Enlightenment An Outbreak - Six first hand accounts of Enlightenment Occurrences: Enlightenment Series, #1

ENLIGHTENMENT:

AN OUTBREAK

Other Books by Madhukar Thompson:

Books

• Enlightenment: An Outbreak

• Enlightenment May Or May Not Happen

• Enlightenment? Who Cares!

• Teachings en Route to Freedom

• Odyssey of Enlightenment

Postcard Books

(Sets of cards taking a light-hearted look at different aspects of spirituality and the search for Truth)

• Enlightenment by Airmail

• Enlightenment à la Carte

• Satsang

• The Path of Celebration

• The Seeker and His Search

• Meditation

• Enlightenment

• Master!

2

ENLIGHTENMENT:

AN OUTBREAK

Six First-Hand Accounts of

Enlightenment Occurrences

Edited by

Madhukar Thompson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission from the publisher or his agents, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Copyright © 1998 by

(Madhukar Thompson) 2014 by Dr. Joji Valli

Published by

CreatiVentures

C-22, Karan Gharonda

Sainikwadi, Pune – 411014,

Maharashtra, India

Mb. 9689257575 | 9881843756

E-mail: creativentures@gmail.com

www.creativentures.in

Printed by:

MUDRA PRESS

ISBN-10: 8188360368

ISBN-13: 9788188360369

(NetiNeti ISBN: 0-9665245-0-0)

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Dedicated to all enlightenment teachers

and seekers of Truth

The totality of manifestation is an appearance in Consciousness like a dream. Its functioning is an impersonal and self-generated process in phenomenality. The billions of sentient beings are merely the instruments (dreamed characters without any volition) through which this impersonal process takes place. The clear apperception of this truth means enlightenment.

⎯ Ramesh S. Balsekar

Contents

Note on the Editor

xi

Introduction

xiii

Chapter 1: Ramesh S. Balsekar

1. Sri Balsekar: His Search for Truth and its Fulfillment; His Gurus and His Enlightened Disciples 4

Group Interview

Chapter 2: Henry Swift

1. Spiritual Awakening for the Chosen More:

the Physicists

44

Conversations with Sri Balsekar

2. The Avalanche Cannot Be Explained:

The Enlightenment Incident Just-Is

45

Interview by Madhukar Thompson

3. The Science of Enlightenment: The Teachings of Ramesh Balsekar and Amit Goswami Combined 63

Conversations with Sri Balsekar and Henry Swift 4. The Guru Talks⎯Silence Is: Talking is Silence in Action

78

Conversations with Sri Balsekar and Henry Swift Chapter 3: Marc Beuret

1. The Final Transformation Occurred to Marc 94

Conversations with Sri Balsekar and Marc Beuret 2. The Only Gain from Enlightenment is the Loss

of All Expectations

98

Interview by Madhukar Thompson

3. The Baby Steps of a New Guru

112

Conversations between Sri Balsekar and Marc Beuret 4. God and the Devil are God

120

Interview by Madhukar Thompson

Chapter 4: Margarete Beuret

1. Enlightenment Occurred when the Mind was

Empty and the Heart was Full of Love

154

Interview by Madhukar Thompson

2. The Seeking Itself Prevents Enlightenment

162

(but to Find that out, you must Seek)

Conversations between Sri Balsekar and Margarete Beuret 3. "Enlightenment Happened, but I am not

Enlightened"

164

Group Interview

Chapter 5: Elke von der Osten

1. "Oh, My God! I Can’t Believe it⎯There is no

Enlightenment! It Just Is . . . It is!"

188

Conversations with Sri Balsekar (featuring Elke von der Osten’s enlightenment)

2. Enlightenment: Expecting Something and

Nothing Happens

205

Conversations with Sri Balsekar

3. "Without her Husband, her Edge-of-the-Cliff

Turned into Enlightenment"

206

Conversations with Sri Balsekar

4. Enlightenment: Relief from the Compulsion to Seek 207

Interview with Madhukar Thompson

5. "It Doesn’t Matter if I am a Sage or a Beggar⎯

It Doesn’t Matter Who Gets Enlightened"

226

Conversations with Sri Balsekar and Elke von der Osten Chapter 6: Ramesh S. Balsekar, Henry Swift,

Marc Beuret, Margarete Beuret, and

Elke von der Osten

1. Action Movies: Meditation For The Masses

233

Conversations with Sri Balsekar and his

enlightened disciples

Chapter 7: Wayne Liquorman

1. "My Sadhana was Drinking and Doing Drugs

for Nineteen Years"

252

Interview by Yogesh Sharma

Chapter 8: Ben Pierce, Anne Baerwolf and

Bianka

1. Biographical Notes

281

Epilogue: Advaita and the Guru-Disciple

Relationship

285

Appendix: Nisargadatta Maharaj

1. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

306

Article by J. Dunn in:The Mountain Path, Oct.1978

2. Being is Prior to Mind, Not Beyond Mind; Obstacles and Mind only Arise once Beingness has Appeared 314

Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

3. When you Embrace the I-Am-Ness" Fully,

It will Share Its Knowledge and, in the Process,

you will Transcend It"

337

Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Glossary

361

Bibliography

364

Note on the Editor

The author’s first-hand

experience of Eastern spirituality

began in the early seventies while

traveling in India and South East

Asia from 1971 through 1973.

