Our emphasis is on True Meditation

It is good to be here together. What we work together is the end of the belief in a separate existence. There is a Reality present, and It does not know separation. You need to forget completely all concepts and get rid of all forms of belief. This is something you experience directly. You live That in a straightforward way, as it is not a matter of believing in It or not. It is not a matter of belief or disbelief. That is why we call This “the end of illusion.” However, you need also to get rid of the concept of illusion, for it is still a belief.

If you are really tired of being identified with the story of an external world, from this moment on you are ready to Realize the Truth about your Self. So, that is the first step. While you are still so enchanted by the world – and here I mean this psychological world where your whole life is centred in a false identity – the conflict, the suffering and the illusion will remain.

So, if you forget that psychological world, you also forget all beliefs and disbeliefs, because that is what it represents. When we talk about the world, we are talking about cultural thinking, according which you were raised. Here, forgetting the world means being tired of the illusion. Forgetting illusion completely means nothing exists, and that is what we can call as Realization, the Realization of your Divine, Essential Nature. You need to become aware of your Essential Nature, not of this "you" that believes to be there listening to this speech. When one calls you by the name, you reply: "Yes, I am here." However, that is the illusion because You are present even before someone remembers the name given to this body, to this form. You are present there even before you know you are there. Notice how interesting this is: The Reality of your Being precedes the idea of being "someone," the idea of being present.

You believe you are there because you know how to answer “I am here.” When someone calls your name, the thought “me” comes up. Someone calls you and you say: “Yes, I am here,” but this thought “me” is the illusion, because You precede this idea of a “me”. I think it has become very clear to you now what I have called as “false identity,” “sense of “me.” Notice that the sense of “me” is the illusion of being present. Without this illusion, You are already this existent Presence, but not this “person” you call as “me.”

So, the investigation about yourself needs to follow this basis, this principle. It has to start from the standpoint of accepting what is beyond the mind’s ability to conclude, idealize, believe.

What is yours, for example, is just a belief – the belief on “someone” present there. By the way, this "I," the belief on "someone" present, is just confusion, it does not know Silence and Peace. So, when you say “I am here,” you are dealing with an illusion, that is, everything you think, see and perceive is not Reality. However, everything you think, perceive and see is due to the preceding Reality. It is simple and profound… Reality is the basis of all existing things!

This self-investigation is not the investigation of the “me”, but rather only self-investigation, the investigation of the “non-me” Reality. This self-investigation allows you to discover there is no present “me” within the experience of seeing, perceiving, feeling, listening, speaking, that is, in any and every experience. Our emphasis is on True Meditation, not on what most people take for meditation. You may even go through some preliminary phases of what you would call meditation until you get to this moment here.

We are addressing a very subtle thing. When this Truth blooms, there is no more room for ignorance or illusion. Here, you discard ignorance, illusion and, lo and behold, knowledge. In Reality, knowledge and ignorance come from a merely intellectual understanding principle, and this does not work here. It is hard to understand it, but if you really investigate and inquire it, you will achieve That, the stateless State. You experience your existence through objects and thoughts within this dream perception. You, in your Being, precedes these objects and thoughts, because You are the Reality in Itself.

To know yourself, you need a mirror. To see your face externally, to see how your face is and how you look like to others, you need a mirror. Then, you will know yourself by the appearance of your face and you will see what it represents to everyone around you. This mirror is just for that, for you to know how you will look like to others. So, these thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions going on inside yourself are just a “mirror” for you to know something about how you feel, how you look like to yourself and to the external world, but that is not the Truth. Truth precedes this “mirror,” this appearance.

You are here to find out What You are, prior to what thought says about you, the world and others, prior to what the mirror tells you about what you are or what you seem to be. That is the Awaken of Intelligence, only present when you have the Freedom to be outside the mind circuit, because mind is this limitation, this appearance, this “mirror.” So, your interest for the Truth must be to find out What is beyond what the “mirror” says, beyond what the mind says, beyond the appearances, beyond every idea you have about yourself, beyond all that you psychologically have and may have, because they are just ideas, concepts, beliefs.

