The imaginary world of the mind

Until nowadays, you believed God would come, would appear in your life to save you. I am saying that when God comes into your life, it is to put an end to this illusion you need to be saved, rescued. When God comes into your life, it is for the end of this illusion you are here and God is there, that you were here waiting for and God just came to meet you. It is about the end of this illusion there are God and you.

Look at the people around you... What do they say? What do they deal with? They talk about the past, or their personal experiences, their desires, their fears, their beliefs, their disbelief, their hopes, their yearnings, concerns, dreads, their particularity... a constant search for self-fulfillment by sharing something with someone, just to be important, to be seen, to get the validation of the person they believe to be. They are using you, and all of you – as people you are – are using others. You all are playing the same game.

This conversation about nothing never ends! Pure stupidity! Only the “mechanisms,” the “machines” are changing, but it is just the mind talking to itself.

These “machines” see each other in an illusory way as separate entities, in a relationship based on reciprocity, fellowship, friendship. However, this is not real, because you are not real. If you are not real, the other is not real either; and since the other is not real, who are you talking to? Who are you? It is only the mind in its old and tireless "blah, blah, blah."

When you are with me, you are in Satsang, and that means being apart of the constant and feverish activity of this inner “blablablá,” of this chattering saying things to yourself and to others.

Being in Satsang means remaining in Silence, and that is the purpose of coming to me. You come to me to get silent, not to daydream. Do you know what “to daydream” means? This constant walk that takes place in this virtual world created by thought, like this 3D roller coaster, which we have just seen. You wear glasses and take a trip: you go up, go down, go through the loop... but, in fact, you have not left any place.

Ego works like this. It is as real as this 3D virtual trip with special glasses. You do not leave the place and however you travel... A journey that never ends, which is corroborated by everyone, that everybody helps you to make it. Everyone says it is like this anyway, this is the model, the formula, the format, that this is how it should be, and I come to Satsang to question it.

In Satsang, which means establishing yourself in Silence, entering, plunging into this Silence, I question this illusion – the illusion of someone in a trip. In my talk, in my silence, in my look, I am saying, "you are there, you do not have to take this trip. You do not have to daydream. You do not have to move into this illusory world of thought, belief, relationship, where you need people and things, where you need to be with others to vent, to unburden yourself... What to unburden? What to vent? With whom?

If you remain with the pain, you go beyond it. If you share it, it becomes stronger, maintaining its continuity in this illusion, which is the illusion of someone in it, of someone within that pain. There is no one in this pain! This pain will not kill you, because you were never born, so you cannot die. You cannot experience immortality or mortality.

So, keep that pain and find out it has no reality, except in this imaginary world of thought in which you take a trip on a roller coaster with 3D glasses.

*Online meeting transcription – First published in Portuguese on November 26th, 2016. For more information, please access: http://mestregualberto.com.

Thought decides absolutely nothing

Satsang highlights the present Truth. We are here always pointing out That which is never absent. Your job here is to investigate What remains immutable. It is to find out there is no “me,” no “person” present in this experience. This investigation itself happens as a mysterious phenomenon, for there is not “anybody” to investigate anything. However, the investigation is important and needs to happen. There is no “me,” there is no real sense of an entity present in this experience called “human life.” In other words, all the sense of limitation you experience in life is as false as the experiencer.

As time goes by, you formulate an idea about who you are, that is, you have an image, a picture, a mental concept. You have an image about yourself and you really believe how true is this image. So, all your reference about life is based on this image, the illusion of a present entity, and therefore of a centered ego, a sense of a central “entity,” in which experiences happen. So, when you believe you have done, felt, or lived something, it is just a thought arising to confirm the belief of this identity. Thinking is a practice, a habit.

This format of the thought, “I did,” “I felt,” “I thought about it,” this is a habit. These statements are just beliefs. So you have a feeling that you have not done anything right, that you could have done better, and in the future, you will be able to do differently than you believe you have done. Nevertheless, this is only self-image, a creation of the thought, a picture, a painting created by ideas. The ideas “I was not good enough,” “I am sad, because I did it wrong,” “I could be a better person,” these are just mental images and have no power. To investigate and see this trick in which the mind has been captured, this is our job in Satsang!

This ego, this “me,” this “I,” this “person” does not have any real substance, because its construction material is a fiction, is made of imaginative matter. Thought is the imaginative material of the construction of this identity. This notion of past, present and future is also part of it. Present is the idea “I am here.” Past is the idea “I was there.” Future is the idea “I will be in another place out of here.” However, I am here to tell you there is no “me,” there is nobody in this ingenious, mysterious, and magical project of the thought. Thought is just a phenomenon, like rain that appears for a while, makes a big fuss, gets everything wet, and then it stops.

