Ramesh S. Balsekar
The mere incident of enlightenment does not necessarily confer an ability to communicate the concomitant understanding. However, in Ramesh's case that ability has assumed remarkable depth. This organism known as Ramesh is amply endowed with compassion, patience, humor and eloquence. Though the dialogues in his books can convey but a fraction of the impact that his presence can have, as you read you may get a sense of the energy that fills the room as Ramesh warms to his subject.
Still, what is most remarkable about Ramesh is his very ordinariness and the very ordinariness of his teaching. Though elaborate theoretical structures may be erected around it - his concept of the working mind and the thinking mind would be a good example of this - the essence of the teaching is simplicity itself. He offers no miracles, no cures, no special powers; in fact, all he really offers is Nothing, that Nothing, that we all truly are.
And while it is often said that Ramesh appears ordinary, no one could ever say he is mediocre. It is his complete lack of pretense that moderates the light of his accomplishments from a blinding brilliance to a warm glow. In his education, both in India and at the London School of Economics, he was always near the top of his class but never at the top of his class. In his leisure pursuits, as a body builder, competitive badminton player and golfer his standings were always superior though rarely superlative.
Ramesh married Sharda in 1940 and they raised three children. The eldest was Ajit, brilliant but with a life-Iong history of health problems. He died in 1990 at the age of forty-nine. Next came his daughter, Jaya, who married and then moved to Bangalore where she runs a successful dairy business. His youngest son, Shivdas, is also married and is the senior executive in the Indian branch of a multi-national pharmaceutical company.
It was in his career, which began in 1940 as a clerk in the Bank of India, that Ramesh's brilliance truly shone through. Despite lacking a buming ambition, he steadily rose through the ranks until his retirement in 1977 as that bank's General Manager (what is known in the U.S. as company president or C.E.0.). During his ten years of service as its head, he guided the bank through its most rapid and successful growth period, overseeing the hiring of thousands of people and the opening of hundreds of new branches in India and around the globe.
Shortly after his mandatory retirement at age sixty, Ramesh read a magazine article about a guru named Nisargadatta Maharaj who was teaching about Advaita (non-duality) in a poor area of Bombay. It was a subject in which he had always had a keen interest. He went to hear him, knew at once that this was his ultimate guru and within three or four months began translating for Maharaj at his daily morning talks. It was not long before Ramesh too experienced the ultimate understanding.
Retired bank president, golfer, husband and father doesn't fit the stereotype of an Indian guru... and perhaps that accounts, at least in part, for the fact that 90% of the people who come to him are Westerners. His background and education combine with his understanding to make him a master who is an ideal bridge between East and West, the spiritual and the material.
Wayne Liquorman
With his own words:
A flier arrived in the mail advertising a talk by some guru from India that
I'd never heard of, but since they were only charging a buck I thought, "What
have I got to lose?"
On September 16, 1987 I went with some friends to hear Ramesh at his first public talk in the U.S. (or anywhere for that matter).
I was thirty-six years old and couldn't have dreamed what was in store for me, that I was about to lose everything. I had no idea that it was a moment of consummate Grace. I didn't know what a jnani was, or that one had just bitten me. I was, at that point, a complete stranger to Advaita. I had never heard of the big Advaitic names, Nisargadatta Maharaj or Ramana Maharshi and knew the word "consciousness" only as that condition extant prior to being hit on the head with a baseball bat. This put me at a profound advantage. I had far fewer spiritual concepts to transcend than did most of the other, far more experienced, seekers in the room though at the time I felt I had blundered into something that was way over my head. Ramesh himself, appeared in every way ordinary; a fairly intellectual, retired bank president, unpretentious and mild mannered. I left that meeting with a slight interest in seeing Ramesh again.
After returning from a two week business trip during which my jnani bite had incubated, I went to hear Ramesh again. This time, in the intimate confines of the magnificent hilltop home of Ramesh's host Henry Denison, I found myself transformed by Ramesh's presence and teaching. I was captivated. I was enchanted. I found myself drawn back to listen to him and be with him every day. The teaching began to sink down from my mind and go deeper. Each morning, as my car would reach the turn-off leading to Henry's house, my heart would literally begin to dance in anticipation. My mind filled with images of being with him. I was bitterly jealous of the man who was taking him for drives and out for dinners. I realized I was in love!