I am going to repeat it for you: knowledge, ignorance and illusion disappear in this unconditioned State, which is free of all states. It is not about understanding that intellectually. You need to welcome That beyond the intellect. Real Freedom, Peace, Happiness and Intelligence are within Yourself, and not outside. So, you need to forget all the world experience you have and find out What is within Yourself. This is beyond the psychological experience of the world. Therefore, the point is to find out what is to live beyond the mind, beyond a known model, and to deal with all this with the Freedom of this Intelligence, which does not confront, does not come into conflict, does not fall with anything, does not fight with Life as It is.

It does not matter what is happening in the world, in life, in your body or in the mind. Self-Realization is to find out and experience something beyond this limitation. So, Reality is the basis of everything. Then, from that point onwards, you are no longer impressed by objects, perceptions, thoughts, sensations, because You know that Reality is the basis of everything and there is no more fear! Fear remains along with the mind and all its beliefs, conflicts, imaginary future and past moments – always the psychological idea of time, of predicting what may or may not happen. The mind has no control over this; thought knows nothing about the future; as all it does is to create the imagination of the tomorrow.

Mind controls nothing, absolutely nothing! Nothing is safe, nothing is for sure , and that is the Beauty of Life! This Beauty is living and accepting this unpredictability; it is to exceed the boundary of the known, that psychological condition of life, that life of the mirror’s appearance, the idea of an existing experiencer, the idea of a self-important “someone”, in that illusion of being in control. All this causes and maintains fear. That is the illusion!

Notice that there is no reality within this illusion, this is ignorance! However, there is no reality within this ignorance either, because it is only confined into the mind’s imagination; the mind is producing it. As I said a moment ago: neither understanding, nor ignorance, nor illusion can stand before Reality. That dimension of existence is to live in Consciousness, not in the mind, and You are that Reality in Itself. There is nothing apart this Reality, only That! There is only Consciousness, Truth, God!

Do you know the lotus flower? It lives in the water, but it does not touch it…it floats on the surface. When the water drops on it, it flows away and it does not accumulate on it. So, it seems the flower cannot bear to live immerse into water; its petals always remain out of water. The water drops on it and rolls down… The flower does not allow to be touched by the water; it does not get immersed into the water. When you look at a lotus flower, you see its entire body submerged, but the flower itself floats over the water’s surface. Whenever the water level rises up, the flower grows up a little more so as not to get immersed. If the water level rises up a little, the flower also grows up a little more to keep pace with the lake, as it needs to be above the water’s surface.

Was it clear what I meant? To live in this world, without the illusion of being alive within it, is Wisdom, and This is Freedom, Happiness. However, to believe you are living in this world, that you belong to it and that only the world is the reality, is to forget your True Nature. It seems the lotus flower does not forget that: it is always out of the water, although still on the water.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on May 20th, 2020 - First published in Portuguese on August 19th, 2020. For further information about the meetings, click here.

Life carries no history

The basis for the revelation of the Truth is this investigation of yourself, of who you truly are. Until that moment, you are mistaking yourself for the illusion of being present in this human experience, for you have been brought up to believe in it. You see yourself as an entity, a person, someone present within the body. You need to go beyond this illusion!

Your conditioned pattern says you are separate, experiencing objects separate from yourself. The eyes see things outside. The ears are listening to sounds that come from the outside. The smell also comes from the outside. That is, the senses are turned outwards, to external sensations, and here is the illusion: the separation between the experiencer and what one experiences - the experiencer inside and the experience outside. In this way, there is subject and object, and this is not true.

Every experience is happening without the experiencer; it is only the experience of this Consciousness. Without the Consciousness there is no experience. The thought has a story to tell about the illusion between the experiencer and the experienced thing, but thought is only an imagination, a fiction, just another experience within this Consciousness.

This is quite interesting, quite important because when it becomes clear, understood, even intellectually, that there is no separation between thought and thinker, observed thing and observer, listener and heard thing, then you have the groundwork to not trusting anymore in this illusion of someone present.

"Someone present" is only a conditioned pattern, a belief. There is no "someone"! For example, here and now the illusion is that there is separation - "we are here and you are there." So, there would be, in this same room, in this present moment, someone or some people in Brazil, others in India, others in the United States and others in Singapore, which is not true! There is only one experience happening right now, and it is this Consciousness. It assumes a form, a sound, the "listening," the location (Brazil, Singapore, United States, etc.) and so on, but it is the same Consciousness in its expression. A single present Reality.

