Author and thinker Ramesh Balsekar

[Guest guest]

As posted on NDS by 'humanitate'

 

> Online edition of India's National Newspaper

> Sunday, Jul 07, 2002

 

> Magazine Published on Sundays

 

> Ramesh Balsekar is being recognised by a growing tribe of spiritual

> aspirants as a contemporary master of advaita. ARUNDHATHI SUBRAMANIAM on

> the man and his philosophy.

>

>

>

> Author and thinker Ramesh Balsekar.

>

>

> HE is a retired General Manager of the Bank of India. An avid golfer. A

> family man with wife, children and sundry grandchildren. A small,

> silver-haired and mild-mannered octogenarian, he lives in a spacious,

> comfortably furnished apartment in a genteel south Mumbai residential

> locality. In short, he fits the prototype of an unexceptional bourgeois

> Maharashtrian Brahmin gentleman, who has earned his leisure after a long

> and fulfilling life — one that has offered him plenty of fodder for

> geriatric reminiscence.

>

> But there is one additional biographical detail: Ramesh Balsekar is also

> recognised by a growing tribe of spiritual aspirants as a self-realised

> sage, a contemporary master of advaita. He has authored several books on

> the subject, has travelled overseas on many lecture tours, and graciously

> engages a motley bunch of 50-odd seekers in his home in a lively daily

> exchange. This assembly of seekers is heterogeneous, and includes a fair

> sprinkling of celebrities, ranging from singer Leonard Cohen to Hollywood

> actress Meg Ryan. These " meaning-of-life " discussions with diverse people

> from all over the globe are skilfully moderated by the venerable Vedantin,

> and inevitably culminate in extemporaneous sutras, delivered by him in a

> style that is lucid, accessible, humorous, and yet uncompromisingly

> rigorous, and conspicuously shorn of sentimentality and turgid punditry.

>

> And so Ramesh Balsekar isn't exactly your average, unremarkable old

> pensioner, after all. He himself would probably be at pains to emphasise,

> however, that he is. For this is the same man who enjoins his listeners to

> remember that the " awakening " — if and when it happens — is likely to be a

> non-dramatic, unobtrusive affair. No celestial visions, no out-of-body

> epiphanies, no cosmic shudders; just a quiet arrival at the deepest

> possible understanding that " you are no longer the doer " .

>

> Balsekar's own description of his " enlightenment " is, in fact, remarkably

> prosaic and matter-of-fact. No, he did not run home to tell his wife about

> it. He did not even feel the compulsion to mention it to his guru.

> Apparently, Nisargadatta Maharaj simply looked at him some days later and

> said, " I'm glad it has happened. " And the disciple silently concurred

> though he knew he needed no certification — even from his teacher. Indeed,

> there is nothing remotely hagiographic about Balsekar's life-story. He was

> a reasonably bright student, passionately fond of math (he recalls

> fervently hoping he wouldn't die before his algebra exam). And no, he

> wasn't having mystical premonitions of future greatness at the age of six.

> There was, however, he admits, a somewhat shadowy, inarticulate early

> understanding " that nothing really was in my control or in anyone else's —

> an acceptance that whatever happens, happens according to cosmic law or

> God's will " .

>

> There was also an abiding fascination from the age of 14 with the teachings

> of Ramana Maharishi, and later with Lao Tzu. The result, he says, was a

> fairly philosophical attitude to life at an early age, but no more. A

> degree at the London School of Economics, marriage, children and an

> accomplished professional tenure as a banker followed. But a certain

> detachment persisted. " My inherent early understanding that I was not the

> doer helped me, " reflects Balsekar. " It made me an honest worker,

> unconcerned about promotions, or about bootlicking my superiors.

