The true Art is the Art of Happiness

In Satsang, we are facing something quite unique, for here we approach the direct realization of the Truth about ourselves.

Sometimes, when you have the opportunity to be alone, with nothing else, and for some reason you are not busy with external activities, it is very clear to you that, at this point, you experience tremendous internal neediness, deep inadequacy, such "existential void," so to speak. This is common to all and seems to be a common destiny to all, producing the strong need of fulfillment, in order to “drown” this lack, this emptiness. This is what leads us to an action, a constant action...

To let you know, what we consider great works built by the intellect or by the emotion of man were born from this state of neediness, insufficiency and pain. So, when you are amazed in front of a painting - which you call a beautiful work of art - or in front of a sculpture, a song, a poem, a written novel, a book, a great bestseller, all this is a result of this search for internal fulfillment, which has led the so-called "artist," "musician" to an activity that made it be born. However, that, which is so admired, paradoxically, is born from much pain, much suffering, much neediness... You can research it in the stories of the great masters of painting, of music, of dance, and you will discover what had motivated them in their works.

What I am saying, in other words, is that Happiness creates nothing, produces nothing. The mind produces, but the Self does not! Self does not act, does not do anything. Self is pure Being, pure Consciousness, it is what sustains the apparitions; It does not need self-expression. This is quite different from the mind, which needs it, needs to fulfill itself with expression.

A man like Buddha, Ramana or Krishna has no need for self-expression through the mind, because there is no mind there; there is no longer this emptiness, this frustration, or this desire for action to compose poems, sculptures, paintings and songs. I am not saying that art cannot exist, but this is a completely different Art from what we consider art arisen from this existential frustration.

Kabir, Rumi and other saints and sages also made poems and songs. Some Sages wrote books, Jesus left his speeches, Ramana left his Silence. But the sages and the saints were not there. There was no "someone" occupied with an action, with the construction of something; it was only an event; so are the speeches that are born in Satsang, which are born from this Silence, from this Consciousness, from this Presence, and not born from frustration, neediness, or the desire for self-expression.

So, I am going to repeat this to you: this action may appear, but it is not the action of frustration. The speech that is born in Satsang or the actions that are born from this Presence, from this Consciousness are the overflow of that Joy, of that Freedom, of that Happiness. This is the true Art... it is the direct result of Meditation, of that Natural State. The true Art is the Art of Happiness!

Whatever you call art born apart from Happiness is not genuine art. Truth is the basis of all genuine manifestation, but it is not the necessity born of the desire for self-expression, of that general motivation the mind knows to fill itself in the action. If we come closer to this, we will see all this can only give ephemeral happiness, joy and fulfillment.

To be in Satsang is to stand before Life, real Happiness. This Life, Truth, Happiness is something within You, but it is something beyond the mind. This is the ultimate satisfaction, the ineffable Joy, without reason, something always present beyond this illusion of the "me".

Happiness is what lives within us with all its freshness and purity, something cannot be contaminated by the mind and its desires, projects, intentions, premeditation. True happiness does not come, does not arise from things. If Happiness would have come from things, it should be greater when we had more things; less when we had fewer things; and completely zero when we had nothing. But it is not like this...

The rich man is the man who possesses many things, but he is not unfailingly happy, because, on the contrary, he has many more concerns. Not even the poor one, who has very little things, is necessarily unhappy for this. But when the poor and the rich ones go to sleep, when they are both in deep sleep, they are in perfect peace without any worry, without any suffering, that is, the poor one has no debts, nor the rich one has concerns; neither of them is sick. Everyone feels deeply happy when he/she is in deep sleep, preferably without dreams - Ramana used to talk about it.

Happiness is in the absence of the "egoic mind" and not in the presence or the absence of things. It does not matter if you are very rich or very poor: being in the ego is being in unhappiness and in misery; being without ego is being in Absolute Happiness!

The true Art of Happiness is the Art of Being!

My invitation to you in Satsang is: abandon the illusion of the "me." When you are free from this desire to get something or to get rid of anything, you can go beyond this frustration, this neediness, boredom and loneliness... you can go beyond this common destiny to all!