We are forty-two participants in this Paltalk room [online meeting via Paltalk app], plus other five people in person here. However, there are no "people" in this room. There is no "one" speaking and there are no "others" listening. There is only the experience itself, in itself. The experience in itself is Consciousness, and not an experience to "someone." It is the experience within itself, by itself, in itself. This experience is pure Consciousness, pure Presence. This is the basis for the end of duality, of the sense of separation. When there is no duality, there is no conflict, fear and suffering. Your whole problem lies in the illusion "you" are there within the experience of this "someone," of this "me," of that "I" ("my story and me," "my pain and me," “my problems and me").

So, the real way to deal with thoughts is to not mistake yourself for them. In other words, to not see yourself as the thinker of them.

Every problem starts by believing you are in the control, being responsible for something, but if you observe it closely, you will realize thoughts happen similarly to the rain: without any control of yours. When these thoughts happen and you believe they are yours, you mistake yourself for the story they tell you, and then you start to exist within this illusion of being someone with problems.

All these thoughts revolve around this self-image that you believe you are. This self-image has problems - problems with other people, emotional, psychological and health problems; problems with the past, with the future ... Self-image, this "sense of me" is striving to change things, which is an illusion. This way, conflict, suffering and fear remain.

Life carries no history. Life is what is being presented at this present moment, at this very moment. And so, there are no thoughts about what happens, there is no past, present and future, there is no "one" responsible for or able to take care of that.

In India, they name the illusion of duality, of separateness as Maya, that is the existence of a "me" and of what happens outside in the form of people, places and objects; "my story and me;” “God, the world and me.” So, we need to deepen this work to let go of this illusion of duality, of separateness -Maya.

Participant: On November 2016, one of my best friends got involved in a car accident and died on the spot. She had a five-year-old son... The question is: how could I overcome this fear?

Master Gualberto: It is not about "a fear." We must approach this thing called fear. Fear, be it attached to a particular situation or to any other situation, is always fear. It does not matter what we fear of, because there is only fear. Now, why is fear present? That is the point! Why is fear present? Because the sense of separation is present. The sense of separation is based on the thought, on what it "tells" you regarding what happens. Notice thought happens within time. That is, when there is room for the time, there is room for the thought.

Fear appears when thought appears. Thought is the basis of fear, the basis of the separation between the "me" and the imminent danger to this "me." The illusion of the “me” reinforces the illusion of danger to this “me”, being the thought responsible for maintaining all that.

Fear is always connected to time, since it is always linked to the thought. Thought always deals with the past or the future, when fear is possible. If there is neither past nor future, there is no thought and, therefore, there is no fear. So, my recommendation here is: Give up the thought! Give up the "me"! That is possible now!

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on the night of April 17, 2017 - First published in Portuguese on May 31, 2017. For further information about the meetings and how to participate,click here.

Discover That in a straightforward way

The opportunity to live outside of the countless mind’s conflicts is inexplicable and unspeakable. The ordinary mind has the difficulty to accepting its self-limitation, so it won’t give up its self-confidence and notice its limitation so easily. The mind won´t accept to be told it is unreal.

Who are you when you wake up, walk or drive a car? If you hear a voice telling you this is just an appearance of a functioning mechanism, that everything is happening without a present identity, your mind will reject it right away. It cannot notice its self-limitation so easily, because the very own structure of all mind’s beliefs lies in the illusion of present identity within the experience of talking, walking, driving a car and so on.

When you study music, you learn there is something called “tonal center” around which the music happens. Similarly, this supposed identity you believe to be has a central point around which all its movements take place. What central point is that? It is what I have been calling as "imagination." This false identity believes to be talking, walking, driving, choosing, acting… and the illusion of a personal and private central point must be present for this movement to exist. This sense of a separate individuality, this central point, is what I have been naming as "imagination."

Therefore, your feelings, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and actions are not yours, they are not "someone's.” In fact, the body and the mind are functioning, but there is no particular, individual central point, although there is an individual brain with seemingly particular experiences. You are “functioning,” but there is no present entity within that act of functioning. The act of “functioning” is entirely part of the Existence, that I have also named as Consciousness.

