This absolute reality is you

This is a moment of Presence, of Consciousness, of Silence. In this space, we are working this investigation and dealing with the Nature of Truth. It is a moment of discovery, of verifying! There is only one present Reality, a unique Reality, and we are investigating the nature of this Reality. There is only this Being ... We are this!

The contact with this Presence, with this Being, with this Reality is the contact with ourselves. Therefore, there is not the matter of the Guru and the disciple. We are dealing with the same Reality and bowing before this same Reality. It is important that we understand this! When we talk about Ramana, about the Guru, we are talking about this same Truth about ourselves. So, in this contact, we are in contact with our own Being.

Tonight, we are bowing before this same Reality, Truth, Presence ... Before That what we are. So, every idea of ​​Guru and disciple disappears. We are before the same Presence, the same Reality, the same Truth, this same Realization. This is the beauty of the Guru! The Guru is not something separate from This what I am, this "I Am" of this Presence, for we are always dealing with the same Consciousness, the same Truth, the same Reality.

Does everybody follow this?

God is this present Truth, this Consciousness in you, this Guru present in you, and This only exists in one thing: in surrender! When there is surrender, there is this Presence, this Consciousness, and the whole thing is there! This surrender to your Being is God, it is the Guru. So, God, the Guru, the Being and You are just one thing! Bow down before this Being, this Presence! Love that Being - your Real Being! When I talk about this Being, I am not talking about the ego, about "me". There is something of which, perhaps, you have not become aware yet, and this "something" is the absolute Reality, of which we have talked so much. This is the Reality about you and that is what we are dealing with in Satsang.

This absolute Reality is you! In this surrender, begin to realize That, begin to love Yourself, go beyond all misunderstanding, all deceit, all illusion and become Free!

In Satsang, we are dealing with this Reality, this Presence, this Happiness, with This what we are. This moment is a moment of pure Presence, of pure Consciousness ... A moment of Meditation. This teaching is not philosophical, it is not from the Greeks, the Hebrews, the Christians or the Hindus, and it has nothing to do with religion. Only This Is Real! Only This Works! This is a moment just like that: a moment to encounter with Reality, with the Truth that we are, with this Truth that we bring.

Realize that you are never in conflict, but the mind is. It is only the mind in anxiety, in depression, in confusion, not you. You get confused with the mind! Your Being is never in depression, it is never in conflict. In this rendition, in this surrender to your True Nature, everything disappears. There is nothing like this called anxiety, fear, depression or conflict. This happens only in the illusion, not in you.

Who is the one who gets depressed? Who is the one who grieves?

The ego is always playing this game with you. You get confused with the mind and you get lost in the conflict. In fact, there is no ego. There is nothing there to go into depression, other than the illusion of "someone" present, which is when you confuse yourself with the mind, with the feelings. Your Real Nature is Freedom! That is what we are dealing with in Satsang. This is what we put for you all the time.

How is it for you to hear all this? How is it for you to know that you can take on the Truth about yourself?

I do not know such a thing like depression; this is just a mind game. I am talking about depression, but I could talk about anxiety, fear and all kinds of problems that the mind creates. It is just a game, but if it makes you feel good, okay! Go on! If you love living in illusion, getting confused with the mind, okay!

To whom does all this happen, all these problems, all these conflicts? Do not give room for it! Your Being does not know it! Get rid of the egoic mind, of the illusion. Stop feeding this egoic mind. Instead of trying to find the cause of it - which is what many people do when they seek the cause of suffering - get rid of the mind! Instead of trying to find the cause of depression, anxiety, fear, get rid of the mind, of the identification with thoughts! Cut it out of your life! Eliminate this! Get rid of the mind, get rid of that identification!

If you go to the doctor with a tumor, this doctor "extracts" the tumor.  Is not it like this? The doctor "extracts" and the body is free from that tumor. That is what we are saying ... It is a matter of getting rid of it! Self-inquiry is the fastest way to "cut and throw away" this problem. Stop creating this for yourself! Stop feeding this! If you want Happiness, Peace, Freedom, remain free from the mind. If you want happiness, remain happy! If you want Peace, remain in peace! It is very simple.

Instead of finding the cause, you go to the "doctor" and he "cuts and throws it away". The doctor is the Guru, it is the Presence! When we talk about this Presence, this Grace, this Being, this disidentification of the egoic mind, we are talking about the Guru. Notice that there is no separation between you in your Real Nature and this Consciousness, the "Doctor" - the One who rids you of the "tumor."

*Transcript from a speech on an online meeting at night, on December 12^th, 2016 - Meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm - Download Paltalk App and participate.

In this place, Love is recognized.

