Balsekar's Euphoric Nihilism: Is this Bhagavan's Teaching?

[Guest guest]

---

Access the WIE article at http://www.wie.org/j14/balse.asp then tell

me what you think. Chris Parish, the interviewer, calls Balsekar's

form of Advaitic Nihilism "madness". I agree, for a number of

reasons, one of which is that his philosophy is totally useless since

both the enlightened people, and the unenlightened, act "as if" they

were individual doers (in the relative sense); even though the

enlightened person has a "different angle" on reality (to use

Bhagavan's words). I believe that Balsekar is confusing the concepts

of "non-existence" with illusory: the latter is simply a different

angle of vision, the rope is no longer perceived to be a snake. Take

a stock broker, making decisions as best he can for his clients. In

the unenlightened state, he's acting in ignorance of the Totality, of

Consciousness, of the Absolute continuum of Reality; but the

Enlightened stock broker may make the same types of decisions. Thus,

the decisions are not necessarily different (they could be more

Sattvic); but still, many of the same mind/body mechanisms are used

before and after. What's only different is the "angle of vision".

Ordinary (apparent, relative,) actions may not differ. Certainly, the

stock broker doesn't go around telling his clients that now his

decisions are "the will of God". Besides: enlightened or not, it's

all "the will of God" in a sense; but serves no practical point for

people like Balsekar to go around saying it. Enlightened or not,

decisions are being made, actions are being performed, "as if" there

was an individual doer. The latter is not "non-existent". Doership is

simply a wave in the ocean of being, and has a reality of it's own

devoid of of the illusory condition of separateness that non-jnanis

experience. Parish calls Balsekar's Advaitic Nihilism a form

of "madness". I agree. What's your opinion? ....Matrix Monitor.

Here's the epilogue excerpt:

Here's a paste in of the epilogue:

 

 

EPILOGUE

As I stumbled past the doorman and out into the bustling Bombay

streets, my mind was reeling. How could it be, I asked myself as I

made my way through the crowd, that an intelligent, educated man like

Ramesh Balsekar could really believe that everything is predestined,

that before we are even born, our fate is already etched in a kind of

ethereal granite? Could he really be serious in his insistence that

our entire life, with its seemingly endless stream of choices and

decisions, of precarious opportunities to set our own course for

better or for worse, is actually, from the first breath, a fait

accompli? While I traversed the sidewalk in search of a café in which

to find respite from the chaos, the difficult turns of our brief

dialogue swirled in my head. Yes, "Thy will be done" is the essence

of at least most religions, I thought to myself, but for the great

mystics and sages who have made such utterances throughout history,

surrender to the will of God has meant far more than simply accepting

that there is nothing anyone can do to affect the circumstances of

their life. Surely what has been traditionally referred to as "God's

will" is that which one discovers when one has absolutely given up

the ego, when all self-centered motives have been extinguished,

leaving one utterly surrendered to doing God's will, whatever it may

be! For Jesus or Ramakrishna or Ramana Maharshi to say he was

surrendered to God's will was one thing. But to say that this is true

of everyone seemed at that moment to reflect a peculiar and even

dangerous form of madnessand one which could be used to justify the

most extreme forms of behavior. Balsekar's statement, "What you think

you should do in any situation . . . is precisely what God wants you

to think you should do," means that to him the enlightened Buddha is

no more doing the will of God than the serial killer who is attacking

his next victim.

I had come into the interview expecting some disagreement, but

somehow even Balsekar's booksin which all of these ideas are clearly

and repeatedly expressedhad not prepared me for my encounter with the

man himself. How had he come up with them? I wondered. And why?

Around and around my thoughts went, recalling everything from his

chilling claim that even when we hurt someone, we need not feel

guilty, for we are not responsible for our actionsthat even "Hitler

was merely the instrument through which the horrible events that had

to take place, took place"to his assertion, defying all common sense,

that we have no power to control our behavior or even to influence

the behavior of others. And all of this in the context of his science-

fiction description of each of us as "body/mind organisms" acting out

our "programming."

Suddenly the welcome sight of a tea shop appeared through the smog,

and as I made my way inside, I was relieved to find the kind of quiet

oasis for which I had hoped. It was there, at one of the many empty

tables, as the first sip of sickly sweet milk tea passed across my

lips that, in a flash, it hit me. I was not drinking the tea! I was

not sitting at the table! In fact, I was not the one who had entered

the tea shop. And I was not the one who had just been tormented for

an hour in discussion with a man who at that moment was beginning to

seem like the sane one. In fact, it had never been me doing anything.

It was as if a burden I had been carrying for my entire life was

suddenly lifted into the sky by a hot air balloon, whisked away,

never to return again. All those years I had struggled to be a

better, more honest and generous human beingall that effort I had

made to renounce my tendencies toward superiority, selfishness and

aggressionhad all been a folly, all foolishly, needlessly based on

the self-important idea that I had some control over my own destiny,

and the petty presumption that what I did to "others" ever mattered

anyway. How could I have been so misguided? But wait, it wasn't even

me who was misguided! As if through parting clouds, clearly now I

could suddenly see that what I had thought of as "my life" had in

fact been only a mechanical process. The person I had thought I was

was just a machine. And the world in which I thought I had been

living was not, as I had assumed, a world of human complexity, but

one of mechanistic simplicity, of perfect order, a mathematical

playing out of programs in motion since the beginning of time.

As the clinical perfection of God's scientific plan started to open

up before me, the ecstatic thrill of absolute freedomfrom worry, from

care, from obligation, from guiltbegan to rush through my veins like

a torrent of undammed rivers. And with it came an enveloping,

resounding peace, an absolute cessation of tension, in the

recognition that no matter what apparent ambiguity or uncertainty I

might encounter thereafter, no matter what seemingly difficult

decisions I might face, I could always rest assured that whatever

choice I made was exactly the choice God wanted me to make. The

mysterious sense of an Unknown that had tugged at me for so long had

evaporated. The others in the café turned their heads as I laughed

out loud, a long belly laugh, and mused to myself what a fantastical

game life would be if everyone understood how it all really works, if

everyone could at least get a glimpse of how free we could be, if we

all lived on Planet Advaita.

 

 

 

[back to table of contents]

 

 

 

order this issue

 

to WIE

 

email this link to a friend

--- End forwarded message ---