> Paradoxically, that attitude made me more successful professionally. "

>

> His first spiritual mentor proved, by Balsekar's own description, to be

> " first a brahmin, and then an advaitin " . In the year 1978, after his

> retirement, when he walked into a humble loft in Mumbai's decidedly

> down-market area of Girgaum to meet a somewhat unconventional combination

> of mystic-cum-beedi merchant, he knew he had come home. Nisaargadatta

> Maharaj possibly knew it too. For he welcomed the newcomer with the words,

> " You've come at last, have you? " A year later, on Diwali day, Balsekar's

> spiritual journey reached its fruition. It happened when he found himself

> performing the function of translating his guru's Marathi teaching into

> English with a sudden fluency and spontaneity. " It was as if Maharaj was

> translating into English and I was merely sitting there, a witness. "

>

> Were there any life-changing decisions after this? A major re-evaluation of

> priorities? None at all, responds the resolute advaitin, who maintains that

> enlightenment, like any other happening, is " an impersonal event " and that

> " there is no individual to be conscious of that awareness " . In fact, his

> reticence even after his self-realisation prompted his teacher to actually

> raise himself up on his death-bed and ask with a strength and vigour

> surprising in one afflicted with throat cancer: " Why don't you talk? " It

> was after this that Balsekar started expounding his master's teaching more

> freely. But it was only when an Australian disciple of Swami Muktananda

> visited him one day, and subsequently started bringing fellow-seekers with

> him that the practice of morning satsangs at the Balsekar abode was

> spontaneously established. ( " I have never advertised my talks, " points out

> Balsekar.) And so the transition from seeker to sage was complete. Does

> Balsekar's teaching depart significantly from that of his master? By his

> own admission, it does. He highlights the fact that Maharaj once told him

> that he himself did not parrot his own guru's teaching either. He said,

> " Whatever comes out of my lips is what you need, not what my colleagues and

> I need. " And so the first question Balsekar asks those who tell him they

> want enlightenment is what they want it for. " Most have a foggy idea that

> life is going to change after that, and all will be wonderful, " he remarks.

> He, however, is quick to disabuse them of this notion. " What you will get, "

> he tells them, " is the ability to face life from moment to moment, knowing

> that whatever happens is your destiny, and yet be anchored in peace and

> tranquillity. " After all, the reason they hanker for peace, he reminds

> them, is because they have experienced it at various moments in their

> lives. All it takes to regain that peace, he is fond of reiterating, is the

> acceptance of those four words in the Bible, " Thy will be done. "

>

> To enable the seeker to test the teaching in the fire of her own experience

> he advocates the simple sadhana of reflecting daily for some 20 minutes on

> how many of one's actions in the day have really been one's own. " You may

> believe that your decision is the result of personal volition, but you

> realise that it was actually based on your own conditioning (which is

> shaped by forces of intellect, education, experience and background), and,

> of course, you have no control over the consequences either. " He recognises

> that the percolation of the understanding from head to heart often makes

> for an arduous journey. While he confesses to never having confronted " the

> long dark night of the soul " himself, he believes in a particularly

> compassionate approach towards those who have felt thus forsaken. " You

> didn't choose to become a seeker. It happened, " he frequently emphasises.

> " So why don't you leave it to the same power that made you a seeker to

> proceed whichever way it wants to? " For when the dualism between subject

> and object collapses, the dichotomy between free will and determinism

> becomes specious as well. " Consciousness has produced this play.

> Consciousness has written the script. Consciousness is playing all the

> characters. And Consciousness is witnessing the play. It's a one-man show. "

> And if it is consciousness that plays and perceives this vast, unruly,

> crazy, tormenting and pleasurable epic drama, the question follows, what

> else is there to do. " Just watch whatever goes on, there's nothing else to

> do, " is Balsekar's maxim. " When you arrive at the understanding that the

> only truth that cannot be denied is the impersonal awareness, `I am', the

> `me' ceases altogether, questions fall away. And even those that arise, are

> cut off with the question, `Who cares?' "

>

> In the meantime, life goes on as usual. And so when his son appears at the

> door, Balsekar terminates our conversation abruptly to hurry to the

> barber's for a haircut. From the metaphysical to the mundane, from the

> sublime to the samsaric — the transitions are made swiftly. " Events happen,

> deeds are done, there is no individual doer thereof " , remains his

> oft-quoted line from the Buddha. And so there are appointments to be kept,

> commitments to be honoured, hair to be cut, barbers waiting to perform

> their dharma. Except that in the case of Ramesh Balsekar, there remains no

> doubt whatsoever of the essential inseparability of the shearer and the

> shorn.