When you say “I can hear it,” who is hearing? Are you hearing now? Or is this hearing just a mechanical phenomenon of this structure, of this biological living machine? The body is this: a biological machine. You swear you are hearing, seeing, feeling, but it is just an experience of this biological structure. What You are is beyond this experience. However, you do not know the Truth about yourself. Then you mistake yourself for the body among these experiences and two hours later you say, “I heard that,” “I saw that situation,” “I was there,” referring to the supposed past in which you believe you had lived as an entity that witnessed something.

All you are doing is just about sharing memory. What is a memory? It is basically an imagination present in this mechanism, in this organism, in this brain. So, you are reporting a supposed event that you believe you have lived. Notice: I am not denying what happens, I am just saying that there is nothing going on for "someone." That is exactly why you suffer: you take seriously the imagination of being someone in the experience to whom everything happens. So, there is the matter of desire, of choice, of illusion about the freedom of doing, of the fiction of the control, and this implicates future.

If you look closely at this, you will find out there is no future under your control, under your choice, under your desire. To believe in this control is to sustain the suffering. When you are thinking about something, this is only a phenomenon of the thought happening, there is no “you” in this experience. However, because you believe to be in this experience, you believe in loving and hating, in frustration, hope, and all kind of things. The truth is that you cannot think, because “you” do not exist. There is no way to think about the past or the future, because thought happens in this machine, in this mechanism, without "you."

You do not control your thoughts and yet you feel guilty. Notice the absurdity of this: there is the illusion of someone feeling guilty for simply believing that he/she should have thought and done differently than what he/she had thought or done. There is someone afraid of what might happen, just because he/she is imagining the future, as if he/she had any control over it, over what thought produces, or over what might happen. In fact, when the thought about future is happening, that is imagination happening now, without someone's control. So, trusting in thought is the dumbest thing on the part of a human being. Nothing is as stupid as that! All human stupidity and mediocrity start from this: confidence in thoughts.

Thought has no any power. It decides absolutely nothing! Some things happen in such a way that they seem to be confirming some idea that went on in your head, and based on that, you have been spending your years trusting it is the thought that happens. What happens is Life! Thought is also just a happening, but it determines nothing. As a matter of fact, it does, determines all the illusion of your life, all the confusion and disorder. Because you believe to be the thinker who can control, do or choose, you are in confusion with problems as imaginary as thought.

What is going wrong in your private life, or in the world, if thought cannot say anything about it? Tell me about your problem without the idea, the belief, the memory, the remembrance, therefore, without the imagination of a thought. Without thought, what is your story and what is wrong with you? What is out of place in your private life in the world? The moment you begin to understand that your thoughts are just mental concepts and that Life is just going on, giving no importance to whatever form of thought you have, you face the opportunity to discover that thought is illusion.

This makes all the difference for the end of this illusion of the sense of someone present, of this belief in a separate entity. This way, this body-mind, which you call "me," has the opportunity to live without conflict, effort, and suffering. What I am saying is that thoughts are phenomena that happen, but there is no one involved in it. Choices also happen, but there is no one in the choice. Control, choice, thinking, or whatever seems to happen, happens without someone. It is only the Existence working, the Consciousness, which is the only Truth present making everything happen spontaneously, effortlessly, without an author, without a doer, without a controller, without a thinker.

The unique Real Presence making all of this possible is this Intelligence, Energy, Presence, Truth, Consciousness. This is the Nature of all manifestation. It is your Identity, your Real Nature. This is Supreme Intelligence, with no need for this illusion of doing, thinking, feeling, controlling. Realization is this Verification. Everything else is happening as a mirage, which seems to be real, but it is not. It is just this false identity that feels under a very strong sun and stepping on hot sand. If this identity disappears, the mirage also disappears, and what remains present is this Intelligence, Energy, Consciousness, Truth, God. So, it is possible to live Love, Real Joy and Real Happiness!

To know God is to be God! I have just named God as this Intelligence, Energy, Consciousness, but if you do not like these words, you may eliminate them. God is not going to be bothered with that.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on June 10th, 2019 – First published in Portuguese on August 2nd, 2019. For more information, please access: http://mestregualberto.com.

You know nothing about Your Self!

A meeting like this is an opportunity for you to see yourself. Your life in the mind is a big illusion. All the knowledge you have is part of this illusory state. To be able to see yourself, you need a mirror. You are not able to know anything about you if all you have is the old and former movement of the mind.

