Translated from the German by Mark Doyu Albin
Edited by Jane Lago
Thank you to Doris Hüffer-Schott for her proofreading of the English text
Typesetting by Martin Frischknecht
Cover design by Marion Musenbichler
Original Title: “Das, was Du wirklich bist…”
First Edition 2008, Drei Eichen Verlag, Germany
Bibliographical Information of the German National Library
This publication is listed in the German National Bibliography of the German National Library; detailed bibliographical information can be accessed under http://dnb.d-nb.de
ISBN: 978-3-7322-0579-0
© 2013 by Mario Mantese
www.mariomantese.com
First Edition in English
Printing and Production by BoD – Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt
© Cover picture by Günther Ciupka,
taken at the Maha Intensive Gathering in Winterthur,
Switzerland, September 2013
“Those who are not blinded, those who are without arrogance and confusion, who have overcome the stain of attachment, who always abide calmly in the Self, whose desires have fallen away, who are free from the polarities of joy and suffering, are those who succeed in knowing this eternal home.” Bhagavad Gita
This is a spiritual book, not a religious book.
It does not offer solutions.
Through a variety of approaches and perspectives, this book sheds light on and clarifies one particular theme. It does not proclaim to express the one or only truth, but rather guides the reader directly to himself/herself.
FOREWORD
Mario Mantese – Master M – was once a very successful musician. He played bass guitar for the American funk-and-soul band Heatwave. By the end of the 1970s the band had sold more than ten million records.
In 1978, after attending a gala evening in London, he was attacked with a knife, the blade entering the middle of his heart. He was clinically dead for several minutes before being reanimated and undergoing open-heart surgery. When he awoke from a coma after almost five weeks, he was blind, unable to speak, and fully paralyzed.
In his autobiography, In the Heart of the World, he describes how he dealt with these circumstances. He recalls in great detail the deep processes that transpired within his being.
“My consciousness was luminous, powerful, and clear. At the same time I was lying there with a completely paralyzed body, without any way of communicating with the outside world.
“Through my blindness I learned to look inwards, and was therefore able to see in a special manner. Through my inability to speak I came to know the dynamic power of stillness. And as my body was completely paralyzed and I wanted to become healthy again, I learned immeasurable patience, and in this patience I found deep contentment.
“Through this enormous shift cosmic streams of light were unveiled, bringing me deeper and deeper into the infinite universe, and revealing a completely new comprehension of life within the universe. A complete spiritualizing of the senses took place, and I recognized that a human being is in fact a cosmic, multidimensional being.”
Through this experience, insight was shed upon Mario Mantese, the insight that a human being continues to live even without the physical body, and that, in reality, life itself is never restricted by the body. He realized that he is timeless and deathless.
This opening of his consciousness initiated a resurrection bathed in sunlight. He was immersed in that which is beyond life and death and beyond ‘this world’ and ‘the beyond’. His personality was engulfed by the Infinite, and nothing personal was to be seen again.
The opportunity to experience Master M is presented when he offers his darshans and seminars. At first glance, his body appears fragile and vulnerable. But the light that radiates from him and his soft, kindhearted smile allow one to quickly forget his seemingly awkward movements.
One could call Master M a “non-personality” or perhaps a “supra-personality”: “non-personality” because in his movements as in conversation, in darshans as in seminars, no personal impulses are shown; “supra-personality” because he directly and profoundly speaks to and touches the hearts of the people who encounter him, communicating something beyond anything personal. He embodies the presence of the Divine, which he refers to as “that which you really are.”
He had an experience and, as he says, transcended the one who experiences. His deep insight and his extraordinary way of being in the moment prompt others to view him as mystifying and even miraculous. In Master M, many have found what they had spent many years seeking. They say that they have finally come home. Through their own experience they have discovered what they were yearning for, what was lacking, and this they get in intense measure, as he truly embodies universal love and “the Great Silence.”
The mystery or secret of Master M begins there, in his “enormous experience” of the other world, when he ultimately became his true Self. During the time he was clinically dead and the following five weeks while in a coma, he passed through a mysterious death experience, similar to ancient Egyptian initiation rituals. He emerged with an awareness that very few have come to know.