What the mind conceives, theorizes, idealizes, imagines is still part of it. The old idea of someone present, living something, earning something, having something to show... This is not real. In fact, when you are deeply happy, no one is interested in you. Do you want to be the center of attention? Be unhappy! Being happy, you are not the center of attention. You make no fuss, no impression. Now, when you are unhappy, you become quite interesting to people.

Participant: Is that why the ego appreciate [being unhappy]?

Master: Yes. The ego sniffs out suffering. It has no nose for Joy, for Freedom, for Love, for Peace... That is why it is fascinating, so beautiful to stand before a Self Realized Master, because He does not have that perfume so attractive, since Happiness does not smell. The misery does. The ego's sensitivity is for sniffing out misery. It is like giving a piece of clothing for a dog to sniff. The dog searches whose that piece is, because it has a very accurate sniff.

The ego is a kind of dog that sniffs accurately everything that can feed itself. Just as the dog sniffs the clothes and finds his owner, the ego sniffs out what can fill itself, fulfill itself, feed itself at the most. So, ego smells from far away the smell of conflict, tension, stress, anxiety, nervousness, desire, fear. Freedom, Love and Truth do not smell.

In Self-realization, you do not look attractive. As Being, you are fascinating, but for the egoic mind, you are completely uninteresting.

Your fascination with being in Satsang, your joy of being in Satsang, your relaxation in Satsang is not a thing that is happening in the egoic mind, it is something that is happening to You. It is not happening to this "person" who, for a long time, you believed to be, to this "person" who is in the imagination of other people. Because they see themselves as people, they see you as a person, and as a person, you are very interesting to them. As Consciousness, you do not arouse their interest. You cause strangeness, no interest.

When people write to me or are with me in person, the first thing they present is this deep interest in sustaining the old smell - the smell of conflict, the smell of suffering. Before a living Master, you stand before this Unknown, and He is the only one who deals with you. Everyone around you deals with the idea they make of you, based on the idea of themselves. They do not deal with you.

Love is the only one that is interested in only one thing; Love only has one interest. The interest of Love is Love. So, the Unknown, the Presence, the Consciousness, the Guru only has one interest: You, because You are Love; The Love that He is. It is Love interested in Itself. Everyone around you can not see you, because there is no Love. There is no Love without Truth, and there is no Truth in the mind. If there is no Truth, there can be no Love. A living Master is the Truth. Then, Love is present, and Love recognizes Itself. He is the only one who deals with you as you, in fact, Are. Why do you feel so relaxed in his Presence? So carefree? So fulfilled? Because you know He is not ignoring you! And here, it is not an appreciation or a view centered on a personality. The ego also has an interest in the ego, but its interest is to provide food for itself, which I have now called to sniff out, to smell suffering, pain.

To stand before this Presence is to stand before Yourself; The only Space where You are seen. Your Being, your Real Nature comes back home before the Truth, the Love that is the Guru, which is Consciousness, which is You. Why do you love staying in Satsang? Because there is no other place outside of Satsang. Another place outside of Satsang is a place that the mind has imagined for a supposed entity, and this supposed entity is the idea of being someone, the illusion you make of yourself. There, in this "other place", it is always uncomfortable. The "smell" there does not make you relax. It is a smell of tension, nervousness, stress, conflict, fear, suffering.

This Space is the only "place" in which the mind cannot be. It does not enter this "place" because it cannot imagine it. In this "place", Love recognizes Itself. Then, Guru and disciple, Master and disciple, in this Space, in this "place", disappear, just as the knowledge, the experimenter, the thinker, the resistance, the sense of separation disappears. No one can see you. They have no eyes for it; The mind, no!

It is like you on the midst of crowd, where everyone is wearing a blue shirt, and someone screams, "That guy is out there!" Then you say, "Who? Which one?" They say, "The one with blue shirt!" Then you look and say, "Be specific!" And they say, "Exactly the one with the blue shirt! Are you seeing?"

No, because you are just one more with blue shirt. That is why there is no understanding. Understanding is only possible when there is Freedom. Freedom is only possible when there is Consciousness. Consciousness is only possible when there is Intelligence; And this Intelligence is present when that Space called Truth is present.

You are no longer with a blue shirt among the crowd when God finds you. Only God can see God! Only Truth recognizes Itself in the Truth! And people come to me and talk about Enlightenment, as if people could recognize This. "Person" is the obstacle! "Person" is the crowd with blue shirt, in a space that is not a real place, in an imaginary space, where the smell is not pleasant.