The mind is something that carries knowledge and ignorance. It is really hard for you to accept that you need a mirror, and that is the problem. There is not a single point where Reality is not present, but you do not know that. In order to see your face, you need a mirror. Happiness is inside you and not outside of you, but you need a mirror to see this. You know nothing about Your Self! So the belief you have about yourself is of the experience of an egoic identity present in the world. This is all because you do not see your face, you do not know the true Happiness that is inside you.

All your experience in the world is from the mind, from this false “me,” from this false identity, from this ego-identity. Because you do not contemplate Your Self in the mirror, because you do not know the Truth about Your Self, you are unhappy. You shoulder all kind of problem in this psychological world of yours, a world which you come across without having seen yourself in the mirror. Happiness is something present when this world is forgotten. You are looking for Love, Peace, Happiness, and Freedom. In fact, everybody is, but only 1% of humanity, or maybe even less, is looking for This in the right place, because they are looking for This outside, in desires, projects, and dreams of the mind.

You need to contemplate Your Self! When you contemplate your Real Nature, a feeling of love without cause overwhelms you, fills your whole Being, and that is the end of illusion. Illusion needs to disappear! As long as illusion is present, there will be no Peace, Happiness, and Freedom. Only when you are tired of the external world, you will yearn to be alone in your Being. You are afraid of being alone because you are not tired of lie and illusion. That is why you want a company, the projection, the desire, the dream imagined by the mind.

Your Real Being, your True Nature, is beyond pleasure and pain. Illusion cannot provide you a thing called Reality. Illusion cannot provide you a thing called Happiness, Peace, Freedom, and Love. It cannot! My question to you is, are you part of that 1% of people interested in Truth or part of the large crowd? You know how the large crowd lives, for your parents have lived this way, your grandparents and great grandparents too, as well as all people around you. There is not even one of your relationships that is truly happy, even among your accomplishments.

The complete abandonment of illusion means Self Realization. Truth is the basis of everything. Truth is the basis of Freedom, Peace, and Love… If there is no Truth, you have no Love, Peace and Happiness. If you love and cultivate lies, you will never know God, the Truth. So, you need some training. Satsang is the training for you to change your patterns, for this pattern of beliefs and fixation on the illusion to lose the enchantment. What I am saying is that you need to lose the excitement, the pleasure and the habit of living in lies. It will maybe take some time. It will maybe take a lifetime; but I think that some of you here in this room have already passed 15 years of age. So time has already passed and it is time to turn to This.

The point is: You are the Truth, but without a mirror you cannot know this. Otherwise, cultivation of lies predominates and prevails. There is no point where Reality is not present, no moment when It is not present. You are always under Its Face, but you cannot see It. The world itself is not a problem. When I say, “forget the world,” I am not saying the world is the problem. I am saying the mind is the problem, is the illusion. When you comprehend illusion is illusion, this can no longer affect you. The point is that without self-investigation, you do not have a mirror to know how your face looks, nor to know that illusion is illusion. That means you take illusion for Reality.

The person is always afraid, confused, and full of conflict. Conflicts are those contradictory desires you have. When there is Real Comprehension, there is nothing to gain or lose. When Truth is present, there is no conflict anymore. I have talked to you about the possibility of a State free from conflict, fear and confusion, but you do not pay attention to it. You do not have real interest in it!

Curiously, today you are here in this room. I talk to you about the simplest and highest Comprehension, and when It settles inside you, Truth becomes clear – the Truth of all Sages, throughout all time in the human history. The Truth of the Comprehension present in your True Nature is the Truth of Buda, of Christ, of Krishna.

You are right now listening [reading] to this speech, but this speech is not the Truth. When you have a thorn in your foot, you use another thorn to take that one out. You are not going to put a new thorn on top of the one that was already there, you are going to use the second one to take the first one out. So are these speeches. I do not want you to learn, to memorize, to save or to flounder about what you are listening to.

Do not reflect on this, for it is not wise! It is wise to accept that this thorn takes out the thorn therein. What I am saying is that the false can be removed by the false; a thorn can take another thorn out. However, if you only learn this speech, thinking it is beautiful, it is going to be just another thorn with the first one. So, this speech (which is not real, but it could work like a thorn to take out another thorn that was there) is going to be useless. In other words, you need to accept that everything that goes on in your mind is illusion. All knowledge and all ignorance that are present there, are part of illusion. The Real Medicine that brings healing is Real Knowledge, but Real Knowledge is beyond words. It is born from the Comprehension that comes with the welcoming of Truth. Something that is only possible in the Silence. That is my speech!

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on July 15th, 2019 - First published in Portuguese on August 19, 2019. For more information about how to participate, please access: http://mestregualberto.com.