Our work here is for you to find out That in a straightforward way. We are not dealing with one more idea or set of beliefs. This is not another concept being shared to you so that you believe in it. This is the non-duality, non-separateness Perception, in which there is no "person." So, when we talk about walking, talking, driving a car, thinking or feeling, all this is happening but not the way thought believes.

I know the thought of being a “person” is very subtle. "I saw”; “I exist”; “I am”; “I have”; “I do…" These are thought’s expressions and experiences’ descriptions, but they are only a form of belief. All this is just this “me,” a reference to explain what happens. The point here is: Existence needs no justification for what It does. However, the mind needs to create an explanation, and it does that through imagination. This way, the mind creates a “me” to feel or to do, to be a hero or a victim, to choose, to decide, to be responsible for or not, to take responsibility for or to get rid of the guilt of the responsibility.

So, things can go well or bad, but there will always be this illusion that they are happening to "someone" or being done by "someone." Some people may even say: “I am not the one doing this. Now I am free, there is no ‘me’.” However, these statements are still imaginary. The belief now lies on the non-existence of a “me” while previously it lay on the existence of a “me” – that is, the concept is still present. The truth is that if there is still any sense of a “me”, be it gross or subtle, even if you proclaim yourself a free, realized or enlightened one, even if you call yourself "Buddha," "Christ," or "Supreme Truth," those denominations will be just more ideas, more concepts and beliefs. This notion of a "me" assumes there is a separate entity, separate from Reality, from the Existence itself, from the Consciousness. Once you are able to see That, you can no longer play the game. This is the game of conceptual illusion, in which you can be on one side - of those who believe in the existence of a separate entity - or on the other side - of those who do not believe in a separate identity. However, the game is the same and goes on. There are many circles of discussion, many places where this issue of non-separation or non-duality is addressed, but everything still revolves around this same game, as it is not possible to solve this issue in this manner: having a belief as the reference, be it the belief in the “me” or in the “non-me”.

*Online meeting transcription, originally held on the night of April 13, 2020 - First published in Portuguese on August 11, 2020. For further information about the meetings and how to participate, click here.

10th – Why rushing?

A careful investigation into ourselves has been an extraordinary and powerful tool for the encounter with our True Nature. Although the religious practices and all forms of moral behavior people gave us, have a certain disciplinary role, they were never enough for giving us what we believe we can find there: profound Peace, True Love, and Real Joy.

We keep always adding something to ourselves that we did not have. That has been the great illusion we were taught by those who were looking for something before us and like us. We do not realize this race never stops, let alone it ends.

Everyone is telling us we are in the right direction and someday, in the future, we will get there. Ask these people what we will find there: they will have an answer on the tip of their tongue. Now, ask if they have met or known someone who has already found what they believe they can find, someone who has already stopped rushing, who found the end of his or her search. The answer is obvious.

We cannot find the Truth by accumulating, within this illusory personality, all kinds of information, knowledge, and experience. The Truth of what we seek and search for is not part of what can be intellectually known or emotionally experienced as we were led to believe, and the opposite is also totally true. Those that one day have experienced this illusion of running a race - just like us - and have realized, after leaving this marathon, it was just a desperate escape from suffering, have soon understood that instead of accumulating something, they need rather to give up everything they have accumulated and empty themselves of all content in order to recognize their Divine Consciousness.

What we say is that, in the Now, in the clear Vision of who we internally are, beyond all this accumulated content (materially, intellectually and emotionally), lies the Truth we search for, the Eternal Happiness.

How to live This? Now, in your Being. Do not mistake yourself for what is going on in your head. Thoughts are just thoughts! Do not give them a life they do not have by identifying with them. This has been the insane human being behavior. Human beings are guided by thought, so everything they do is based on desire and motives created by thoughts, which creates even more confusion and suffering.

Allow your Pure Consciousness, “Something” beyond your head and therefore beyond thoughts, to Awaken therein. Find out that there is a space between thoughts. There is always a space between two thoughts! That is the space of the Silence of Pure Consciousness, of the Divine Consciousness! Just disidentify with thinking and you will be Free, or rather, you will know the Freedom that has always been yours.