Eventually, in 1980, he devoted

himself whole-heartedly to the

search for enlightenment, and was

initiated into neo-sannyas by Sri

Osho Rajneesh. He spent the next

twelve years in his guru’s communes in Pune, India and in Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA, but when his master died, January 1990, Madhukar had still not found

enlightenment. In 1991 he met Sri H.W.L. Poonja in Lucknow, India and, soon after, became one of his close disciples and personal assistant. On several occasions, Sri Poonjaji declared that Madhukar was enlightened. Two years passed, full of the bliss and agony of alternatively being both enlightened and unenlightened. Then, in 1993, feeling that his search was still incomplete, he left Sri Poonjaji and spent the next three years traveling all over India in search of a guru who could help him to realise final and total enlightenment. It was during this period that he met Ramesh S. Balsekar, moved to Bombay and stayed with him until 1996. Living in India for the past 10

years, he has now settled in Pune, a city near to Bombay spending his time in reflection and contemplation.

Madhukar has produced several video films on Sri

Poonjaji, Sri Balsekar and Kiran-bhai. He also made audio and video recordings of many of his conversations with them, as well as of those he had with several other gurus and teachers. He has spent the past two years compiling the material gathered in the course of his search for enlightenment. Enlightenment: An Outbreak is the first of a series of twelve books to be published by Neti Neti Press⎯a publishing company he founded in 1998. The books document the teachings of a wide range of Eastern spiritual masters and gurus, and contain many valuable insights into meditation, spirituality and the spiritual search in general. They are published in the hope that the interviews and the close personal exchanges they contain will assist other seekers in their search for truth, peace, enlightenment, and understanding.

Introduction

Ramesh S. Balsekar’s enlightenment occurred in 1979

on Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, one year after his first meeting with the guru or spiritual teacher Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. When Sri Nisargadatta passed away in 1981, Sri Balsekar became a teacher and guru in his own right, and seekers from all over the world began attending his daily morning talks in Bombay.

I first met Sri Balsekar in July 1993, at his residence in Bombay. To my knowledge, Sri Balsekar has declared seven of his disciples to be enlightened, and all of them have in turn become spiritual teachers. During my three-year acquaintance with him, I had the good fortune to meet with six of these enlightened disciples. This book recounts different experiences of spiritual search, expressed in the form of questions that seekers ask of their guru Sri Balsekar and his enlightened disciples, and the answers they give.

Through these exchanges, the reader will see unfolding the story of a guru-father and his disciple-children: how he brought them up and guided them; how they matured into enlightened accomplishment, and how they were gently coaxed into becoming gurus themselves.

The book contains six first-hand accounts of the

occurrence of enlightenment and the subsequent

transformation from seeker to guru. It tells the story of the guru’s acknowledgment and confirmation of his disciples’

enlightenment, and their initiation into guruship when they are publicly authorized to teach. It gives us glimpses of a guru-freshman’s first baby steps in his new teaching career.

It is a story full of the intimacy which ensues when the guru and his enlightened disciples meet in private, and what they say to each other during such private meetings. It shows how the guru encourages his disciples to ask their questions, and prompts his enlightened disciples to answer them on his behalf.

And it is the (at times, painful) story of seekers trying to progress in their spiritual search by getting answers to questions which, with great hope and expectation, they pose to their guru and enlightened guru- bhais (fellow disciples of the same guru).

I had not intended to produce a book dealing with such issues. Indeed, it was not until February 1997 that the idea of compiling material on this subject came to me in a sudden flash of inspiration. I was then preparing another book on Sri Balsekar’s teaching and, while thus engaged, the understanding crystallized in me that the focal interest of the spiritual seeker is the actual enlightenment occurrence, which is the culmination of the guru-disciple relationship. I decided to gather into a book all the talks and conversations between Sri Balsekar and his enlightened disciples that I had witnessed, participated in, and recorded. In these conversations they describe their search in their own words and how it concluded in final and total understanding and enlightenment.

Looking back, I can now date the book’s conception to an incident which occurred in February 1994 during a two-week seminar that Sri Balsekar was giving at Kovalam Beach (Kerala, India). In one of the seminar’s question-and-answer sessions, I had asked, "I can easily recognize you as an enlightened guru and master. On the other hand, it is important to me as a seeker to know if your guruship has

produced one or more disciples of yours who have blossomed into the same complete level of enlightened understanding that you have. To know of the occurrence of enlightenment in one or some of your devotees would definitely give me great courage to keep my own search going. And it would give me hope to end it possibly eventually successfully. Therefore, my question is, ‘Are there any of your devotees who have the same understanding you have? Do any enlightened devotees of yours exist?’"

