole movement is not a movement of understanding life as it happens. Due to the discomfort we feel, the suffering present, the disturbance that occurs within us, the first measure is to try to escape it, to try to run from it. So, there is a psychological movement in us of escape. So, there is this movement of escape or the attempt to escape problems. So, this escape, in psychology, is something that has already been identified, something that is present in us.
There is a whole movement in us of seeking, of escaping the condition in which we find ourselves, because there is no quicker way to deal with pain than to escape. This is the proposal that thought presents to us. The thought present in you is a form of behavioral conditioning, something learned. We have learned, since childhood, to avoid pain. So, to us, pain is something undesirable, and pleasure is highly desirable, something to be sought.
So, we constantly live life without the awareness of what life represents, because we are constantly within a pattern of behavior of not understanding what is present here. This escape from pain and this pursuit of pleasure is the movement we know, which thought tells us is the easiest way to live. Here we are faced with an incredibly deplorable condition, which is the condition of this ego-identity, of this “person,” within the context of relationships. Life as it happens is relationships arising at every moment. You are in relation with your own thoughts, with your own feelings, with the emotions you have.
Contact with someone—he or she—awakens in you, brings to the surface in you those thoughts, those feelings, those emotions. When this is awakened, if it is pleasant, you respond to this condition in a pleasurable way, so you like it, and you seek more of it in him or her. This creates bonds of emotional dependence, and here, once again, you are faced with a behavior of not understanding life, of sustaining that personal identity, that sense of the “I,” within that relationship. Here, together, we need to explore life, investigate life, understand life, have a real approach to it. To explore life is to explore ourselves, it is to venture into this investigation of the Truth about who we are, to explore this awareness of living, this awareness of life itself.
Why is what we are addressing here of essential importance to each of us? Because there is in us a constant search or quest for satisfaction, for fulfillment, for completeness, for a sense of wholeness in life. So, we do not explore the awareness of life, we do not approach it, we do not explore life as it happens, and we live within this incompleteness, this dissatisfaction. Why is this present? Because we do not assume the Truth about who we are.
There are two fundamental aspects here. The first is the understanding of who we are, because we demonstrate being this, we seem to be this, we are living this way. This first aspect is the aspect of this “person” that is present, of this “I” that is present. Approaching the Truth about who we are is to understand that this we are, we are because we demonstrate it, because we appear to be it, because we believe it, because we are living this way. And the other aspect is the awareness of the Reality of That which we truly are when the sense of this “I,” this “person” who lives in this old pattern, in this old model of constant pursuit of pleasure and escape from pain, is no longer present.
Therefore, what we work on here with you is the Truth of the Revelation of this knowing of ourselves. Our work here is based on this view of Self-awareness. This is what we are here exploring and investigating with you. Without having this foundation, we have no real ability to have a true vision of what people are seeking, searching for, trying to reach or find in life, without exploring the Truth about Life. I am referring to this pursuit of Happiness.
When you come closer and ask: “How to attain Happiness?” Is it truly the Truth of Happiness that we are seeking? Or is it that what we are seeking is something that can bring us a permanent fulfillment and satisfaction, so we no longer have to keep running from pain when it appears, when it arises? We have no reference of what Happiness is. Every reference we have in life, due to the lack of investigation, of exploration, of examination of life, the reference we have is that of pleasure.
If we feel pleasure, we want it—there is a constant pursuit, not of Happiness. The human being is not in pursuit of the Truth of Happiness; we are unaware of the Truth of Happiness. What we have is satisfaction, is that fulfillment, is that immediate result of pleasure in a good meal, in a romantic relationship, in a material achievement, like buying a car or an apartment, or when the soccer team wins the championship. All of our reference is of pleasure, not of Happiness. But we call happiness a momentary satisfaction fulfilled in pleasure.
So, when you ask how to attain Happiness: is it Happiness that is being sought or is it satisfaction? In general, satisfaction proves to be impermanent. So, a moment comes when, for some, this impermanent satisfaction from pleasure becomes insufficient; that is when thought itself projects, it imagines, another quality of satisfaction, which is permanent satisfaction. This permanent satisfaction is projected, it is imagined, it is idealized, in thought, through a conquest that would be eternal. So people talk about eternal love, they talk about God, they talk about the conquest of heaven, of paradise, or of some place where there is no more suffering.
Notice, it is always thought imagining a permanent satisfaction, creating the image of an ideal to be reached. All of this involves, notice, the presence of thought. It is thought that seeks its external fulfillments, of impermanent satisfaction, in the achievement of the various things and objectives it projects, and it is thought that idealizes this so-called “permanent satisfaction,” “eternal.” The difference is that here it is projected beyond the world, but this projection, as it is still a projection of thought, remains within imagination, remains within this circle, which is the circle of ideas, beliefs, and concepts. The encounter with the Divine Reality is the awareness of your Being, and that is something beyond the known.
Being known, this very movement of thought deals with this idea of satisfaction, which thought calls happiness, or love, either in this world or in another world it imagines. A real contact with the Truth of your Being is the awareness of the Revelation of That which truly is God, is Love, is Happiness, but That is not part of thought. No thought can reach That, imagine That, project itself into That. It is unreachable by thought, it is unreachable by this entire model that the mind knows, within what it knows—part of what it knows is what it imagines, in this world or in other worlds, in paradise, in heaven. The contact with the Divine Reality is the awareness of the Reality that is present in this very moment.
This is the Real encounter or the direct realization of Happiness. This concerns the Truth of how to find God. See, it concerns the Truth of how to find God. Thought separates itself when it imagines God. Thought projects the image onto God.
