Surrender and trust

It is evident that these meetings here via Paltalk are not a substitute for the presential meeting. Here is the invitation for a real work in this proximity. These meetings here via Paltalk are like a long-distance dating, in which you cannot get married ... It has to be face-to-face. Only this way, a direct work is possible.

In these meetings, we are talking about this Intelligence, about this Reality. It is important that you stop thinking about it, because when you think about it, you destroy this thing. I advise you against thinking about what you hear here as well as retaining those words, because this can create the false illusion of realization, or the real illusion of a merely conceptual realization. What we are saying in Satsang is not for you to retain it! What we are saying is for you to observe and discover it directly. You hear these words like, "You are this Consciousness!; You are this Intelligence; You are this Absolute Reality." Nevertheless, do not think about It. In fact, do not think anything about It.

Awakening is not thinking about it, because “thinking about it” is to dream. You need to Awake! When you are Awakened, you are in Your True State and there is no thought about It! When you are Awakened, you are seeing It. So, it is not a matter of thinking about this... It is a matter of Awakening! It is about seeing it directly, without theories and beliefs. I am inviting you to go beyond problems, conflicts, suffering; to go to your Natural State! Forget your problems! In your Natural State, there is a Power that takes care of everything! Did you hear that?

You have to be open, to allow this, to allow yourself to this surrender! You must surrender your ego, your concepts, your opinions, your questions, your answers, your power too... everything... surrender your ego. That is exactly what happens. This abandonment, this surrender, this total involvement is the possibility you have to go beyond the ego, the egoic mind.

So, what do you do? Nothing! Then, you become your own Being. You leave the world alone and remain in that abandonment, in that surrender. You remain in this total involvement with Reality, and then you go beyond the body and mind. Here is the cure, the Liberation. There you are in your Divine State, in your Natural State.

Then, you will fully understand you are not that one who does, you are not the doer, you are not the one who accomplishes things! There is a Power taking care of it! Stop fighting! Stop trying to make things happen! Surrender yourself! Turn yourself inwards! Here is the beauty of this Reality, the Truth, the Liberation! So, you are simply the Being, this Reality! There is absolutely nothing you can do, you need to do, or you can do about it!

Put your heart and mind in the Self, in your Real Being... Your heart in the Heart. This Being is your Heart! Your Real Being is your Heart. So, you put your mind and heart into the Heart, into the Real Heart! Your Heart is God! Keep your mind in God! God in your Heart! Confidence, surrender, total surrender to this Absolute Reality, to this Real Presence, to this real Heart! Turn yourself to This... Go beyond this world imagined by the thought.

In other words, do not allow thoughts to turn outwardly, nor does the mind. Bring these thoughts, which were going to the outside, to the Heart. Find the Peace, the Happiness in yourself, therein... Stop going outside.

This mysterious Power knows everything... Everything we need, everything you need! We do not need to know how this Power takes care of us. We just need to allow this Power to take care of everything! This mysterious Power, which is this Real Presence, this Divine Presence, this Truth, is here tonight... It is Here! Open yourself to this... Allow this Power to take care of everything! We have to allow this Power!

Do not ask me why each one of these speeches goes in a certain direction. I do not know either!

You may ask if you have this ability to allow yourself... I answer: Totally! You all have it! That is because you are already this Presence, this Power. You are Sat-Chit-Ananda! You are not the body, the mind, the world! The world, the body and the mind appear, but they are not You.

How does this whole thing sound to you? It is a matter of surrender and trust! It is a matter of faith! It is a matter of giving up your ego, your control, your choice, your answers, your personal concepts. Give this all up! Abandon yourself to the Divine... Surrender to God, to the Truth. Then, when "you" are not present, God is. You will never understand this Presence, this Grace, this Power, this Truth and the way It acts. You will never understand and you do not even need to understand it... Just be receptive, allow yourself, be Empty! Remember that this “Empty” is not emptiness, it is the True Blessing, the True Grace!

Namaste everyone! See you next meeting!

