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Ramesh seminar - Schermau summer 2000
At the end of the talks given by Ramesh Balsekar at the Seminars in Germany, there is always a period for questions and answers. This extract is from one of those sessions.
RAMESH SEMINAR – SCHERMAU SUMMER 2000Please ask any questions that you like, however personal the basis and I’ll try to answer them in as straight forward a manner as possible.
Question: When you were talking about deep sleep –you see I believe it is said in one of the yoga sutras that the sage never sleeps. Is that what you meant? Answer: I couldn’t do without my 7-8 hour’s sleep –you see the problem is, people use words without making clear what they mean. That, as I’ve told you, was my very first thing – I must be clear. Whether the person to whom I’m talking is able to accept it or not is totally another matter, with which I’m not concerned.
The meaning probably is –the sage never sleeps is probably the understanding that there is no such thing as a sage; that there is no such thing as an individual who sleeps. Who sleeps? The body sleeps. The body sleeps as part of its state. Now curiously, there was another famous writer – as a matter of fact it was J. Krishnamurti, whose book ‘The Awakening of Intelligence’ had a tremendous impact on me at an appropriate time. So I’m forever grateful to him for that impact. And yet, when I came across his book and he said “ I never have dreams in the night”, I closed the book and said to myself, “ Surely only a person who lives in the Himalayas,never coming in contact with anybody called life, there I can imagine not having dreams. But he lives in Ohio or he lives in Zurich. He meets people. He gets angry when I question “ How do I get into choices,awareness?” “ Don’t ask me how” And he would say, “ If I give you a bottle of poison and tell you not to drink it, will you ask me how do I not drink it? “ So I was delighted when I came across a statement in Ramana Maharshi’s book. Someone asked him “ Do you see dead people?” And Ramana Maharshi said, “ Only in my dreams.”
Q: Could I ask a second question? When you use a concept like God’s Will or destiny, in the end even that is a concept?
R: It is indeed.
Q: And that is like Ramana’s thorn to take out the concept of the individual doer.
R: Absolutely correct. That is exactly what it is. Therefore, I said whatever any scripture of any religion has said; whatever any sage has said at any time is a concept the only truth being the impersonal sense of awareness. In that state, there are no thoughts,therefore there are no concepts.
Q: No action is my action. I investigated this very much in the last days and so I still have to ask a useless question! There is something like a great despair coming up and I want to do something about it, but I know that I cannot do anything about it. So I know the answer already.
R So what is the answer?
Q: That I can do nothing
R:On the contrary, you can do whatever you like. I’ve said it so many times. What more freedom do you want? You can do whatever you like, meaning you can decide to do whatever you like.
Q: But it is according to my programming.
R: So?
Q: It is not my free will.
R: So? But that doesn’t prevent you from making a decision. Why? Because the energy inside this body-mind organism will not let you not make a decision. The decision may be not to make a decision, but it’s still a decision. The energy functioning through this body-mind organism will not let this body-mind organism remain idle. Every split second some action will happen, physical or mental. So you cannot even say I shall not do anything.
Q: Margaret, Elke and Mark, speaking about their experiences said that the seeker disappeared and the search ended. And I heard the expression that seeker disappears but the search goes on.
R: You see, the search began without a seeker. So the search ends when the seeker understands that there never was a seeker.
Q: But what about the search, could the search go on without the seeker?
R: You should ask someone who said that. Why me?
Q: Ramesh, just gratitude to all the teachers here. And I don’t know if it can get clearer. I just think you made yourself so utterly continuously clear.
R: As I said before, my only job is to be clear. Whether it is accepted or not is God’s Will. And God allots my job.
Q: When you are talking about the universe – well, about the world as a net of jewels for example, and when Wayne said that all-including harmony or something like that. Is that only because there’s no neutral word for it? Because when you say the sage lives in duality, I guess that is the net of jewels – good things, bad things, whatever is a jewel. But the way it is expressed is a positive way. It’s a beautiful picture. So is there any experiencing of beauty of all that? R: When you talk of beauty in life, in duality, you’ve already decided something is ugly. The moment you think something is beautiful have you not already decided something is ugly?