Thus, within us, there is an element, which is the presence of this thinker, who, in this pattern of thought, projects itself with the image of God. So, this thinker, this “I,” this “person,” idealizes this encounter, projects this encounter, imagines this encounter. Here we are still facing the very movement of thought, because there is no separation in this image that thought creates, of this thinker it also creates. There is no separation between this thinker and this thought. We believe the thinker comes before the thought it has, which is not true.
Thought is the element that arrives, and once it arrives—and thought comes due to a memory, a recollection, an image, something already present in this brain, in this memory structure—then, when thought arises, it separates, creating the “thinker.” So, the thinker is still part of thought. So we have the thought about God and the thinker about God, but both are part of a single movement, which is the movement of thought. This realization is so simple. When there is no thought about God, where is this thinker?
Where is this “I” that thinks? The presence of the thinker is the presence of thought, the presence of this “I” that wants to find Happiness, that wants to find Love, that wants to find God, the presence of this “I” requires the presence of this thought. Here, the first thing is to eliminate this illusion, the illusion of an identity to find God, to find Happiness. This identity is part of the illusion of the person. How can we become aware of this?
Through Self-awareness, in this exploration of the awareness of life as it happens. This requires that this looking at thought be without interference. We need to learn the art of looking at our reactions, which are thoughts, feelings, emotions. Part of those thoughts are those images that thought constructs about Love, about God, about Happiness. When we learn to look without interfering, that looking puts an end to that thought, puts an end to that thinker.
So, something new is present when there is only the looking. Our difficulty is that we are constantly unaware of this whole process, which is the process of thought occurring. When thought occurs, immediately, it already creates an observer, an experiencer, a thinker for that thought; and when that happens, we are always being captured, time after time, after time, in this sense of the “I.” So, this “I” is the element that is the experiencer, this “I” is the element that is the thinker, this “I” is the element that is the observer. Bringing attention to this moment, a presence, a looking at the thought as it arises, at the feeling as it arises, at the emotion as it appears, approaching this moment without interfering with it, is to look at life, to observe what arises.
That is why I used the term “explore” here; explore in the sense of coming closer and looking up close, becoming aware, becoming conscious, simply looking, simply observing. So, the real way of approaching the end of this illusory psychological condition, where there is this sense of the “I” in this constant movement of seeking pleasure, of fulfillment, of realization… It gives different names to it; we use these pretty names, we call it love, peace, happiness, we call it God. But all thought knows how to do is to project itself from this thinker, this “I,” into an ideal, the imaginary ideal that thought has constructed of permanent satisfaction, of permanent fulfillment, of permanent realization. The contact with life in this moment is the contact with what is here, and this is not in time, this is not something impermanent or permanent, as it happens with satisfaction, as it happens with the matter of pleasure, as it happens with the matter of pain, or with those various goals to escape that pain. The awareness of Life in this moment is the awareness of what is beyond the known and, therefore, beyond thought, beyond time.
It is the Divine Reality, it is the Reality of this Being, which is You in your Divine Nature, which is You in your Real Nature, in your Essential Nature. Thus, the beauty of this encounter with God lies in the Revelation of that which is present here, beyond the “I,” beyond this “person,” beyond thought. When one learns to look without the observer, we are before this learning about Self-awareness. When one learns to look without the thinker, without the experiencer, this awareness of the Truth of this Being reveals itself. This is not about “my being,” or “your being,” this is about this indescribable Reality, which is beyond this separation between “I” and “you.”
There is, in this Divine Reality, no separation between It and Happiness, between It and God, between It and You. It is only this illusion of this image that thought has constructed, which is the image of the “person,” of this observer, of this experiencer, of this thinker, that dissolves, that disappears. Here, in a direct way, we are presenting to you the possibility of this investigation, of this real encounter with life as it happens. When people idealize happiness out there, to be reached someday through external achievements, they are facing a mistaken model of thought. When people imagine this encounter with God at some moment, they are within this mistaken model of ideas, of beliefs, placing the Divine Reality, the Truth of God, in time.
That which is Real cannot cease to be Real. That which is Real is not in time to, at some moment, become Real, because it is not real in this moment. That which is Real is Real and is here and now and beyond this notion that thought has about this here and now. This is the Truth of God, this is the Truth of love, this is the Truth of Happiness, this is the awareness of this Being. So, can we, in life, assume this Reality, for a life beyond this pursuit of pleasure, this escape from pain, and this imagination about this encounter with God in the future and with Happiness tomorrow?
Can we go beyond this psychological condition of beliefs, of thoughts, of ideas? Notice that all of this was given to us within culture. Can we go beyond this culture, this model of mental culture, of the so-called mystical, esoteric, spiritualist, or worldly culture, into this awareness of the Revelation of Love, of Wisdom, of Truth and, therefore, of Real Happiness? This is what we are working on together here in these meetings. The Presence of your Being is the Presence of God; it is not “someone” present, it is God present, it is Life present, it is Freedom present, it is That which is indescribable, which is beyond words, beyond thoughts, present here in this moment.
Here in these online meetings, on weekends, we are working on this with you. It’s two days together, in an online meeting, and through questions and answers we are exploring this, deepening this, becoming aware of this Life, this Real Life as It is, where this awareness of God is present, this awareness of Love. You have in the video description our WhatsApp link to take part in these online weekend meetings. Beyond these meetings we also have in-person gatherings and retreats as well. If what you just heard makes any sense to you, here’s an invitation.
Go ahead and like the video, subscribe to the channel. Alright? See you soon! Thanks for the meeting and until next time!
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