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on November 30th, 2016 - First published in Portuguese on March 10th, 2017. For more information about how to participate, please access:mestregualberto.com.

Meditation is a leap in the Unknown

In Satsang, we talk about That, which is always present and is radiantly clear, undeniable as our True Nature. The common experience is to see and experience changes all the time because of the thoughts and the circumstances arising. This is the experience of the sense of personal limitation.

The common experience of human being is suffering, fear, doubt, anxiety and confusion. This because there is not the understanding of What is present here and surpasses the mind, which is beyond and curiously prior to the mind itself. This is the nature of the Being, the nature of Consciousness. This room for suffering, anxiety and confusion is not your Natural space of Being. It is your mental space of human experience. In your Being, you do not experience this confusion, this suffering, this fear, this frustration. Curiously, in the mind, you never stop experiencing this.

These encounters are revealing: they reveal your intimate Being, your Essential Nature, which is Freedom, Happiness. This is not your experience. It is your Real Nature. People look for an experience of Happiness and Freedom, but whatever experience they live will always be within the limitation of the mind. Your Being does not live in the experience, while the mind lives on experiences that are limited. Your Being, your True Nature is this undeniable Presence of Freedom, of Love and Happiness, but you cannot experience This. All you can experience is within the mind.

The Truth of your Being, which is this Freedom, Happiness, is not something you achieve or accomplish. Here, you find out what means to give up the mind, what means to stop giving credibility to it, to not trust in it. Your job is to discard what is false. Truth is already present. Thus, it is not about an experience that you are going to have, but rather the liberation of the illusion of the mind with all its apparatus of beliefs, perceptions, sensations, experiences. Do you follow this?

Meditation is a discard of illusion. You discard beliefs, concepts, hopes, doubts and desires. You do this through observation, through not trusting in any experience arising there inside your head, in any idea and formulation of story arising therein. You do not need to read books to learn how to do this. You need to observe and see that every thought is part of memory, of an imaginary story – the Sages always highlight this. The mind is a bundle of remembrances, of memories, of images... You need to break this up.

You are not going to Realize the Self by studying, reading books or trying to learn This from others. You are going to Realize your Self by observation, discovery, and self-investigation. You investigate patiently, carefully, lovingly, what is going on therein, and this is the basis for Real Meditation. Meditation has nothing to do with a practice, because from a practice you extract an experience. You have some experience because of a meditative practice, but it is still in the field of the mind.

Your Being does not know experiences. It does not live experiences, for every experience is part of the time. Your Being is the unknown Truth, which is not detected by the mind, while the mind can detect, nominate, remember and assume every experience as part of itself.

Meditation is a leap in the unknown, outside the world of the mind, which is this world of experiences, perceptions, beliefs, sensations, and so on. Then, when there is Real Meditation, there is no mind. You start by attention, this observation and then the Unknown is revealed; But you are not there. The experiencer and his/her experience are not there. Your Being is This, prior to the mind, for which we use the expression Natural State. Why Natural State? Because it is a state without effort, something spontaneous and available.

Truth is something like this, for it is always available. Truth does not hide Itself, but It is not achievable, conquerable. This implies something real, natural, here and now; something out of all limitation, influence, restriction... It is your Being, your Natural State. To me, “natural” has this implication, it is not a product of the experience. That is why meditation as a practice, as it is known, cannot give you This. What it can give you, as I have just said, is an achievable and attainable experience but not your Being. Your Being is not a product of the experience. It is something present and natural, although outside the time.

We are facing Something direct, intimate, natural, present, although out of time. You are This! You have always been and you will always be This! Thus, you are not going to be Enlightened tomorrow, because “tomorrow” is in time, is an imaginary experience. You always exist now. This is prior to the mind, prior to future, to past and present. This is just like saying that you never travel, that you never leave home. All the ego has been creating as a story, in this so-called “your life,” is only a fantastic extraordinary ability to imagine; it is a result of a fantastic imaginary enterprise: the thought!