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on September 27th 2017. - First published in Portuguese on on January 25, 2018. Online meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm (Local Time: Brazil BRT), except during Retreat periods. For more information about Paltalk app and how to participate, please access: http://mestregualberto.com

The deep need to be One with the Truth

Usually, everyone wants to know something, and Satsang does not have this purpose. In this meeting, you are not here to learn something, to know a little further. The purpose of these encounters is the contact with the Truth you already bring, "something" that is already present.

You are a devotee of Truth, a disciple of Wisdom. So, to be a disciple is to be ready for this Wisdom; to be a devotee is to be in that willingness of surrender, surrender to this Truth - this ripening is essential. Being a disciple or a devotee means the deep longing for being One with the Truth.

Wisdom is Truth! If there is no Wisdom, there is no Truth; if Truth is present, so is Wisdom.

There comes a clear moment when this surrender, which is devotion, takes place. It is also the moment when the disciple is ready for Wisdom. So, all this work is for the manifestation of Truth. You are ready for this when you have that urgency inwardly, when you are willing to give up all your beliefs, convictions, opinions, and judgments.

The most important thing is not the speech, but your heart turned to this Divine Grace present at this moment. So, when this clear moment takes place, the real disciple is the devotee and the real devotee is the true disciple. When there is the urgency of Liberation, of the end of illusion, of the sense of separation, when you are "burning" for it, then you are ready. You are ready when you are a disciple of Life, when all your "doing" is impregnated with this matter of the Truth. This is the sign!

So, the disciple is the devotee and the devotee is the disciple when there is surrender, in a real work within oneself. Your job is to go beyond this contraction, this false identity, this false “me”. The real sign of this Guidance lies in when a meaningful transformation begins to take place. This is paradoxical, because it is not something for you to feel directly or to recognize, because the ego would still be there. This is a transformation that leaves no trace to the ego about what is happening.

Sometimes, people write a few things to me, reporting their experiences which they call "enlightenment experience." Real Awakening or Enlightenment gives no sign. It is paradoxical, because there is the inner Guidance going on, but there are no external signs of mystical experiences, such as the presence of luminous rays, sensations and powers. All this is still within this circuit of the egoic mind.

In these meetings, the invitation is to devotion, to the meaning of the real state of discipleship, to this sensitivity, to the discovery of the Truth about Yourself. It is necessary to go beyond this illusion, the illusion of the false “me”. Then, when there is this maturity for the surrender, the work happens. But you are not a devotee, a disciple, if you are constantly maintaining the illusion of identification with body and mind. If your interest is only to learn new words, to know a subject deeply, this will only remain at an intellectual level.

You are potentially a disciple-devotee,  but this is real only when all your attention, all your heart and all your love are turned to the words of Truth. It is in this sense that Wisdom, which is the Presence of the Guru, the Presence of Life, the Presence of Truth, is important. When you are living in this deep intimacy with the words of Truth, in this deep understanding, within this surrender and your attention and heart fully turned to It, a real transformation takes place with no apparent fuss.

In fact, when nothing is happening at all, it is when everything is happening. The real "progress" in this work is completely silent. So, my recommendation to you is: do not worry about any outcome that may arise as a result of this work; turn yourself to surrender and devotion.

You cannot find It, but you can trust and surrender, so that It will find you. You cannot find Truth or Enlightenment; This is not out there as something you might find. In fact, all this movement is a hindrance. Every effort, every practice, every work idealized by the mind to find this creates an even greater distance. This does not represent devotion, does not represent being a disciple of Truth.

So, when I talk about this attention, about this wholehearted involvement, I'm not talking about an effort, I'm talking about surrender. The nature of the ego is always about "doing something", and in surrender there is no "doing", there is an abandonment of "doing".

* Online meeting transcription, originally held on August 15th, 2018. First published in Portuguese on October 23, 2018  - Online meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm Local Time: Brazil BRT, except during retreat periods. - For more information about Paltalk app and how to participate, please access: http://mestregualberto.com

I invite you to go beyond the mind

Each moment is great because it reveals itself as an opportunity for you to recognize yourself, to discover the Truth about yourself. However, this is not something that happens automatically, but rather in a work, although it happens naturally (what is very different from “automatically”). Therefore, a work with this objective is required to make this possible.