Q: That’s true. But, still why isn’t it – I mean why did you describe it as a net of jewels?
R: A net of jewels – the basis of it is, what happens in life is not anybody’s actions but actions brought about by the Energy or Source through the billions of human beings and all those actions are inter-connected. Therefore truly you cannot separate one action – the moment an action has happened it has reverberations. You never know, somebody says something in the States and it can affect anywhere in the world.
Q: I know the answer to these questions.
R: All you want is confirmation!
Q: Well no! The two questions: Why is there manifestation at all? And I think you would say, “ Well, why not?”
R: No,no I understand, but that is true. Or the other question,“ Who wants to know?” But there is a conceptual answer to this conceptual question.
Q: It has to go with the other question: Why is there manifestation and what is the purpose of it? And then you said: “Well it is the leela”
R: But, wait a minute. The purpose of it, the created object can never know the Will of the Creator’s subjectivity. So why has this manifestation happened is a conceptual question and the conceptual answer is that it is the nature of Energy to activate itself. It is the nature of Potential Energy to activate itself some time. So, if it didn’t activate itself sometime, it wouldn’t be potential. It would be dead matter. So, it is the nature of the Potential Energy to activate itself some time or the other and, when the burst of energy, which has created activisation ends, the creation goes back into the potential until the potential again activates itself. That is the conceptual answer to your question.
Q: Yes, but these are just more concepts, what you just told me. I understand what you’re saying but somehow there’s something missing.
R: Yes.That something is self-realisation.
Q: Is it right that you cannot recommend any method to come nearer to the status of deep sleep? You cannot recommend any method, preparing or anything else?
R: Do I have any method? For whom do I have a method? For whom to do what? Let me help you? What you are saying is, do I have a method for this seeker – to do what, to achieve self-realisation? Is this your question? But the very basis of what I say is, no individual seeker exists, so there is no individual seeker to achieve self-realisation. You see? But, so long as there is a seeker,who needs a conceptual system or a method, as you say, the method that I recommend is investigation into any action that you find during the day, from personal experience, to find out whether any action, small or big, was your action. That is the only sadhana effort I would recommend. And that is recommended to the ego, because it is the ego that has to convince himself, or her self, that there is an action, which he or she can truly call his or her own. Only the ego himself has to be satisfied. Somebody else’s experience is no good for the ego in this body. And even that effort will be made only if it is God’s Will. Not otherwise.
Q: Is the ego a valuable entity while it exists?
R: Are you asking why does the ego exist?
Q: I was asking if it had value for the individual while….
R: Does the ego have value? Is that the question? Then, the ego has tremendous value, because without the ego life as we know it cannot happen. The ego is the very essence of the happening of life. You see. Without the ego, life as we know it wouldn’t happen.
Q: Is the Potential Energy – is it the same as the Consciousness?
R: Yes, Absolutely! That’s why I said the Source, Potential Energy,Consciousness-at-rest, Absolute Noumenon, or God- same thing, different names for the same thing, which is the Source, One-without-a-second. The Source, whatever name you call it, so long as the understanding is that you refer to the Source – no problem. So Potential Energy is Consciousness-at-rest. Activated Energy is Consciousness-in-movement.
Q: You talk about the deep sleep, where no witnesser is there and there is no manifestation. What about with dreams in this state? For me that’s a manifestation where it comes from.
R: Dreams is a different state from deep sleep, isn’t it? My concept is that the personal dream that you have happens in identified consciousness. This dream that is happening, which everybody has is in the Universal Consciousness. And the two are amazingly alike. There is really no difference between your personal dream and this Universal Dream. Same things, which happen in your personal dream, happen in this Universal Dream. You wake up from your personal dream in a physical state of waking up. You wake up from this Universal Dream when the understanding happens. The final understanding happens that the dream is happening by itself; that no individual doer is necessary – for the dream to happen. Then there is a waking up.
Q: A question to be clear. You say that your only job is to be clear. What does it mean? That means I have to see that I am living in a duality or does it mean I have to see that I am a seeker. What do you mean?