After a few weeks of this, I was amazed to find myself writing him this poem:
Who would have thought
That I'd fall in love
With a bespectacled banker
From Bombay?
Ridiculous
Ludicrous
I must be out of my mind
I'm married - A father -
An international businessman - A cynic
Yet here I find myself
Flitting about You
With all the volition
Of a moth at a flame
Wondering...
Afraid...
Secretly hoping....
That this 'me' will get too close
And immolate.
When it came time for him to return to India, several of us gathered at the airport to see him off. We sat in the coffee shop, killing time, and the talk turned to publishing the content of the last three months of Ramesh's talks. As the plans and schemes became more and more grandiose, I felt compelled to point out, "You realize you are talking about starting a business, don't you? Making the book is great but then there is inventory and billing and cash flow and order processing..." Henry interrupted my diatribe to inquire, 'Oh, have you been in the publishing business?"
I said, "No," and then immediately Ramesh, who was sitting next to me said, "Not yet."
I felt as if I had been hit with a fist. I laughed feebly and asked, "Do you know something I don't know?" (Could there have been a stupider question?) Ramesh just smiled enigmatically and looked away but in that instant I knew I was in the publishing business; it was Advaita Press' moment of conception.
Amazingly, it was exactly the excuse I needed to go to India. After all, I wasn't going there to do something frivolous like sitting at the feet of a guru I was going there to work with an author on a manuscript. It was business. Anyone could understand that. So, off I went to Bombay 'to work on the manuscript." Ramesh talked and I listened. His wife, Sharda (a warm, charming lady and extraordinarily talented in the kitchen) cooked and I ate. It was heaven.
A book, 'Experiencing The Teaching', did come out of it, but far more important for me was opportunity to totally immerse myself in Ramesh and the teaching. Within a year, the process was complete. As a result, I find I walk around with Ramesh as much a part of me as "me." When I mentioned to Ramesh that this was the case and that therefore I found it quite simple to edit his books, he said he had experienced the same thing while translating for his guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj. He said, "Sometimes someone would ask me what Maharaj had said and I would have to tell them, 'I can't always tell you exactly what he said, but I can tell you exactly what he meant.'
The book, 'Consciousness Speaks', is the fruit of the seed planted that fateful day in the airport. - It doesn't always contain exactly what Ramesh said, but it does contain exactly what he meant. It has taken nearly five years to complete, though four other Ramesh books and a Ram Tzu book have come in the interim. (taken from editor's note, Consciousness Speaks, Advaita Press)
Elke von der Osten
Mich hat der Weg des Advaita (sanskrit) „das Zweitlos-Eine“ zu einem
Erleben geführt, das meine Lebenseinstellung grundlegend verändert
hat. Mein Leben ist erfüllt von Zufriedenheit, stiller
Freude, Mitgefühl und Dankbarkeit.
Das Suchen hat aufgehört und das Motto meines Lebens ist
„Dein Wille geschehe“ geworden.
Die Vedanta Philosophie,
deren Grundlage ADVAITA ist, geht auf den indischen Weisen
Shankara (etwa 7.- 8. Jahrtausend) zurück. In der neueren Zeit waren die bedeutendsten Lehrer
des Advaita, Ramana Maharshi und Sri Nisargadatta.
Heute ist es Ramesh S. Balsekar, dem ich 1988 begegnet bin.
Durch sein geduldiges Beantworten aller immer neu auftauchenden Fragen
hat er mich zu der Klippe geführt, von wo aus, nach seinen Worten, nur der Sprung
ins Nichts geschehen musste.
Dieser Sprung ist passiert und es ist kein Sprung in den Abgrund, sondern
in das, was ist.
Mein Wunsch ist es, "mein" Erleben mit anderen zu teilen und sie, soweit
mir das möglich ist, zur Erfahrung dessen, was ist, zu führen.
Das Seminar wird in Form von kurzen Vorträgen und Gesprächen stattfinden.
Kontakt:
Elke von der Osten, Schralling 9, 83083 Riedering
e-Mail: e.vonderosten@t-online.de
Tel.: 08053 - 22 82
Fax: 08053 - 31 32