A Teacher
Ramesh Balsekar
No doer; consciousness is all there is
The transmission
Ramesh S. Balsekar (25 May 1917 – 27 September 2009) was an Indian Advaita teacher born in Mumbai into a well-educated Maharashtrian Brahmin family. He received a commerce degree from the London School of Economics, then built a long banking career, rising to become president of the Bank of India, a post he held until his retirement in 1977.
His turn to teaching came late: in November 1978 he first attended the satsangs of Nisargadatta Maharaj in a modest Mumbai apartment, recognised Nisargadatta as his teacher, and quickly became his principal English translator, rendering the Marathi discourses for international visitors until Nisargadatta’s death in 1981.
Beginning in 1982, Balsekar held daily morning talks in his sea-facing Mumbai apartment, and for more than twenty-five years seekers from around the world gathered in his living room to hear him expound Advaita. His teaching centred on two linked pointings: that there is no individual doer (events happen and deeds are done, but no separate entity authors them), and that “Consciousness is all there is.” He authored more than forty books, including Consciousness Speaks, The Final Truth, and Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj. He died peacefully at his Mumbai home on 27 September 2009, at the age of 92.
What they gave
The teaching of no-doership: Articulated, more systematically than most, the view that there is no personal author of action, a direct counter-point to will-based and law-of-attraction models of mind.
- “Consciousness is all there is”: Made the primacy of consciousness the explicit ground of his teaching, framing the apparent world and self as appearances within it.
- Bridge from Nisargadatta: As Nisargadatta’s principal translator and then a teacher in his own right, carried the “I Am” lineage to a large international audience.
- Acceptance and peace through surrender of authorship: Presented the recognition of no-doership as a release from guilt, pride, and conflict, a quiet psychological liberation.
In their words
All there is, is Consciousness. And the mind is merely a reflection of that Consciousness.
Mind is merely a collection of thoughts, or a collection of impressions which makes up this “me,” this self image.
Therefore, the “me” as a self-image is an inaccurate image.
Brain is inert matter. Brain cannot create any thoughts.
Birth and death are nothing but integration and disintegration, the appearance and subsequent disappearance of the phenomenal objects in manifestation.
True understanding, apperception, includes the understanding that there is no separation between understanding and action.
Universal Consciousness in movement knows itself.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: Nisargadatta Maharaj, whose translator and disciple he was; the wider Advaita Vedanta tradition; the example of Ramana Maharshi.
- Influenced: Wayne Liquorman (Ram Tzu), whom he authorised to teach; the no-doership emphasis taken up by radical-nonduality teachers such as Tony Parsons; the contemporary stream of nonduality that centres on the absence of a separate doer.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj1982
- Consciousness Speaks1992
- A Duet of One1989