Become aware of yourself

There is something that I find interesting, very important to all of us here. If you pay a little more attention to yourself, you will notice this: the mind is always occupied. In fact, mind lives totally occupied, full of expectations.

Expectations regarding future events. In fact, events that may or may not happen. And it is always occupied with the old movement of memory. This is very, very common.

The point is we don't realize that. We don't get in direct contact with ourselves because we are not aware. There is no such self-observation, of this movement. So, we are always prisoners of these projections: the projections regarding this imaginary future and past, which is also imaginary. So, the movement of the mind is always this, busy, busy.

In this work of Self-realization, it is essential to recognize the Truth that You are. This is something that is outside of that old movement of the mind, projecting the future and imagining the past. So, it's important that you become aware of yourself, aware of yourself, about yourself. That is the goal!

The mind is always creating situations. It is and will always be creating its projections. This is something very, very common. Every movement of the mind is the movement between this unknown, imaginary future and this apparently known past, which is just a weight of memory, remembrance and something imaginary.

The only Truth, the only Reality, is your own Being, your own Being here and now. But you are not aware of It, because you are completely absorbed by these images, which are images that thought is producing, all the time, inside you.

This is the condition of identification, of this ego-identification. What we're trying to show you in these meetings is actually something beyond all descriptions, beyond all words. So, it's something beyond all this movement of the mind.

We are pointing to you the Truth of your Being, the Truth of your Divine Nature. As long as this identification with this movement of thought remains, you cannot be aware of It, you cannot be aware of the Truth of your Being.

So, this image you make of yourself, in this relationship with the world around you, with others… as this is all based on this movement, which is the movement of thought, which is the egoic movement, you cannot discover the Truth of your Being, the Happiness of your Being. This is because you are identified, or identifying yourself, constantly with a false identity, with a false character that thought is producing, that thought is saying is you.

Therefore, the question is "Who are you?" It's actually the same question: "Who am I?"

We are not talking about a character. We are talking about our Essential Nature. We are talking about the Truth that we are.

Each person has his or her characteristics, each person carries a personality, but this personality is part of that memory, part of these images, part of these imaginations, part of these projections. So, past and future are projections of that character. This is not your Divine and Real Nature, nor your Real Identity.

That's what we're always dealing with in Satsang. We are pointing out the importance of discovering the Truth that You are. This is beyond a thinker, an experiencer, beyond the very idea of an observer or a doer.

Perhaps your question is, "How is this possible? How is it possible for us to become aware of This, aware of this Truth that we are, this Truth that we bring?"

The element you have here is this attention. You cannot control what comes up, but you can become aware of this movement. This attention dismantles all this movement. This attention to yourself shows you your True Nature, disidentified with that movement. And when that happens, you are free. Free from the idea you have of yourself. Free of those images you have about yourself. Once you are free of that, you are free of this whole conflicting relationship with this world that thought has produced.

See, the problem is not in the world. It is not in the relationships you have with life. The problem is in the illusion of someone present in this, in the idea of this "me," this "I," since the relationship with life is about life with itself. There is no "me,", this "I." So, this movement, all based on thoughts, is completely illusory. It's something that always puts you under a condition of illusion of time. Past or future.

So, there are always these ideas, there are always these beliefs. There is always this prevailing fear, this anxiety, this desire, this affliction of becoming someone, of becoming something different, of doing something, of building something, of getting rid of something. These are all ideas, beliefs, projections of thought. It is thought projecting itself. It is ideas within this movement, creating this whole artificial condition.

This is the cause of misery. This is the cause of all internal conflict, of all suffering.

You are here to discover the Truth of who You are, the Truth of your own Being, the Divine Reality that You bring. And that is something possible when that movement is completely deconstructed, when that psychological dependence is undone. When this is undone, Truth manifests. So, your Freedom is the Freedom of the realization of that movement. The realization of this movement is the end of it.

December, 2021
Gravatá-PE, Brazil
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Guilt is just one more thought

Participant: Master, I'm 27 years old, and until I was 17 I attended church. There's a deep belief of search, but I feel guilty, I don't know... a feeling that I'm hurting my family since they're all protestant. I'm afraid they'll know about my search. The internal work has been helping me since it alleviates this guilt.

Marcos Gualberto: We are easily influenced by what others think, say, believe… In a short time, we also start believing that. It's so fast, how we are induced to believe in others and how easy it is for us to believe them! We not only believe what we imagine but also in what people are imagining about themselves, about us, about others, about the world. And it's just thoughts.

I'm not telling you that it's simple to put an end to this pattern of believing and trusting in thoughts. Since the world began, all you have are thoughts. The mind has this strong movement. It takes you into the past and the future. The mind does this all the time!