*This text, written by Master Marcos Gualberto, shares the Sage's view about life, was published for the first time in Portuguese on October 12, 2010. It was the tenth original publication on the blog in Portuguese and is part of the collection related to the first years of this work, whose texts, after being kept offline, are now being translated to English and will be published in a series as a tribute to the Master. For further information, visit our website, click here.

How to hear God’s voice?

You have to become aware of the Truth, that is, to go beyond your beliefs and any image you make of yourself and of the world. Only then, you will be able to become totally and completely Free. When you pray to God and He is very far, it is like God was not hearing you. It is not that He does not listen to you. It is you that cannot listen to Him. This is the world where you live, and that’s why you need to transcend it: in order to really hear God’s voice.

So, when the Presence of the Guru comes into your life, it is to provide you for the Vision of the Truth about who You are and about what the world in fact is. God is the Truth of your Being; however, you do not have access to Him until you find out how to access Him inside yourself. Thus, this mysterious Power takes the form of the Guru and shows you how to access This inside you. The Guru silences your mind and inclines your heart to the Truth. This is the mysterious Power of the Presence of a living Master.

All people around you are mundane, and all their inclination is to names and shapes world. They believe in everything and “follow the herd.” Do you know what a herd is? If you separate a cow or an ox from the herd, it is eager to go back. Once separated, the animal gets lost, not knowing where to go, because it loses the direction of the herd. In the ego, you are like that: when you separate yourself from the “herd,” you want to go back to it because you feel lost.

Then, Master’s Presence comes to provide you for a new perspective, another view, to take you out of the “herd.” Is This precious or not?

When you sit in silence and start watching the movement of the thoughts inside yourself, you notice how the mind is full of trash, which are preconceived ideas, beliefs, concepts, a huge amount of psychological garbage. When you do that, you can hear God’s voice, you can see God’s face, and this is the purpose we are together here, in this space. Since you cannot deal with What you do not know, you have to come closer to this internal movement of the “me.” That is, you cannot go beyond the mind without becoming aware of its movement. If you are not familiar with this movement of the very own “me,” how can you abandon that?

Now, notice what I am saying to you here: it is not about analyzing the “I,” for this is what psychologists and psychiatrists do. It is rather about seeing its movement. The analyst is not separate from what he/she analyses. When what is analyzed appears, it is analyzed just because there is an analyst present. So, both are always together – the analyst and the analyzed thing. It is just like thought and thinker. You cannot separate the thinker from the thought, both appear together. You cannot talk about a thought without the illusion of a “thinker.” So, if there is not a thought, there is not a “thinker.” If there is not an analyzed thing, there is not an “analyst.”

It is like fear; you do not separate fear from the one who is afraid. The one who is afraid is present there together with the fear. Notice that there is no separation. When there is not fear, there is no “someone” in the experience of fear, there is not the “fearful” one. Also, when there is no thought, there is no “thinker,” and when there is not anything to be analyzed, there is no “analyst.” So, what is to listen to God and see His face? It means being out of this illusion of duality: thinker and thought, analyst and the analyzed thing, fearful and fear. Therefore, when the Guru comes up, it is to show you the importance of being in this Space, which is not a “space.”

Now, the first step, which may be the last, is to observe, to get to know this mechanics. People ask: “But who is going to surrender?” I answer that the one who is going to surrender does not exist. When there is surrender, there is no “someone”! That’s why these questions people ask when they approach this work are completely wrong. They say: “What do I do to stop thinking?” It is impossible to stop thinking! Thought stops but you do not do it. Now, you can only figure out this mechanics by establishing yourself in Silence and looking at this. However, do not take it literally as many people do. Establishing in Silence does not mean that you cannot eat, walk, work.

Here, it is the very own Silence settled in Silence. It is not “someone.” If you believe you are “someone,” you are going to sit your body down and believe that you are really in Silence. So, establishing in Silence to know this mechanics means Silence itself settled and this mechanics being known. This is very interesting because you say to me: “I want to watch the mind.” However, you cannot watch the mind but only mistake yourself for it. When there is observation, there is no mind. You must be an expert in this matter of Meditation, which is this “establishing yourself in Silence.”

*Online meeting transcription originally held on May 16th, 2020 on Zoom app - First published in Portuguese on July 31st, 2020. For further information about the meetings, click here.