You should not keep my speech, but you should go deep to live it directly. I did not say “direct experience,” I said “to live it directly,” that your Being is out of the experience. Thus, you have an intimate contact with your Natural State, which is Meditation.

That is why we have this space here called Ramanashram: it is for us to look closely at This. To those who have not been here, I recommend coming here soon. After all, this is the story you call "life." You can keep on living with a huge range of so-called “human” experiences and leave this world without knowing anything about your Self, without the slightest notion of what we are really meaning here in this speech.

Basically, there is no difference between you and me unless the sense of separation. You are afraid because you see yourself as a separate entity living a huge range of experiences, within an extraordinary and fantastic story created by imagination, by this imaginary mind, which says that you are what, in fact, you are not. That is the tiny difference.

My message in these encounters is for you to discover your imperishable, unchangeable Nature, which is free from fear, because it is free from the sense of duality and separateness. So, there is no difference between us, you just believe things that thought says and I remain in the Unknown.

Doubt, confusion, suffering, and fear fill every nook and cranny of this imaginary mental world in which you believe you exist as "someone." I am here telling you that there is only one Present Reality, and It is timeless, is out of these measures of thought, out of the past, present and future.

Then, are you going to keep on reading books and visiting people that seem to know more than you? This is going to be useless! The whole Truth is present in What You are, and this intimate and direct contact with this Truth is something available here and now when the mind is discarded. Here, the only thing is Meditation... This is the only thing!

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on June 14th, 2019 - First published in Portuguese on July 20th, 2019. 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 click here.

Meditation is Being!

I am not what you aren't! Therefore, I am not the Guru and you are not the disciple. I know it is not comfortable... There is something in you that does not want the Happiness you seek. I will repeat this: you are seeking Peace, but there is something in you that does not want Peace. You are seeking Freedom, but there is something in you that does not want Freedom. You are seeking Happiness, but there is something in you that does not want Happiness. You are seeking Real Love, but there is something in you that does not want Real Love.

You want substitute and fleeting things such as this "joy," or this egoic fulfillment present in the satisfaction of accomplishing something or seeing things coming true, because "you" are there being "someone" doing something. This is so and there is no way out of this labyrinth, because it is an illusion. This "someone" in this labyrinth is also an illusion.

Do not try to find solution for what has no solution. Relax and allow yourself to assume the Truth that you are not the body, are not the mind, are not the agent, are not "someone." While this illusion is present, in some moments you will be fulfilled by something; in other moments, not.

Thus, you will always live in this duality between pleasure and pain, between joy and sadness. The personal interest will always be present in this fulfillment of being someone to others and of "making a difference" in their lives... It is always the idea of ​​someone present, and this is not Love. This is not Freedom. This is not Happiness. This is not Truth. This is not Real Joy.

Realizing what you are is not to lose your life but to assume Life with all that represents, with all the completeness that Love and Wisdom represent.

I am inviting you to Meditation, which is the absence of the "sense of me" in any given experience, whatever it is, whether the most sublime or the most insignificant one. I am inviting you to Meditation, which is the absence of the mind in this chaotic and unsatisfactory movement of time, in this movement of knowledge and experience.

So, Meditation is Being! It is not a practice in which you "have" moments in the Self, but soon the mind returns and, with it, culture and knowledge. The "person" with his or her story comes back, and then conflict appears, because That cannot be obtained, accomplished or conquered by a practice. Nevertheless, the mind wants to conquer enlightenment, wants to obtain it in order to own it.

People come here and want That, but they want It in their time, because they do not want to give themselves enough time to go beyond time. They do not want to provide themselves – patiently, consciously, lovingly – time to go beyond time. This is not something to be solved in a workshop, in a 48-hour lesson plan. That is for your life! You have to put your life in this! You were born to realize That. You have this "your" life to realize That!

There is something paradoxical here, because That is not going to be realized in life. It is now that, in your Real Nature, This will be realized, learned, or understood, because It is not within time. It is the body that is within time, imposes limits, has a certain period to expire... The body is set like a sand hourglass, and there will come the day when "the last grain of sand will fall" and will stop. That is determined! Your body has a time, but your Life has not.