The way you see yourself is totally mistaken. You see yourself as a person, as a separate entity, someone who was born and who will die. This is already an automatic vision and it is all based on a bias, on a background of beliefs. To go beyond this in a natural way is possible through a work.

So, this bias happens and lasts in an automatic way, but not the Realization. This automatism is present as a consequence of unconsciousness, which is the old and antique model of the ego. There is no person “happening” in the experience of this present moment; therefore, the personal problems you seem to undergo do not exist. I know it is very weird to listen to this... Everybody has problems because everybody believes to be a person.

Life is a movement without someone within It and does not carry any problem. There are no problems, because there are no “people”. If there are no people to resist to the mysterious movement of Life, there are no problems. However, as long as you remain feeling yourself as a person, problems will be unavoidable. There is not a “person” to see his/her problems solved. I know this is a complicated affirmation for the egoic mind.

What I am saying is that each thing happens the way it has to. This is the only Truth, the only possible thing. We are talking from the point of view of the supreme Reality, of the supreme revelation of God’s Truth, of the Being, of Consciousness. That is why when we point out to Enlightenment, to Awakening, we are pointing out to the end of unconsciousness, to the end of every automatism, of any bias, because as a separate, illusory entity, you are living within the time produced and recognized by the mind.

What you call “past” is “time” recognized only by this unconsciousness, through this automatism of egoic bias. All that you call “past” is just story, memory, and remembrance, kind of imagination the thought produces and recognizes. What I have just called “automatism”, “unconsciousness”, “conditioning” is to be attached to this. This has been the “person’s” life with his/her imaginary problems.

And so is for the future. The future is nothing but imagination the thought produces, creating a supposed “reality” that will happen. Nevertheless, nobody knows anything, there is no certainty, you are not sure about the future. You are part of this imagination, you are “someone” who supposedly came from the past, is crossing the present and walking to the future. All this movement is imaginary!

Your questions are based on beliefs, which are based on remembrances, on memory, and all of this is under the realm of the egoic mind. There lies all your problematic life, a personal life that only exists in imagination, because your True Being is not part of it, it does not commune or partake in none of this. You do not recognize yourself in your Real Identity, then you substitute this knowledge of the Truth about yourself for an imagination about who you are.

I invite you to go beyond the mind, to disidentify from the body. You are attached to several forms of beliefs, being the foremost “I am someone within the body! This body is me! What happens to this body happens to me, and everything that involves the history of this body, from birth to death, is my history.” Then you say, “I am a father”, “I am a mother”, “I am a daughter”, “I am married”, “I am single”, “I am a widower”, “All the history attached to this body is my life”. This is sheer confusion, sheer disorder.

You are dreaming and taking the dream too seriously. The Sages say this is only a dream and that you should not take it for reality. The One who has already attained Self-realization, who is not attached to the illusion “I am the body, I am someone, I have history” anymore, sees all of this as just an appearance.

When watching movies, everything seems so real , but everybody knows it is just a movie; so the blood spilling is not real blood, the fire is not truly burning the house, the house is not real, neither is the fire. Everything is done to look like very real, but it is just an apparition.

Therefore, do not mistake yourself for the body, for the mind, and then you remain beyond the history. But, inside your head, there are lots of stories, beliefs, illusion, imagination.

All we are saying to you is: Awake! Watch the movie, but recognize yourself in your True Nature and everything will be finished. Then, you will be able to see everything from a new point of view, the point of view of Reality. Life is what It Is to the Sage, and everything else is just a dream encompassing pleasure and pain, joy and sadness, bad and good stuff. But all this dual movement is just life as it is, because you, as a Sage, remain in your Being, in your Real Nature.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on September 26^th, 2018 - First published in Portuguese on October 14^th, 2018 - Online meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm (Local Time: Brazil BRT), except during Retreat periods. For more information about Paltalk app and how to participate, please visit: http://mestregualberto.com

This is your time to go beyond this world

The work with my Guru last 21 years. I did not do anything at all, but only messed it up. I cannot remember even one thing I've done to help him. You will know what I am saying at the right time. You'll look back and say, "Wow! I have never done anything that could help my Master in order to be here looking at life this way."