It was a profoundly liberating experience, which he offers back to all through his presence, for, as he himself says, his being is “to give.” The great mystics throughout the ages have testified to that which Master M embodies. He says, “Those who finally let go of the old ways and transcend them find true fulfillment. But in truth, fulfillment is not something you can find. It is that which you really are! You have never lost it, that’s why you are here.”
It was twenty-six years ago that Master M began to share his experiences to a small group of twenty people. It is possible to read more about these earlier times in his book In Touch with a Universal Master. The unfathomable depths of this unusual master are now sought out each year by thousands of people from all over the world. There are no longer empty seats at the gatherings, and the number of requests he receives to attend darshans continually increases. His repute reflects a radiance that is not of this world.
Manuel Kissener, May 2008
In our present day, the sluggish footsteps of evolution seem to be moving faster. Massive ruptures in the fabric of our world have become conspicuous, signaling substantial and unprecedented changes.
The problems revealed through these changes are so multifaceted and complex that it is not easy to find viable practical solutions to them. In fact, it seems impossible. The biosphere, the foundation of our existence, appears to be seriously ill, and the effects of this malady are observable everywhere on earth. It appears that nature and humanity are increasingly threatened, endangered to a point where enormous anxiety has infiltrated the collective consciousness of all living beings.
What can we do to avoid being trapped in this self-destructive whirlwind if humanity can no longer turn back?
This book offers no solutions to these issues. It doesn’t tell you what to do or what you should ignore. This is because you, dear reader, actually know exactly how a responsible, accountable life could be lived and how it should be lived, or how it must be lived!
Most people believe that there is an entity with the name God, and that we, the living beings on earth, are another, separate entity. When we look more deeply, we see that in fact there are not two distinct entities or identities. God, the Totality, is the only reality.
When this one true reality seems to manifest itself in diverse forms, it is easy to designate this experience as an illusion. But, swayed by this delusion, humans have ignored the fact that we ourselves are the embodiment of the one divine magnificence. As there is nothing else but God, anywhere and everywhere, it follows that we ourselves can be nothing other than God.
Still, God is not something that comes and goes, or appears and disappears. God is the essence of all that is. Those who awaken realize the formless essence of all that is. From this perspective, the world is perceived as something superimposed by consciousness, as something that does not actually exist.
May this book bring clarity, insight, and love into your life, and may you realize the divine ever-presence of that which you really are!
There has never been a moment on this earth without time and without change. All things are in a constant state of transformation. Everything is locked into a cycle of formation and dissolution, floating between the harbors of sleep and wakefulness.
At the moment you were born and first glimpsed the light of the world, your life began a process of constant change. Each moment of your life has been unique. No moment has been the same as any other.
Life and death appeared simultaneously, and they will both end. When they end, all plans for the future will also end. But that which you really are has never made an appearance and has never touched this world!
Variable, volatile thought patterns bounded by the logic of gathered knowledge can never comprehend the unborn depths of the Eternal.
Change, movement, accumulation, and dispersion--these are the laws that rule this world, a world that you, in the deepest sense, have never entered. Outside of yourself, there can be no world, because that which you see and experience as the subjective world is what you yourself are.
You see and experience yourself. In the forthrightness of the moment you are the experience and the one who experiences, the cause and the one causing, the one who comes and goes.
Therein lies the driving force that holds you tightly to restless yearnings and old habits and that generates the feeling of an exclusive power within you.
Where does this force come from, this imposing force that ceaselessly searches for solutions and answers to your many problems, this force that compels you to want to know, to have to understand?
You have learned from this force, and initiate all your efforts in this force, your efforts to change the bad into good, to change lies into truth. But what use are changes and solutions, when they merely provide a temporary respite for the ego?
Without final emancipation from all solutions and all that is subject to change, you remain in confusion, trapped in the valley of death.
Once and for all, take leave of the old self-seeking paths, the dull, mechanical routines of your solution-oriented life, and awaken. If not now, then when?
“Dis-cover” the majestic limitless breadth of your soul. Discover the immense renunciation of your limited being, and stop nourishing yourself from the world of death.
What use are solutions when those solutions are nothing more than egocentric strategies, strategies that bring clarity or relief for only a short time, together with a deceptive sense of continuity?