There is no this matter of Guru and disciple. We just sit together as One investigating a Thing that is common to both. That is not, in fact, strange to you, because it is your Real Nature. That does not make you right or the only one right. There is no anyone! There is no certainty of anything! There is only one certainty, and this certainty is not what I am, it is what You Are!

The only certainty you have is that You Are when nothing else is. For example, now, where is your home? I say "home" and then you remember it. Where is your son? I say "son," so you remember him. Where is your history? I say "history," so you remember it. When I say it, you remember it and the mind searches for the history. They are images, memories, thoughts, imaginations. However, the only real certainty is that You Are when there is no more world. Everything is only in your head, passing for "reality."

Listen to this clearly: your Being is the only Reality. It has no history! History is on the surface, not in the Depth, in the Center, in Reality, in the Core. In the Core, You Are What I Am. Concerns, afflictions, desires, fears and conflicts are on the periphery, on the surface.

In this contact with you, what I always say to one, I say to everyone, because I do not deal with people, but, yes, with the egoic mind. Curiously, paradoxically, I have nothing to do with the egoic mind... I deal with You. So, what I say is valid for everyone here!

You have this life to realize That; and that means your surrender is not negotiable. I will not negotiate with you! You are here to realize what You are; and to do this, you have maybe 40, 50, 60 years more, or two months more, or two weeks, or two hours, or twenty minutes more to stop fighting with yourself and to assume the Truth of your Real Nature, in order to get rid of all this junk. I call junk all this structure of beliefs, opinions, conclusions, and theories.

What society gave you is trash. Look at the "wonderful person" you have become with all society has given you, is not it? Is not it true? There is no conflict, there is no suffering, there is no... So, are you relaxed, resting? Don't you have to live trying to do, to accomplish and to obtain? Society gave it to you. Look at everything society has given to you… See how this is precious!

Society has taught you to "love," to be "happy," hasn't it? It has taught you everything, hasn't it? Look at how you are happy, aren't you?

When you were a child, they ask you what you would like to be when you grow up. Then, someone says to you, "Study for you to become a person!" Look at you... Now you are a "person!".

Everyone has said you would be happy after college, and now look at you... with postgraduate degree... How happy you are! See how everything culture has given you made you "relax" in your "inner happiness." Look at this! Isn't it? So, what did society give you? So, my invitation is for you to let it go, to go back inward and to realize your Divine Nature. This is the end of the illusion. The collapse of illusion!

* Originally published in Portuguese on December 26th, 201 ** Excerpt from a in-person meeting in Fortaleza – CE, Brazil, on October, 2016. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

What is the real impediment to happiness?

After all, what are we dealing with in Satsang? What is Satsang about?

Here, we deal with what I consider the most important thing ... I deal with what I consider to be fundamental. We are here exactly proposing a direct answer to your permanent search, which is the search for happiness. This art of being fully aware, aware of yourself. This is what happens when you are completely free from the egoic mind. Free from the sense of an experiencer present in the experience. Either you are entirely free from all this well-known agitation, which is the agitation of the mind, or you are in the mind, in its restlessness.

This awareness, which is in fact an art, is Happiness. Happiness is this. It is this awareness, this art, something possible, but for us it seems to be quite complicated. However, to live without the sense of the “I,” without identifying ourselves with all this madness thought produces inside our heads, is something incredibly simple. Is that so or not?

Observe what thought produces inside your head, the conflict, the present contradiction, all this madness. The beauty of Satsang lies in not mistaking yourself anymore for all stupidity of the mind, which is pure confusion. Satsang means the encounter with the Self, the encounter with Reality, the encounter with the Truth. The human mind lives in confusion. It is a burden, a permanent contradiction. It is this chaotic movement of thought producing desires, fears, anxieties, attachments, beliefs, prejudices, concepts, and imaginations of all kinds. This, which does not end, is a real "cloud" of confusion and torment. This is the real blockage, the real impediment to Happiness.