If you ask me if I can remember the resistance, yes I can; I also remember the uncertainty, the insecurity, the fear of getting crazy, the uncertainty; I remember the feeling of not knowing what was happening to me and where I was going to, whether I was going somewhere or not.

If you ask me that, I can remember many times when things got hard, but it was in such a surreal dimension that it seemed to be happening to a character, it seemed to be just an imagination within time. It was like watching a movie and saying, "Look, is has happened this and that." It was a movie; it had nothing to do with What is Real. The "movie" was there, taking place on a "screen," having nothing to do with what I Am, but only now I can say that.

Therefore, you will be able to remember how much you have messed up, but you will not know what the Guru did to break this illusion; you will only know it has been undone. It seems he would have taken you by force, pushing you through an invisible door you have never seen before your eyes; he would find the door and he would push you through it against your will. This looks very crazy, but it is like that.

In fact, all this "process" was not really a process, but a dream. When you wake up from a dream you say, "Wow! There was no process happening! It was only imagination, nothing ever happened!" The feeling we have is this: “It was only a dream!" When Realization settles in, you look back and say: "There were mountains, seas, forests, but it was just a dream".

Isn’t this beautiful? I don’t know if I am being successful in picturing that clearly to you…

Then, you realize... by yourself, you realize It! Therefore, you have the authority to say: "Wow! There never was a time when I was not what I Am. I Am What I Am, I always had been!" - you realize it directly.

Then, you realize... by yourself, you realize It! Therefore, you have the authority to say: "Wow! There never was a time when I was not what I Am. I Am What I Am, I always had been!" - you realize it directly.

This is your moment to go beyond this world, to leave behind the story that you were born, you are a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, that you have children, family ... It is time to establish yourself in your Being, in your Real Nature, in your True Identity, which is the Consciousness of God, Happiness, Peace, Intelligence, Freedom. When there is no more history, bonds, birth or death, fear, desires, wishes ... there is no more exteriority.

This is God's business, not yours; yours is to remain still. Your job is to get out of your routine, get out of your script, and you know what I mean: to be a grandfather, a mother, a father, a wife, a husband, an entrepreneur; to be "someone" in the world. So, when you abandon the script, there is a room for the Divine, for God to bring you back ... He will bring you back again to that Place. He will take you by the hands and bring you back; He will make you return to Yourself. You've never been anywhere else. This is your place, you only have forgotten about it.

Jesus tells a parable about this: the parable of the prodigal son. You know the parable, don’t you? The father has two sons, and one day one of them loses his mind and says, "I want to live my life. I want you to give me my inheritance because I want to leave." The father asks, "Are you sure?" He answers "Yes! I want to leave!" Then the father gives him his early inheritance and says, "Here it is, my son. You want your inheritance, take it." Then the son travels to a distant land with his inheritance and begins to overspend the money: he goes to the brothels and parties until the day the inheritance ends. As he sees himself without money, he went out to look for a job, and the job available for him was to feed pigs.

The years went by and there he is, getting old in that life, feeding pigs, all dirty. According to Jesus’s parable, there comes one day when he looks up at the sky with his hands and face all dirty, his smelly body, and he remembers his home and says: “Wow, what a mess!”  The parable says he comes to his senses and thinks: “Gosh! What a mess! I have such a rich father and look where I ended up!” He had a moment of lucidity.

Look at you all! Satsang is a moment of lucidity. Some of you are beginning to suspect that it is worthless marrying again, having more children, building more business, making more and more money, building things... Some of you have already understood that you cannot waste this "inheritance," which is the physical energy, the health that remains there for the body and money and time, with other things. Look at you! It is a moment of lucidity!