There is no Consciousness, no Presence. You are not aware of this moment here, now. You're not aware of what it's like to be free from thoughts. There's this whole model, this fast-paced mechanism of thoughts being produced all the time in your head.

You spend the whole day with thoughts in your head and guilt is also just another thought. When you believe you can do good or cause harm, there is always the illusory idea of "someone" present thinking, feeling, doing, talking, feeling sad or happy. Someone successful or not. Someone with or without responsibility.

They're constant thoughts, and this is quite heavy. It's too heavy to internally believe what others believe about who you are, about what you feel. But that's how it is. It's a psychological conditioning. Breaking with that means breaking that self-image. People are just images, and you are an image to yourself.

How many good people are there in this room? And how many bad people? Are you a good person or a bad person? A person who does everything right or everything wrong? Do you see what I mean? That's an idea you have about who you are, and you protect that. Guilt is to protect that image. Fear is to protect that image. This is the psychological condition of human beings.

Participant: Master, I sometimes feel very intense anxiety. There are times when I get distressed! I don't know if it's due to something I'm doing wrong… It seems like an exaggerated body reaction. I don't know how to deal with it.

Marcos Gualberto: It's always the mind producing it. I don't know if it helps you, but it's very important you learn to trust me. If you observe closely, you always trust yourself and people.

When I came across my Master, I learned to trust His eyes, to trust what He felt… Either I would trust my thoughts, or I would start looking more at Him. Either I would continue to trust what people said to me and what they made me feel, or I would look at Him and trust Him.

He wasn't telling me this. Deep down, it wasn't Him causing this, so I don't know if this helps you. In some meetings, I have spoken about the importance of trusting the Guru. Either you trust the Guru, or you trust what thoughts say, what people say, what the world says. Either you trust this "internal thing" that makes you prone to the Divine Presence in the Guru's form, or you keep believing what thought says inside your head or through people's mouths.

Trusting in Grace, trusting in the Guru... this is an important thing. When that's broken, you're lost. So, since you always trust thoughts, and that means trusting people, I'd like you to start listening to what I'm saying and trust that a little bit.

What people say, what you think, what you feel are just thoughts. All of this is just this false "me" having feelings, this false entity having experiences.

Remain steadfast! May your eyes not stray from your purpose. Remember: your purpose is to Realize the Truth. If that's your purpose, you won't let anything hold you back. Nothing will take you down.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 24th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on April 23rd, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

The problem isn’t in objects

Everything you do "as a person" is the result of ignorance, mediocrity, stupidity and restriction. Everything the "person" acquires is to bring more problems, not peace. You have children and face difficulties in raising and educating them. You find a husband or boyfriend to suffer the pain of separation, the pain of betrayal, the pain of rejection. Everything you do in the ego is to be miserable!

If you write in pages of a notebook, all the joys and complications the objects you own have brought you, you'd see what I am saying. Objects bring more problems than joy. They bring more worry than comfort.

However, this is misinterpreted since in your mind, you believe you have to get rid of the world. I want to make it very clear to you that the problem is not in objects, but rather in the subject, in this false sense of "me" present in the experience.

For example, it seems like a very simple thing to be sitting on the couch at home. You don't realize how scared you are that someone else takes that seat, that someone literally takes your seat. You arrive home, open the door and find another girl sitting on your couch. Or another boy or even a neighbor's son sitting on your couch. It's not your child sitting there. It's your neighbor's child! Do you have a problem with the couch? No, but you find a woman sitting on the couch at your house… "Who is this woman? Where did she come from? Hey, this is my couch!"

The problem is not with the sofa. It is not with that woman. You didn't know, but that woman was your husband's sister, who you didn't know. But a million things went through your mind until you understood it was just your husband's sister who has just arrived for a visit. Until you understand this, enormous suffering has already occurred internally!

Just getting the news that someone very close and dear has died, you immediately begin to suffer. But ten minutes later, the real news arrives: they changed the names. It wasn't that person who died, it was someone else! It was ten minutes of suffering for someone you believed to have died, but who, in fact, is still very much alive!

Do you see how the mind works? So, the problem is not objects. It's not the world around you. It's not that girl who sat on your sofa. It's not the sofa you have at home. It's not the house, the dog, or the son… These are just unimportant objects! It's your ego that gives importance to them.

Personality lives under restrictions and gives identity to experiences. So, you live in a bad mood, stressed, angry, upset, anguished, because there is a psychological demand. "Person" demands his world to be the way he wishes. This is living "as a person." Do you see? How are you going to find Beauty this way? If you want to find Beauty, Truth, Love, and Real Peace, you have to abandon the "person." Then, life becomes a celebration, a divine holy feast. Otherwise, you can't live that.