R: All I say is, all that need to happen – please, I repeat – all that needs to happen is the total acceptance – total unconditional acceptance – that no one is the doer of any actions which happen through that body-mind organism, neither you nor anyone else. That is all that is necessary to happen for the self-realisation, or whatever you call it, to happen, just the total unconditional acceptance that neither I, nor anyone else, is the doer of any actions at all. That is the only thing that is necessary to happen. And it will happen only when it is God’s Will or the destiny of the body-mind organism of the seeker.
Q: I would like to ask you what your experience is in the difference between intellectual understanding of the teaching and that which you call the final understanding.
R: I see. What is the difference? The difference is this. The intellectual understanding is that what I say appeals to your sense of logic. You see, what Ramesh says seems to be true – seems to be true, but I can’t accept it. There are many questions. There are many ’ yes-but’. So, at the intellectual level there is an understanding that what is said seems to be true, seems all right, seems logical, is difficult to find a flaw in it, and yet deep down I’m not able to accept that I’m not the doer. I still think actions are my actions, although from what you say I accept intellectually. That is the intellectual acceptance of the understanding. Then the process of investigation begins. You begin to investigate, day after day, choosing any number of actions during the day, to find out whether any of your actions, simple or otherwise, were your actions,and when this investigation goes on, that is the process for the intellectual understanding to go deeper. And when this investigation takes you to a point where you have no more doubts, then the intellectual understanding has become the total understanding. And that the process is the personal investigation and from your personal experience you investigate, find out, is there any action that I can truly call my own. You see. And you come to the conclusion, at least today; no action has been my action. And you keep on doing it. Then at a certain point the question arises from the depths of your being, as I said, if I don’t do any action and of that I’m convinced – then who is this ‘me’, who thinks it is her action? Is there a ‘me’ at all? That question arises from the depths of your being when day after day after day you investigate and come to the conclusion that no action during the day could ever be really called your action. So that is the process, the investigation is the process, which takes the intellectual understanding deeper.
Q: Thank you for all. There was a lot of understanding the last days and still there is a lot of ‘why?’ Why is this? Why is that? Why is ‘why’ bothering me so much?
R: You see then, I told you, any question, you go back to the basics and the question will disappear. Why? Why is something happening is because it is God’s Will. Why am I concerned? Why do I not get the answers? Why – that is because it is God’s Will. The only question ‘why?’ to which you cannot get an answer to, because a created object can never know the Will of the Creator’s subjectivity. But otherwise any question in this phenomenality, especially about the individual, go back to the basics and there’s the answer. Why is this? Because it is God’s Will and the destiny of this body-mind organism.
Q: OK.Having all these thoughts, I found that what I am seeking is silence.
R: All right. You call it silence. Call it peace, whatever you like. What do you mean by silence? What do you think you mean by silence?
Q: All these thoughts stopping.
R: So silence really means absence of thinking, isn’t it? Absence of thinking – not absence of thoughts arising. Arising of thoughts in not in your control. Thoughts will arise because thoughts arise from the Source. You have no control over it. But the thought, which arises, can lead to horizontal thinking. And when the horizontal thinking is not there, it is silence. In other words, a thought arises or something is seen and there is a natural response of the brain. And the natural response of the brain is accepted, witnessed. So there is no involvement, which leads to horizontal thinking, which means whatever happens or whatever happens is really witnessed. So mere witnessing prevents any horizontal involvement of thinking,which means silence. Silence, in spite of the existence of noise outside!
Q: I accept your concept and I like it very much. My question is: in history especially in Western culture, has there ever been a sage or mystic or whoever, who has the same concept or a very similar one?
R: I would think many. You don’t know and I don’t know.
Q: You have studied more than me!
R: Oh no, I haven’t studied – I haven’t studied very much of comparative religions. But there are plenty. One that I can remember is Meister Eckhart.
Q: Yes, I thought about him.
R: And there are many. I mean any student of comparative literature will give you several names. St Francis of Assisi.
Q: Yes I wanted these names from you.
R: Does that make you happy? Good! Yes, St.Francis of Assisi.