The real answer is revealed in the Silence

Here, in these meetings, we talk about the Real Nature, and this is something beyond words. No matter the amount of facts we investigate here, the purpose of these meetings is to be able to go beyond words.

Truth is not an accumulation of facts. It is something without a cause... So, this I Am - which we talk about here - is not something abstract. It is not a concept or an idea. Teaching the Truth is not about sharing concepts. The real answer is revealed in the Silence. It appears in this Silence. It requires you to be open to this; that is, you need to allow yourself to be touched by the Truth, and this is something that requires real sensitivity to the Silence. Silence carries the fragrance of Truth!

When you listen to a song and care about the meaning of the lyrics, you stop listening to the melody. When you are going to listen to music, you cannot worry too much about the meaning of words. Truth is not revealed in the words but in the Silence. Therefore, my recommendation to you is: remain with the music, immerse yourself in this music, do not worry about the lyrics. When that happens, this openness to the music itself, to the Silence itself underneath the words, can bring you back home. Your home is your Real and True Nature.

When you say, "I am a mother" or "I am a son," you are not saying anything about yourself. When you say "I am an American" or "I am a Brazilian," you continue saying nothing about yourself. Therefore, the words within this meeting, with this song, are pointing out something prior to all this. This is the new kind of knowledge... It is not knowledge born from the accumulation of information, experience, and perception of facts, but the direct knowledge of your own Being, of your own Real Nature - the knowledge of who You are.

All knowledge of experiences, facts, and concepts is external to what You are. Nevertheless, this knowledge of which we are speaking here is something straightforward. So, when you say, "I am a mother" or "I am a son," or "I am American," or "I am Brazilian," it means absolutely nothing. This is the kind of knowledge the mind has, the mind seeks, the mind desires... There is no Truth in this kind of knowledge! This True Knowledge we speak in Satsang is the knowledge of your Real Nature, and it is non-objective, non-spatial.

The purpose of this meeting is to go back home, or to discover home Here and Now. This knowledge is the Real Knowledge of your Self. You need to investigate yourself; not what is outside, but what You are, Here and Now, inside you. Most part of the time, you are living in a reactive way, that is, giving answers to exteriorities.

I want to invite you to observe, to observe your reactions, to observe where this movement is taking place. You will soon realize it is only in the exteriority, and thereby they are mere reactive actions. Mind lives reactively, while your Real Being never reacts. The mind is reacting all the time, while your Being remains unattainable, Pure Consciousness... your Being is not bound to this knowledge of facts, of experiences – the objective knowledge. Your Being is pure Freedom, and in that Freedom, there is Peace, the Bliss of your True Nature, of your Real Nature.

So, you cannot discover the Truth about yourself externally through knowledge or objective experience. Real knowledge about you is the liberation of all conditioning and therefore of all knowledge that mind, experience and observation produce, which can be demonstrated or explained through facts.

We must discover the music; the music can reveal the Being, while the word can only point to This. We are using this expression “word and music” within that context, within that speech, exclusively. The emphasis on this speech is always about pointing out what is beyond speech and, in these words, pointing out the music itself.

So, the most important thing in this meeting is Silence, and not the word. It is the dive, the immersion in the music itself. Thus, you have to discover how to observe yourself, how to observe what goes on internally, what your purposes, intentions, reasons, and reactions are. Start doing it, Here and Now, right now. This provides this structure with the sensitivity and vulnerability for this encounter with you. This is Real Meditation!

* Online meeting transcription, originally held on November 06th, 2017- For more information about how to participate, please access: mestregualberto.com

What is to Realize God?

Basically, you are conditioned to rely on ideas, thoughts, and here our investigation is about this conditioning.

Mind works in this movement of memory, of thought. If you have a real interest in the Truth, you need to go beyond memory, beyond thought. Thought functions as repetitive and continuous programming. You, for example, never talk without memory. In a conversation, people are just exchanging memories and remembrances. What we call “communication” is the exchange of memories, images, remembrances, of the past.

This is interesting because you do not know what past is. What you call “past” is just memory, remembrance, images, and thoughts. You do not know the past or the future, but you can imagine it. You imagine the past as something that happened to you. It's like taking a trip to the past. Something totally impossible that exists only in imagination, only in science fiction movies. You can imagine it, but you cannot go back to the past. You might say you were there, but in fact you were never there. You believe you are here... There is something present here, but it is not this imaginary "I" you believe to be. So, you are not here either, in what you call the present moment. Notice that this is basically what we are dealing with in Satsang.

If your interest is in the Truth, you need to let go of the illusion, the thought, the imagination. Basically, in Satsang, we deal with the end of imagination, the end of this imaginary world thought creates. It is in this imaginary world that you "have lived" the past or remember it. In fact, you have not lived the past, just like you are not living this present moment.

