Do you really know what you want most in life? Even if you
have all the success, fame and money you want, and the good health to enjoy
it - are you happy and fulfilled? Why is it that we all find ourselves
seeking something more from life - all the time? Now, a modern sage points
out that each one of us, at some time or the other, has a taste of what
that is: an uninterrupted experience of peace and harmony. He also shows
how we can achieve this constant repose in our ordinary, hectic, daily
living. This is what the seeking - most evidently, the spiritual seeking -
is all about.
Thus, Ramesh Balsekar in his book 'Peace and Harmony in Daily Living'
raises a very basic question: Why should anyone seek 'enlightenment' or
'Self-realization'?
A simple examination of one's personal experience will reveal that what
usually disrupts the peace and harmony in life is a thought about something
we think we - or someone else - should or shouldn't have done. Hence, a
massive load of guilt and shame for oneself, or hatred and malice for the
other, is perpetuated. Without a lot of arduous effort - work, discipline,
sacrifice, sadhana - without outside assistance, but simply by
investigating one's own experience, it is possible to get relief from this
bondage. What mystics have said for ages, is here viewed from the
perspective of modern living: that actions are 'happenings' and not
something done by someone. This understanding is what actually contributes
to and helps us in discovering the state of equanimity and peace which we
most ardently seek.
Try it and you will see how simple it really is.
Ramesh S. Balsekar, married to Sharda and a father of three, is
known and loved by seekers from around the world as an eloquent Master of
Advaita, or Non-duality. After retiring as President of the Bank of India,
Ramesh translated many of the daily talks given in Marathi by his Guru,
Nisargadatta Maharaj. The teaching began in 1982 after Maharaj had twice
directed him to talk, and since then he has written over twenty books on
Advaita as well. Ramesh is widely regarded as undeniably unique and
uncompromising in his presentation of the concepts, in keeping with an
early premonitory remark by Maharaj that as a teacher Ramesh would not be
"parroting" the words of his Guru. In response to the appreciation
frequently shared by visitors at his talks for the singular clarity and
'purity' of the teaching, Ramesh himself has perhaps best expressed it with
his view of the Master-disciple relationship:
"The purity of the teaching lies in the absence of an
individual teacher and an individual learner - that is to say, in the
absence of a subject-object relationship. The purity lies in the
spontaneity of the happening."