Are we together?

Inside us, inside you, in the innermost, in the deepest of you, below that layer of confusion, of restlessness, of noise, of imaginations, that never ends, there is a Point that is not touched by this confusion, which is prior to thoughts, to any and all thought. This remains hidden and veiled. It remains there, even when that dense cloud of mental unrest is present. Happiness is at the deepest center of our Being, as our Real Nature, True Identity, as what we are. However, we are not aware of this.

This work [in Satsang] is proposed to allow you to directly perceive this awareness ... This awareness or Art of Happiness is to live in your Natural State, aware of this power of Consciousness, of Presence, of Reality, of Truth that dwells in each one of us... that is you.

We believe that happiness is the result of the contact with objects which produce some kind of pleasure in our body/mind, in our senses. From the interpretation of the mind, happiness is pleasure, is to have comfort and pleasure. From mind’s interpretation, when comfort and pleasure are lacking, pain appears and happiness goes away. What the mind knows as happiness is this permanent search for fulfillment it gets from pleasure. This is what in the ego, in that sense of a separate "me,” you have been experiencing as happiness, searching as happiness. That is, every experience of comfort and pleasure that objects offer. This is sought in objects, places, and people.

For the ego, this matter of pleasure, of the importance of pleasure, is directly associated with the contact with objects, places and people. Here is this tremendous dependence, whether it is emotional, physical or psychological dependence, which the ego calls as love and by which it fulfills itself, gets attached to.

Do you follow this? Is it very strange to listen to that? For those who are here in the room for the first time, or second, third time... Who is the crazy in this story? Where is the madness in all this? Is it crazy this approach we are talking about, or is it truly insane this model of life stuck to these so common patterns, attached to this model of repetition, continuity?

Happiness is this Freedom, which is this Present Love, in the innermost place, in the depth; What dwells in the Center; What remains silent and present there as your Being, your True Nature. You are here to recognize That, to assume It, and to go beyond the somnambulistic, hypnotic, unconscious, and general state. You are here to go beyond this whole conditioning pattern. This is what we are talking about in Satsang: the awakening of Wisdom, the awakening of the Truth about ourselves.

Is that clear?

We are talking about this State of Being, purely... about this Awareness, about this Art, which is this ability of purely Being, which means going beyond the dream state, the common waking state and the deep sleep state. We talk about this clear state of full Consciousness, free from duality (duality here is the sense of separation in this belief of an "I" in the experience of the world), free from all this agitation of thought, of action, of feeling, of emotion. To live in this most direct experience is the pure experience of Being. This direct and clear experience of Being is not an experience with the external world. It is not "someone" in the experience with something outside.

We are That. We are that Being. We are that Consciousness. Our being is Consciousness Itself, the Consciousness... It is Consciousness itself. It is our Being. This is the essential grace and ability of Being. This is the Truth about ourselves. All that we live or experience in a direct relation with objects is within the duality of this confused mind that judges and interprets every experience, separating itself from it as a separate entity. In this duality, there is suffering, conflict, unhappiness. We are talking to you about the Truth of Happiness, which is Consciousness.

Is that clear?

It is enough today, and on Wednesday we will be back. Namaste. See you on our next meeting.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on September 19th, 2016. First published in Portuguese on October 13th, 2016. 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 remembrance of your True Nature

As always, I am bringing you this remembrance or showing you its importance, which is the remembrance of the Truth about You. The state of unconsciousness or "sleep" does not allow you to access that remembrance. Most part of the time you forget It completely, and this forgetfulness comes from the unconsciousness itself, which is this common state of “sleep.” The remembrance is that your True Nature is this Consciousness and there is no other thing happening except It. Everything is part of this unique Consciousness. It is the Source of the apparitions. It is in It that everything appears and disappears. I invite you to this Consciousness where this remembrance is possible.