Do you think your father understands you? Do you expect him to understand you? What about your boyfriend, your husband, your children, your circle of relationships? There is only Understanding when there is no "person", because Understanding is Intelligence. It is not anyone’s understanding, it is just Understanding. It is like Intelligence: there is no one in it; It is like Truth: there is no one in it; It is like Love: there is no one in it; It is not personal. Notice that Love is not a verb, not an action, it has no subject in it. Is Freedom a verb? There is no subject in Freedom; It is not a verb. You can not conjugate Freedom, whether in that first person, in that second or in the third. Truth is not a verb either. God is not a verb. You can not conjugate God. You will not find the first or second person to conjugate God.

Understanding is present when there is no the subject. So, it is not "my understanding" which says, "I understand you". It is not like this. This is the beauty of Enlightenment! This is beauty, which is not a verb either. I am enlightened, you, enlightened, He, enlightened ... It is not like this.

People want an impossible thing! They want to be enlightened, they want to understand... I mean Understanding; I do not mean “you understanding”. I am talking about Intelligence, not about one within this. I speak of Love, of Truth, of Enlightenment. I do not speak of anyone in This. I speak of "the place”, I do not speak of anyone there. The Place is also not a verb. So, when you come to enlighten, you are projecting an imagination, a belief... one more belief. It is like finding God; You can not! It's like finding Truth, Understanding, Freedom, Love; You can not!

My interest is in you, not the character with the blue shirt. The beauty in this Natural State is that you have eyes. You are not interested in an imaginary place, where you have crowd of blue shirts, where you smell very strong. I have just spoken about that smell; I have already clarified what this "blue shirt" is; I have already put it to you clearly that there is no such place, it is only imaginary. I am not interested in that; not here! Now, there can only be THIS, here.

Notice that it is when you go toward the imaginary world of thought that you meet the imagination of people, all with a name. But, you do not know who you are dealing with, because they are all basically the same: they carry the same fears, the same conflicts, the same dilemmas, dramas, problems, yearnings, fears, desires, fears ... So, who are You in the midst of this crowd, if you are not found by the look of God? Do you understand it? If you are not found by the look of God, you are one among the crowd, in this illusion of being such-and-such's son, grandson of such-and-such, such-and-such's father, such-and-such's husband...

* Transcribed from a talk in the meeting of the city of João Pessoa, Brazil, on November, 2016.

When you are free from friends and foes, everything is Love.

Being is something you do not learn; you wake up to This! Staying alone is fundamental! Being alone is not to stay isolated, but it is not to get lost in the experience, in the contact with the outside world. This contact is inevitable, but getting lost in it is preventable. Why am I, in this meeting, inviting you to be alone, what can it seem extreme? Do not talk, do not think... In fact, when I say "do not talk" and "do not think", I am saying, "Do not express your contact - that personal, individual contact of the ‘person’ that you believe to be - with the other, with the world outside”. Do not express words or express thoughts. If you do this, your attention is turned inward. You have no way to lose yourself when you look at the whole internal movement (what happens inside there), without identifying with it. There is no way for you to get lost.

You only lose yourself when you jump out to the outer world, going back, once again, to the same scheme, model, pattern, of that separate identity. When you do this, you begin to make the considerations of "one person" to "people." This is like a tree that has not yet grown. We put a railing around a tree that we want to protect from little animals that want to eat it, or in a place where there is a lot of wind, to protect it from a very strong wind, that could pull it out by the root. You give all the protection for that little plant to grow, protecting it from the wind, from too much cold, from the other animals... You give this little plant, this tree, the condition for it to grow.

When you observe the inner movement, what goes on inside; when you observe the thoughts, the inner responses to something; when you observe your inner reactions, this desire to talk to the other, to exchange ideas, to exchange experiences, to demand or to charge; when you just observe, the attention in this observation begins to reveal all this pattern and all this begins to come out, it begins to appear! You do not analyze it, just observe! You do not compare it; you do not say it is right or wrong, that it should not be like this, that it should be otherwise... You do not do it! You just observe that energy that was once in the expression and that is now in the observation. It was in the feeling before, now it is in the observation.

Thought comes and it is observed; the feeling comes and it is observed (bad mood, good humor, malaise, well-being, a little sadness, melancholy, resistance, a kind of revolt...). There is anger because "the cup is out of place"; "He did not wash his plate"; "She left that pile of dishes on the sink"; "She is 'my wife' ('my' - some right that 'I' have)”... So, this resistance is observed. You see all this inner movement arising, all this revolt, this contrariness, and look at it. This wants to get your body, your nervous system and you just observe. When you observe, this cannot express itself, it does not have the energy to express itself, because your energy of attention is all turned to that movement, which is the movement of "me", with "its" rights, "its" reasons, "its" feelings, "its" sensations and conclusions; with "its" story!

Do you follow this?