You need to find in your Being a real relationship with what is around you. You don't have this when your mind is attached to objects. When you don't see the fear of losing. When you don't accept the freedom of letting go. When you hold to control. When, for example, you want to first understand to trust – "I need to understand what the master says to trust him." This is the same as saying "I need to understand what Life represents to accept It as It is." This is not possible, but it's the "person's" demand.

Then, I ask you: how will it be possible for Happiness to arrive? When will this happen? How will the real relationship with Love take place if Love is attached to objects? Love is something internal. Love cannot be linked to objects. If there is something attached to objects, this is not Love. It's desire. It's attachment.

When I came across my Master, I realized that the main thing was to trust. It wasn't questioning. It was trusting Him. It wasn't doubting. It was trusting Him. It wasn't arguing with Him. It was trusting Him. He had a look I didn't have. He had a Silence I didn't have and a Peace I didn't have. I only had This when I was close to Him, with my heart turned to Him. So, I soon realized I didn't need to understand Him. Listen to this carefully. Yesterday, I heard someone saying here: "Sometimes I trust, sometimes I don't." This is something you have to look at internally. It has nothing to do with the external world. It has to do with this false center of "person," of "personality," in which you believe.

This is what you have to doubt, not Life, not the Guru since Life came before you. You're just dust! When dust rises, where does it go? Dust rises and disappears! You're dust in the wind... Dust rises and disappears, and the wind is still there. Existence is the wind, you are the dust. You want to distrust things, being dust in the wind you can't control. Being the dust you are, you go by so fast and want to be suspicious of the wind that's out there doing everything the way it wants.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 28th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on May 1st, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

Everything is false from this false center: “me”

If you are looking for the Truth, for Freedom, if what you want to find out is True Love, Real Peace, you need to abandon living in the personality. Pay attention to this now!

You need to have a passion for This, for the Truth, Freedom, Love and peace. The "person" doesn't know This. You need to reformulate everything internally. You are something beyond, greater, outside the "person." "Person" lives in restrictions, so, as a "person," you are always restricted. Stuck to this "person's image," to this "sense of person," you carry a personality. Then, everything you see around you is from the private viewpoint of this false "me." Nobody has ever told you this in society.

The whole world lives like this! Everything around you, every relationship you have around you, from this false center, is falsified by this. Everything is false from this false center. You will not find love in "people." You have a boyfriend, a husband, a family, but this is not love. This is the result of your conquest, of your desire. You are the Sun and these planets are revolving around you. None of this is love! Actually, as it is a projection of your desire, it is a prison. Nobody has ever told you that.

Everything you acquire is the result of your desire. It is your prison. The whole world around you is created by this false center. As it is the result of your desire, your ego is alive in it. You may not have a child, but you have a dog or a house, your whole relationship is based on that "sense of person."

You cannot die like this. This would mean dying in prison, and if you die like this, you will remain in prison. Real death is when all this ends.

So, if you are serious about the pursuit of Happiness, abandon this false center. This false center is keeping you under restrictions. You won't be happy being "someone." There is Happiness only in Being! People have mistaken this for thousands and thousands of years. In this search for Truth, they found out they are stuck in this material world, so what do they do? They try to get rid of the material world since they think the prison is in this world.

Actually, your puppy, your family, and your house are inside your head. Your world is only yours. It's something inside your head. So, it's no use getting rid of the material world if you're not free from this false center, this false "me."

So, you don't have to get rid of the world around you. You don't have to get rid of your puppy or your house. You must have the freedom of living without the house and the puppy. Living in your Being is being Happy. And being Happy is to not depend on what the mind is holding around you.

You are living under restrictions. All relationships with people around you based on your "person" bring conflict. There is internal tension. Don't you see it?

When you wake up in the morning, the "person" wakes up soon after. That's exactly what you heard! First, you wake up, then the "person" comes up. There is no "person" when you wake up. But when the "person" wakes up and is "in front of you," you identify with the "person" and then there is just this false identity in that experience.

So, you need to step back and remain without the "person" waking up. If you step back and the "person" doesn't wake up, you are Awakened. I don't think I ever put it that way! So, what is it to be Enlightened? It's remaining without the "person" waking up.

The beauty of the Sage is that there is no "person" present there. The Sage, in the morning, wakes up, but the "person" doesn't appear, so restriction doesn't appear, confusion doesn't appear, attachment to the puppy doesn't appear, fear of leaving it behind, fear of losing the child, of losing this or that object doesn't appear.