Forgetfulness is the ordinary state, is the mental state, and here we call it unconsciousness. It is a truly “sleep” state. In it, the “dream” is taken for Reality; unconsciousness is taken for Consciousness; “sleep” is taken for the Awakening state; and illusion is taken for the Truth. Thus, my whole purpose when we are in Satsang is to bring you this remembrance, to make you aware of What we are. Nothing has ever happened in your life outside of this Consciousness – and it will never happen. Nothing else is real but this Consciousness.

People, objects, and events in your life have appeared and disappeared within this Consciousness, which is your Reality. You believe you are in an experience in a material world, but actually this material world or the apparition of this world is something present within this unique Consciousness. It is not you experiencing this material world. There is no material world being experienced.

What I am saying is that there is not a separate world from You. There is no this world and there is no this “you” as subject and object. This separation is the illusion. Then, we are facing an extraordinary and beautiful game, a Divine game. It is the game of apparent separateness, apparent duality, of the apparent division between observer and observed thing, between the thinker and his/her thought, between the world and “I.” None of this is as it seems to be. Nothing is happening as it seems to be happening. This is the whole game! Everything is being unfolded within this Consciousness. It is a perfect expression of This Oneness.

Therefore, there is a constant change with appearance and disappearance; however, this is not true! Apparently, this is taking this format. This is very interesting because you can even create the illusion that you need to awaken inside this dream, but, in fact, this dream is not happening for “someone” who needs to awaken. This dream is something within This Consciousness, and It is not going to awaken! It is something present, always present, as your Real Nature, your True Nature.

Here, you need to disidentify from this illusion of the duality, from the belief of a present identity separating itself from the experience. This ignorance about the Truth, about your Self, is just an illusion. Once this illusion is seen, there is no more illusion, and This is the Truth! So it is not about Awakening or being Enlightened one day. This is a very delicate subject... This expectation about future is also something inside this dream, this illusion. There is no future! Future is always for the mind and not for You. You are not the mind! Future is always for the body that experiences the change, and it is the mind that lives within the psychological time. Then, there is the chronological time of the body and the psychological time of the mind, while You are not within any time.

Therefore, when we talk about Awakening, Enlightenment, Realization, we are not talking about something within time. We are talking exactly about the end of the illusion of time. We are facing a fascinating game, which is exactly this: the mind sees itself within time and the body feels itself within time. Nevertheless, here the key is to disidentify from body and mind. That´s why I work with you in Satsang this matter of Meditation, of true Meditation! There are many so called “meditation” out there, but it is not about this kind of “meditation” we are talking about. We are talking about the Meditation in which there is the Truth of the absence of the meditator, the practice, the technique and of all the other things the mind, in an ingenious way, has built for this word called “meditation.”

The Real Meditation reveals the Truth of what You are – this present Consciousness appearing as everything without any separation. The Real Meditation is this “seeing in the clarity.” It is about seeing this whole game. Therefore, it is not about the world disappearing, but about the end of the illusion of “someone” present as an entity separate from the experience “body-mind-world.” When, in an illusory way, this character is involved in the game without the recognition of his or her True Nature, everything is taken very seriously, and then all dramas and dilemmas of life appear to be serious problems.

If there is this recognition of your True Nature inside this game, if this is seen, the matter of the “dream” is not a real problem anymore. When your Real Nature becomes clear, obvious, the character does not need to disappear. It is the illusion of the present identity, of “someone” present that disappears! Life is this whole game. This whole dream is what we call life, which is something happening without any purpose. It is the mind, in the illusion, that is searching for some purpose. Then, the mind has made it very serious, very dramatic, and full of dilemmas, conflicts and problems. Life is what it is!

What I am saying is that for You, as Consciousness, whatever is present is already perfect, including this whole game. Thus, every search within this so called “spirituality”, this search for being special and for achieving something different from what is present at this moment, is something without any purpose. There is nothing for us to achieve. There is no spirituality through which you can evolve and become someone different – it is all within this illusion. This “spiritual life” is just a presumption of this individuality, which projects itself intended to find a union with something greater, with some superior power or something like that.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on March 18^th, 2019 - First published in Portuguese on July 16^th, 2019 - 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