This is what we are going to do these days here: do not express! You go there and do it, if you can. If you cannot do it, there is only the desire that cannot be fulfilled, and you let go. For example, they left the light on. You get up, go there and turn it off; you do not remain internally in this story of charging. You do not identify yourself with the story of someone to blame. Do you understand what I mean? Can you follow that? "Who was that wretch who let the light on?"; "What a boring girl! She likes to leave the light on." Then, you stay in these stories: "I do not like her"; "She will see!" "What am I going to do tomorrow?"; "I am going to take revenge, I will find my way"... It is just the way it happens: story! This is a huge waste of energy, of this energy of Consciousness, of Presence, of attention!

I do not known this for a long time, because I do not take nonsense from anyone. I do not keep stories. You keep stories: "You will pay me"; "you will pay for it."... So, you live full of enemies and also full of friends, because you owe favors to those who do something good for you. I do not. You do me some good and, for me, you "die" the moment you just did it. I owe you nothing! There is no need to carry friends or enemies there inside. Is not it beautiful? Do you understand what I mean?

When you are free from friends and enemies, all is Love. Your eyes scintillate that brightness, because there is no future and you did not promise revenge for yourself - the revenge of "someone." There is no past too, because no one has done anything to you, so that, now you do not owe anything to anyone. I am saying that you do not learn how To Be! You do not learn the art of Being! You work That, now, at this moment. You work this "thing" of living without image - the image of the other as a good person or a bad person.

Do you understand? I am alone, always alone. No one can frustrate me, abandon me, become my enemy because it used to be my friend. Why? Because I am alone. I am not talking about myself. I am talking about you! Work this now, here; let everything in the place, do not mess with "people"! Do not mess with this "being a person", because doing so you mess with "people", and then you are in the illusion, in the prison of time.

This little tree cannot grow, if protection and care have not been given to it. This Presence, which You Are, has to be welcomed in this Consciousness and in this Freedom of not identifying yourself, of not getting lost and of not being confused with things, places and people. So, You remain in your uniqueness, in your Freedom, in your Beauty. You do not learn how To Be! It is an acknowledgment that there is only You in the whole universe, in the middle of all shapes, of all names, of all things, people, places, objects... There is Only You!

Everything appears as in the dream. When you stop identifying yourself here in your waking state, at night, when you have dreams, you notice that you are also disidentified. It is directly proportional: the more identified in the waking state, the more identified in the dream. You already know what identification is - to be lost in the experience of the moment, as the experimenter, as the doer.

The other day, I have read something that I found simple, about Muruganar, who was a direct disciple of Ramana. He wrote, talking about Ramana: "Our beloved, our Lord, our Master, our Bhagavan, has freed us from the illusion that we are the authors of things, that we are the doers." This is extremely beautiful! The Guru, the Master, in his Grace, frees you from this illusion - the illusion of being "someone" in the world. You do it now! It is not an impossible thing! You do not learn how To Be; you assume To Be. It is not an impossible thing, but you have to unlearn how to be a "person". Did you hear that? You do not learn how To Be, but you unlearn to be a "person", and you do it now!

How do you unlearn to react (to have reactivity, being reactive), to live in friendship with unconsciousness, acting within a conditioning, an unconscious mechanical response, being inattentive? Start by observation. Notice how you look at people and what you feel when you look at them. Do you feel any bond? This bond is an image. Do you like this person? It is an image. Do not you like? It is an image. Is she boring? It is an image. Is she nice? It is an image. "I like her," or "she is horrible, I hate her"; image! "I do not want to hear from you", or "I want so much to stay with you "; image too!

This image is a crease. You are creased! Do you know what to be creased means? You pick up some clothes, you crease them and there is a mark on them. "I like her so much" ... When you remember someone and feel it, it is a crease. "Such a detestable person" is a crease. You can unlearn this, you see? You do not learn how to be, but you unlearn "being personal," “being a person”. To Be God is a Grace, but being a person is not a very good thing. However, you unlearn. You have to unlearn to be a "person." When does this work start? Now! There are no people in this room, there are no people here. Do you want to keep on the game? If you want to keep on the game, you will make many friends, and enemies as well; you will love being loved, you will detest being hated and you will hate in return. It is the game.

Do you want to keep on the game? Do you want to remain concerned about what they think about you, what they talk about you? Do you want to keep on the game or do you want to learn how to look, to listen, to feel the other? His interiority, not the "person"! In my case, nowadays, since I have no interest in "people", I stay with seeing, feeling, hearing ... with What I Am - their interiority! So they only do me good because I am the good of my relations, of my relationships! I am the Happiness of my relationships! Out of the game, you do not depend on. Out of the game, there is no you in the dependence, in the lack, in the need, in the fear, in the prejudice, in the worry, in the desire.

* Transcribed from the excerpt of a speech during the Retreat of New Year's Eve 2016-2017

at Ramanashram Gualberto in Campos do Jordao