Q: You have told us that what we experience now is a Universal Dream. So, is there a difference in this Universal Dream between a thought – a rising thought – and this body-mind organism?
R: So, Universal Dream is that functioning of manifestation, which is seen by everybody, which affects everybody. That is why we say it is universal. Your personal dream, only you know. Therefore the personal dream appears in your identified, individual, personal consciousness. Whereas, this dream happens in the Impersonal Consciousness, which is what everybody says ‘ I am.’ So that is the Universal Consciousness and the dream is Universal Dream.
The individual dream appears in the individual consciousness. But what I’m saying is what happens in one happens in the other. So, if you are prepared to accept your personal dream as something not real, why not accept the Universal Dream also as something not really real?
Q: What is what you call God and what you call the Source? What is the Source for you?
R: For me God means the Source. The Source is the One-without-the second, from which everything has emerged.
Q: And what is the One-without-the-second?
R: It is the Source by whatever name you call it. The Source is One-without-the second. The Source is that which has no other Source.
Q: And what is it for you?
R: For me, for me it is the Source.
Q: But that’s a name, nothing else than a name. What is it?
R: So, the answer to this what you expect is something which I don’t have to say. That will also be just a word. The answer to your question will also be a word.
Q: No it would not be a word. I have a problem since years. I have a problem really to accept this play of duality here. Also, if it is God’s Will, I’m also like Lucifer since months.
R: The answer is again the same thing. I mean, you are here, are you not? And I still say basically you think it is your action, but some power – let us say the Source – has sent you here and you have listened to what is said. And what, in fact, this listening is going to do to you, you’ll just have to wait and see. That will again depend on the Will of God, who sent you here. You have listened and what you have listened to, I repeat, is conditioning, is conceptual, is a conditioning. The conditioning could alter existing conditioning to a certain extent. To what extent you’ll have to just wait and see. Not in your control. Not in my control either.
Q: So I will wait. Thank you.
Q: You said in deep sleep there is no witness. That’s right? And in waking state there is the witness.
R: No! In deep sleep there is nothing to witness because there is no manifestation. In deep sleep there is nothing to witness. In the waking state there is manifestation and is functioning, which is witnessed – which is either witnessed or observed. It is witnessed by the sage and in that witnessing there is no individual witnesser to judge what is witnessed. The ordinary person observes the same thing that is witnessed by the sage and the observer, the individual observer, reacts to what is seen, judges it and says he is happy or unhappy. That is the difference between observing and witnessing. The sage witnesses – or witnessing happens in the case of the sage – because there is no individual witnesser, judging what is witnessed. Observing is done by the ordinary person observing what is witnessed, therefore, what-is brings for happiness or unhappiness,because it is judged by the individual, who wants something else. And therefore is either happy or unhappy.
Q: So is it true then, as long as this self-realisation did not happen, I am not in the state where you are, where the sage is. I only can do my best in observing actions, but this is not true witnessing.
R: No! You can – you’re quite right. You can only do what you think is best. That is correct. But decided to do what you think is best. More accurate.
Q: So the rest I have to wait and see. R: Wait and see! Shall we make it the last question please? There’s still tomorrow!
Q: So, if I understand right, it means that there’s nothing like a personal decision-making possible in fact, because you said before “ do what you like,do what you want”, but in fact, it’s not the truth.
R: On the contrary, you are entitled to make a personal decision. In fact, I’d go to the extent of saying that you cannot not make any decision, even if that decision is not to decide that is also a decision. Because the energy inside this body-mind organism will bring out some action, physical or mental, so that decision is part of the mental action.
Q: But what I understood before is that I cannot – I mean can- do a personal decision,but it’s God’s Will anyway.
R: That is correct.
Q: So whatever I do decide doesn’t really matter because I mean, it’s not my will anyway.
R: That’s correct. But what I’m saying is, you cannot decide not to decide. But even that would be a decision. What I am saying is, if you say:“ What’s the use of making a decision, it’s not my decision anyway!” you’ve decided not to make a decision, which in itself is a decision. We agree to disagree.
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