You are here today with me to investigate this matter of the Truth about You. You are not this movement of the mind, this imaginary movement of thought. This is a running program. Just as the heart is programmed to beat, just as the organs of the body work within a programming, the brain also has a programming in that mechanism. Thus, the mind has this movement of memories, remembrances, images, imaginations.

Basically, in Satsang, we investigate the nature of the Truth about ourselves. What is this Truth? The Truth is that this imagination is not you. All that you are looking for in this life is the Truth about yourself, and This is the only Real thing you can find. Apart from that, there is this movement of the mind, of images, memories, remembrances. You cannot live any moment in the past or future. What the mind does is to imagine it all.

The only Real "thing" you can find is yourself. To find yourself means being out of this movement of the mind. So, everything you can find in the mind is part of the illusion. In fact, nothing is being found, this is just an imaginary projection of thought; so is your world, so is your history.

Everything you know about yourself and can report by using the thought has nothing to do with who You truly are. Everything you can tell someone about yourself, or you can imagine about the world, about life, about the other, is false.

So what do we do in Satsang? We leave the imagination, we leave the history, we leave the imaginary movement of the “me,” this sense of the person. This is called Meditation, Satsang, the Encounter with Reality, the Encounter with Truth. That’s why I have said: what you are looking for is indeed Yourself!

It is pretty funny to me today, because I see you in this movement to find something, but you don't realize this is not a natural movement; it is a movement of the mind. So, it is not a movement to the Realization of Happiness. It is a movement to mediocrity, to misery, to confusion, to suffering. This is the whole movement of search that mind knows. That’s why the search must stop. The search is not part of this Reality, this Consciousness, this Presence that You are. The search is of interest to the mind.

Mind has an interest in search, philosophy, religion, esoteric practices, studies of holy books, and all sorts of spiritual practices. The mind is always in search of knowledge, experience, fulfillment, that is, it is in search of continuity. Not You! You are Consciousness. You Are Truth. You Are Supreme Reality! This is outside this dimension of what is known as "time." This is something out of the past, out of the future, out of what we call the present moment.

So, what is to Realize God? It is Realizing What is present outside the mind. So, This is present, but it is outside of this "present moment," outside of this "past" and this "future" the mind knows. This is why only Meditation reveals God. Only the absence of the mind reveals That which is out of time, out of the known. You have to throw it all away in order to be who You Are.

I'll repeat: everything must disappear so That, which is out of time, reveals Itself as the only Reality that floats above this ocean of apparitions and impermanence - past, present and future.

You cannot find anything other than Reality. Anything else you believe you have found other than what You Are is not real. The only Reality is what You Are, and That is out of everything you can find.

All you can really find is yourself, which is when everything disappears: your history, your world, your imagination, your past, your future, and your present. This is all imaginary, none of this has Reality! So, what is the cause of all your problems? What is the cause, the root, behind all this pursuit, all this unhappiness, misery and dissatisfaction?

When you look at it closely, you find out that all this takes place in this world of thought. Without thoughts, you have no problem. Without history, you do not exist. When you exist, you have problem.

Realization is the Truth that You are Real, but you do not exist. I will repeat: the Reality of Being is the Truth of not existing. This is to Realize That, which is ready, which is already here, which is timeless, which is out of mind, out of history, out of imagination, out of all that “blah blah blah” of mind. That is the Truth!

In India, they have an expression for this illusion: "maya." All this imaginary world, all these stories, memories, experiences, perceptions, sensations... all this is maya. They use the word "God" as a synonym for Consciousness, Truth. In that sense, it is That that sustains and is hidden behind all these apparent phenomena that arise and disappear, such as body, mind, world, stories, thoughts, past, future, and present. That is Absolute Intelligence, Truth, Consciousness, God; What it is unspeakable, indescribable, timeless, unknown.

So what is to Realize God? In the language of my Guru, it is to be God. Ramana said, “To realize God is to be God; to see God is to be God!” God is That which is present outside the time, which is here without a position in space.

This is something the mind cannot access. This is achievable in your Being, as your True Nature, in an easy, simple, straightforward and objective Realization. When the illusion of mind, of history, of memory fades away… Meditation! Is not that simple? I think so!

When thought comes, it creates stories, which is imagination about the past. If this imagination of the past vanishes, thought disappears.

So, That, which stands on its own, out of memory, time, history, mind, is the Absolute Intelligence. God, the Supreme Reality, your Self, your True and Divine Nature.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on May 3th, 2019. For more information about how to participate, please access: mestregualberto.com