Your Being isn't attached to your boyfriend, husband, grandson, child, to that beautiful house you have, to that new car you bought. Your Being isn't attached to the car you didn't buy, the husband you don't have, the child that hasn't arrived, the dog you want which is "your little friendly pet" but you still haven't been able to find it. Your Being isn't attached to this, but the "person" is. It is not your Being that distrusts the Guru, God, the Grace. It is not your Being that is afraid of being deceived, but rather the "person." Person is already deceived! If person wasn't deceived, it wouldn't be afraid of being deceived. This is "person's" mistake.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 28th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on April 27th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.

You are not here to suffer

I was 24 years old when I came across my Master. Today I can put This into words for you, but I did not receive it from His words. I received it only from His look.

Everything I can share with you here is more in Silence than in words. It is more in my eyes than in my mouth since that was how This was shared with me.

Since I was a child I was prone to this search. All my upbringing and childhood were at church. So, I didn't really appreciate this messy life a lot of kids my age had. I got married when I was 19. I got married early since I didn't want to live up to a messy life. I felt if I become a family man, I would have the chance to have an encounter with the Divine, with God.

There was a search here for something beyond this world. I prayed, I spoke to God, then my Master appeared. What I'm telling you here is what I'm living today because, by his Divine Grace, everything is different. Why am I telling you this? Because you are not here to suffer. Nobody is! People don't know this, but you are being warned and advised: you don't need to live like this.

Everything you are looking for is what any human being is also looking for. I was still a child and I realized that. Everything we do or try to do is basically to feel good, to be happy. But we have a very stupid inclination – human being carries a stupid naivety. It is not that innocence of the one who is curious to discover and discern. We have a stupid naivety. We try it once and it doesn't work, then we try again. That's why people get married again and again! They are stubborn since they believe it will be different the second, third or fourth time around.

So, it seems that we have this conditioning. We are educated and raised like that. This needs to be broken! This pattern, this conditioning, needs to be broken! You need to Awaken, and This is something that happens naturally when there is an inclination towards an intelligent life, which is a life without conflict, without fear, beliefs, without being led, induced by others to live as they live, to do what they do, to want what they want, to seek what they seek, to give up, too, because they give up.

So, welcome to this place, to this space. In India, it is called "Satsang," an association with the Real, with Reality, with the Truth of who You are. You are so involved in thoughts, feelings, emotions, seeking sensations... When you arrive in Satsang, I work on that with you, so that you discredit what thought says, what feeling says, what emotion says.

You need to trust something internally, bigger than the mind, bigger than these stories thought creates and feelings produce about this "little person" you believe you are, about this story you believe you are living, about this world you believe is real.

So, my emphasis is that you discover the deep meaning of a mind-free life. Mind is total conflict! Every problem is inside your head. Your whole world is inside your head. You produce this all the time, all day long, every day! Then you don't rest. You take medicine and you can sleep, but at night you dream, and there problems appear again. There is no Joy, there is no Beauty, there is no Silence, there is no Meditation, there is no Consciousness!

This is my specialty! Some people are great football players, others are average players, but they are also players, and some are real phenomena. This goes for any sport. I wasn't born to play soccer, but I know how to look at you and say "see, being Happy is possible. Realizing God in this life is possible."

Whether we like it or not, this approach to the Divine is a kind of flirtation, a kind of courtship of God. It's just like that. Actually, we are kind of conquered by His Grace, by His Beauty, by His Truth. Isn't it so? We are kind of touched by something out of this world. We don't know what it is, but we know It's there.

That's why I say this is not a meeting for you to learn things. It's like taking a walk out of the world, of this mind's world, of this world of the head. You've been listening to me, for example, for a few minutes, but during this time, you haven't had any sense that there's an incentive for you to go out and be a better person, a successful person, a fulfilled person, a powerful person… No! You listen to me and the feeling you get is that you don't know, but you feel, somehow, that I'm pointing out something outside of this world's condition people are living in the mind.

So, see this: if you're willing to realize This now, you can't give This up, you can't swap This, you can't let anything ward you off from This, you can't let anything be greater than This, because This is your purpose, your unique purpose. You were born to realize God. You were born to realize the Truth.

So, stop listening to what the mind says. Stop believing what people say to you, good and bad, since it doesn't matter if it's your mind talking inside your head or if it's people's minds talking through their mouths. Do you see?

Human beings have this stupid naivety, as I've just said, of believing in what thought says. Not only in thought inside their head but especially in what is verbalized in others' head. The world of the mind is chaos. There is a lot of conflicts, a lot of disorder, and a lot of suffering, because there is no Truth.

*Online meeting transcription originally held on February 24th, 2021. First published in Portuguese on April 16th, 2021. For further information about our meetings, please click here.