In the parable, Jesus tells the young man says: "I will return to my Father's home”, and so he does. When he is on his way, someone says, "Look! Isn’t that your son?" Even far away, the father looks again and says, "Wow! It seems to be him, yes!" The father asks someone to help him. When the son arrives, the father welcomes him with an embrace and says to the son who had stayed at home: "Look, your brother has just returned. Let's make a party."

Then, the newcomer son takes a bath and perfumes himself. The father orders to bring the son a nice cloth and puts a ring on his finger saying: "Let's kill a calf and make a party." The son who had stayed at home says: "Father, what is this? I've been with you for so long, you have never made a party like that for me, but this one, this ungrateful one, ran away from home, took the money, spent with the whores" (It's written this way in the parable of Jesus; it says that he was with the whores, which is the symbol of lust, pleasure and human stupidity). "He spent everything with the whores and you prepare such a party?" Then, the father looks at him with a compassionate look and says: "My son, there was never anything lacking for you. All I have ever had is yours, but your brother was lost! He was dead, but now he's alive!"

When you turn to God, you turn to the Truth, you go back home ... You remember again! God is bringing you back. You only come back when He brings you. This work happens from the inside to the outside, so it's God bringing you back. In fact, He is bringing you to Himself, and therefore it is not the other way round: you coming back to Him. While the religion, with all its “isms”, is concerned about changing the people from the outside to the inside, Truth flourishes from within out. That is why it is not about practice, but about an honest intention, within yourself, to give up. This emerges from God Himself, from Consciousness itself, from Being itself, within you.

So, you pay attention to all this disordered, biased movement of the mind and you begin to appreciate the Truth, to abandon everything for It, to literally die for It. You really have to die for It! You will get in the way sometimes, but at these moments the Grace of the Guru, of this Presence, the Divine Grace, the Holy Spirit will be stronger than you and will reveal to you who you really are. That is why you need the Grace of the Guru, the Grace of God. "For by Grace are you saved, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast" - it is written in the Bible, it is the same message.

* Presencial meeting transcription originally held on march, 2018, in the city of Cabedelo - Brazil. First published in Portuguese on March 15, 2018. Visit our agenda and join us: http://mestregualberto.com

Devotion to God is surrender to Life

Every real Master shows you how to forget yourself, how to give up your false freedom, how to bring Consciousness, enticing detachment. We can approach this through a speech that points out to non-duality or to the importance of devotion. Devotion is surrender to God, to Life. Do not separate God from Life, nor Life from your true Being. This devotion to God is surrender to Life, and this is Realization of the true Self. Then, devotion to God is devotion to the Truth about your Self.

The Presence, the Grace of God is imperious. In a non-dual language, I would say that attention to the false movement of this illusory identity - with choices, wills and decisions - is crucial. So, the attention to this, to this “me”, to this “I” is, in other words, the true and real devotion to God, to Life, to your true Being. If this is present, there is no room for fear; this is to be in the safe shelter of the Truth.

The Guru will always say: “You are Him!” Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi said: “Leave it to Bhagavan so that He takes care!” This is the real meaning of surrender. Nothing is mine. Everything belongs to God. Therefore, Meditation becomes natural, just like your Natural State of Being, when there is only “Being”, when He takes care of everything, when You are Him, when there is no mind, body, world, health, time anymore, or anything else that is not Him. Everything is Him.

If you believe something is not Him, then non-separation is still just a belief for you. If you are Meditation, there is no resistance, there are no worries about the body, about the future, about adverse situations, because there is no mind, there is no time. Time is His, time is Him. He is the time that appears in the mind, the mind that appears in the Consciousness, the Consciousness itself, and He is beyond time, mind and this objective consciousness we know.

Do not trust anything else, do not separate yourself, do not see yourself as a separate thing. Then, you relax in His Grace, in His Presence, in the Truth... You are this relaxation itself. A speech about You is also about Him, for it shows that you are Him and He is you.

*Presential meeting transcription, originally held in Fortaleza city -Brazil, on May, 2018. - First published in Portuguese on October 5^th, 2018 Please visit our agenda and join us: http://mestregualberto.com