You search for solutions in effects, but a shadow cannot react on the body that casts it. An effect cannot react on its cause. The explanation or analysis of a psychic phenomenon does not result finally in any resolution of it, because truth itself can never be an object of recognition, of the intellect. Only the temporary, that which is not true, can be an object of recognition.
You look for solutions to a problem that in reality never existed, except in your intellect, which itself exists only as a manifestation in your consciousness. The core of the “I,”, the seed from which all misunderstanding, all heartlessness and all grim suffering arise, remains stubbornly in place. It is not eradicated with explanations and solutions. And through this “I”-seed, the pure cosmic light-force, universal love, is suppressed and held captive within dark internal dungeons.
You are convinced that you can achieve everything with your willpower, but you are actually incapable of influencing or controlling the processes of the vast cosmos. Dismaying, disparaging events occur along your life’s path, always unforeseen and unpredictable, entering into unfamiliar ill-fated realms of your life. The hope of a secure way of being is continually undermined and diminished.
The one thing you can be sure of is that, on the level of the “I,” nothing is assured. See the troubles and worries that wear on you for what they are: murky mind states.
No one can hinder the course of creation. Perpetuation and disintegration are never-ending, because in reality there was never a creator, except in your imagination. God IS! Creator and creation exist merely as concepts in your intellect.
In this ever-changing world, this permanently revolving energy field of revelation, you search endlessly for stability and security. You search for something that doesn’t exist, never did exist, and never will exist.
This insight is an enormous jolt for the ego, for it is made deeply aware of its long, grueling journey through the internal night. There is absolutely no security in this world--what a shock!
To heal, you must find out how you came to experience this world, and how you came to experience yourself.
The permanent instability in your life--the disturbances in the landscape of your soul--exhausts you. Even your trusted thinking capacity is incapable of changing anything.
You hunger for life. This energetic force that is the tool of physical existence drives you relentlessly to action. You look externally for solutions from which, on the psychological level, you anticipate stability and security. You search feverishly for survival strategies to escape the dreary circumstances where fear, uncertainty, and death are ever present.
Without an internal there would be no external, and without an external there would be no internal. The internal world is the external world, and the outer world is the inner world. They condition and cultivate each other, inseparably one in the “I.” Indeed, they themselves are the “I”-power.
That which you perceive as the world reflects itself, however, in something deeper--namely, consciousness. Without consciousness, which is the essence of all beings, there would be no internal and no external, and no world.
The world is nothing but a perception, which would have no existence without the one perceiving. Knowing this means nothing, but to realize and live from this truth means everything! Allow yourself the awareness that you are formless, pure universal consciousness, swathed in awe-inspiring divine light.
Collective impressions of the world are forceful and persuasive; our common ideas, common misunderstandings, common insecurities and fears are frighteningly powerful. What is happening to us as a whole, as humanity? Where is civilization being driven in this technological age? Are we descending directly downward into the apocalyptical abyss, or scaling our way into higher celestial spheres?
The proprietor of all fears, hopes, doubts, and systems of belief is the “I.” It reigns over subjective modes of thinking, the mental constructive forces that incarcerate the soul and hold it prisoner in the realm of death. These subjective forces of thought are exactly that which you are not, because that which you really are has never been caught up in the foolishness of divergences.
Still, those who bring harm to others harm themselves, and those who destroy living beings destroy themselves. This is because each living being is the one inseparable universe, the Totality--that which you really are.
Each cause has an effect, and each effect creates a new cause. Release yourself from illusionary attachments; free yourself from that which generates causes. Die internally before you are dead externally!
When unexpected destabilizing events enter into the flow of everyday life, deep cracks in the contours of our vital organism are opened, and we are helpless, horrified, shocked. Incurable illness, the abrupt death of a loved one, financial disaster, loss of a job, social crisis . . . anything that we cannot direct or control induces deep fear.
Out of great necessity, the “I” is made intensely aware of its foundation and its network of attachments. It is deeply shaken, robbed of its strength. It becomes painfully aware of its transitory nature and must acknowledge its vulnerability. Its will deposed of power, its coarsely woven mental existence is called into question.
Be aware that every single living being on the earth is dependent on all other living beings; they can only exist in this way. And be aware that you, as a single being, are embedded within the entire flow of events in the world.
No being on this earth can live for itself as a separate organism outside this powerful collective movement. Each lives in coexistence with all living beings, and all living beings are exactly that which you really are! In our consciousness, unity appears as variety. Variety is the adornment of unity.
The cause of all problems identified with the individual person is the intellect. Transcend it, and be aware that you exist far beyond everything that is temporary, and that everything that comes and goes has, in the deepest sense, never touched you.
That which you call your life is actually a mere movement, a sequence in consciousness. The images of a personal subjective life arise from a projection out of this movement, the images of a yesterday and a tomorrow, the images of birth and death.
This movement is your restless journey through time and space, through ignorance, through highs and lows, though joys and worries. This movement is the “I”, the subjective force that contemplates the contents of consciousness, contemplates “mine” and “yours.”
The act of thinking and the resulting thoughts form the inner life of the intellect, and the intellect is the instrument of the ego. To penetrate the functioning of the intellect and to transcend it means to leave behind a form that was always empty.
These dynamic movements, these energies of thought, constantly create new images and concepts according to previous individual experiences and knowledge. They manage to form an apparent external world from what is apparently an inner world.
The internal produces the external, and the external produces the internal. Internal and external are the same thing; their separation is pure artifice. They exist exclusively as reflections in consciousness. Experiences in the internal and external are like waves coming to an end on the surface of the limitless ocean.
Internal and external experiences belong to the ego and not you!
The world of experiences is compiled in the magnetic field of the brain through the stimulation of the senses. The world of experiences appears to be lived and lived through. But where exactly are the external and the internal?
Your experience of a personal world originates in your brain and is therefore nothing more than a construct of the brain. The physical body also belongs to this inner world of experiences. Through it and by means of the senses, you perceive the myriad objects in constantly expanding space.
Through the act of perception the senses must be employed to decipher height, width, and length, for without these three dimensions the perception of objects would be impossible.
Images arise through the functioning of the brain, as events and scenes are interpreted by the intellect. Through contemplation and categorization of these scenes, the events take on a seemingly enduring significance. But the significance or insignificance of life is nothing more than subjective impressions, nothing but restless contradictory voices. These voices and impressions change again and again, alternating like day and night.
The brain is located in the head, and along with the body and other objects finds itself in a particular space. Conversely, the space, the objects, and the body are located in the brain, since all images and subjective impressions have their origin in the brain.
So, that which you believe in and present as personality is exclusively a projection of your brain. The entire manifestation is like a dream, and all objects are mere appearances in consciousness. It is a cosmic dream, where we are all being dreamed and given life.
An enormous essential intelligence, an immeasurable, omnipotent, protective force that penetrates everything: this is the fundamental essence of everything that is. This divine energy is free from information, imagery, and physicality, this divine power creates nothing, and yet it affects everything.
That which you call “my life” is that which gathers in your brain and assembles itself into a form. Be aware that the assembled and the formed are that which you in reality are not.
You generate and form your own world subjectively, your world in which you experience your own isolated being. The projection, the idea of being an individual who acts and functions autonomously, is nothing but an illusion.
What is generated subjectively is an activity of the brain, a movement in consciousness consisting of thoughts, emotions and memories. Can you think a single thought that you know has never once thought by another human being? How original is your own personal world, which you see and experience as separate from the external world? Yet we each believe that we live in our own world.
You sense space and you experience time in your consciousness, but space and time constitute part of the subjective conceptualized being.
So, how real and true is your subjective world, which indeed is nothing other than an assembled structure of thoughts that constantly fluctuate?
From the subjective viewpoint, it appears that there is not one world but rather billions of worlds. Each person generates his or her own limited world in the brain, where they live, where only they are portrayed.
But the Totality cannot be an object of recognition--only something temporary can be an object of recognition. Creator and creation are actually one, and in the Totality neither is present!
You try to understand other people, to analyze them and their words, their gestures and their appearance. You interpret the things you recognize and the insights you gain, the assemblage of impressions and the effects they have had on you, and you integrate them into your own world. See that others exist only through the subjective perception and interpretation of the “I” for without the “I” there could be no others.