Sri Balsekar answered, Do you want me to specify and name some certain people? Well, you can go all the way and name them, I said. Sri Balsekar replied, "There have been some and there are some, yes. What Henry (Swift) told you yesterday should give you an indication of what has been happening regarding my devotees’ enlightenment.

(The day before, Sri Balsekar had asked Henry Swift to tell those present at the seminar about his spiritual search and how it had ended.) In his report Henry made it perfectly clear that he remained a perfectly ordinary gentleman after his enlightenment—like me. For something to happen, for enlightenment to happen, the

instrument⎯the body-mind organism⎯has to be ready.

And when the instrument is ready, enlightenment can happen from any level, from the intellectual level or any other level. So, if you mean to ask whether there have been cases in which the understanding has been total, and enlightenment has happened, my answer is yes. In more than one case? Yes! In how many cases? I don’t know."

Some two months after the Kovalam Beach seminar, I was talking to Sri Balsekar on the telephone when he said:

Marc (Beuret) from Switzerland is coming to Bombay for a visit next week. Do you know him? He has the final, total understanding. Come and meet him! Why don’t you bring your video camera along?

A week later I sat opposite Marc Beuret in Sri Balsekar’s study. I questioned him about his spiritual search, the actual enlightenment occurrence and how his life-story could assist my own search for enlightenment. My questions were not prepared or written up beforehand. Although the camera was running, I was questioning Marc spontaneously as part of my own spiritual quest. The transcript of this first interview is given in Chapter III of this book.

Shortly before Guru Purnima Day (religious festival in India at which disciples renew their dedication to their guru) in July of the same year, Sri Balsekar again invited me to come to Bombay, saying, Madhukar, you know Margarete (Beuret) from the Kovalam Beach seminar? The total understanding happened to her a few days ago. She will be here next week. Come over to Bombay! Why don’t you bring your camera along? I recorded the conversations with her, too. The transcript of this second interview is given in Chapter IV.

During the next two years, video-recordings were made of a series of interviews and question-and-answer sessions involving Sri Balsekar himself and three of his enlightened disciples: Henry Swift, Elke von der Osten and Wayne Liquorman. In Elke von der Osten’s case the enlightenment incident was actually recorded live, as it unfolded, during one of Sri Balsekar’s regular morning talks in his living room.

Short biographical notes on Ben Pierce, Anne Baerwolf and Bianka have also been included, so as to complete the record of Sri Balsekar’s enlightened disciples.

The accounts given in this book are all transcripts of video recordings filmed in India. A short introductory note has been added to each one so as to clarify the context in which the conversations occurred. To round off the series of conversations it contains, the book concludes with an Epilogue giving an overview of the guru-disciple relationship as taught in Advaita Vedanta.

In homage to Sri Balsekar’s guru, Nisargadatta

Maharaj, the Appendix features an unabridged re-print of Jean Dunn’s article about Maharaj, published in the October 1978 issue of The Mountain Path (courtesy of Sri Ramanashramam). It was through reading this article that Sri Balsekar learned of Sri Nisargadatta’s existence and came to find his second and final guru. The Appendix also contains the transcript of the teachings given by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj on Diwali Day 1979.

1

Ramesh S. Balsekar

Ramesh S. Balsekar in his study

Ramesh S. Balsekar was born into a devout Hindu Brahmin

family in Bombay, on May 25, 1917. After his studies at the London

School of Economics, he joined the Bank of India in 1940. He rose to

become the bank’s General Manager, and retired after thirty-seven

years of service. Sri Balsekar married Sharda in 1940, and they raised

three children.

Although Sri Ramana Maharshi (whom he never met in person)

was one of his most important spiritual mentors, his personal guru

for more than twenty years was Sri Vithal Rao Joshi who lived in

Pune, a city some 180 kms south-east of Bombay. Sri Balsekar met

his second and final guru—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj—in Bombay

in 1978. One year later, during Diwali (the Hindu "festival of

lights"), Sri Balsekar attained enlightenment in Maharaj’s presence.

On September 6, 1981, Maharaj passed away, and Sri Balsekar

began teaching in his own right. Since 1987 he has taught at public

seminars held in Europe, the USA and India. He has also written ten

books on the teaching of Advaita Vedanta.

Sri Balsekar meets seekers and answers their questions every

morning from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at his residence in Bombay

(Mumbai). During the last half-hour of these sessions, devotional

songs (bhajans) are sung in his presence. Sri Balsekar’s address is:

Gamadia Road—Sindhula Bldg. (off Warden Road, near the French

Consulate), Mumbai - 400026 (tel. 0091-22-4927725).

1. Sri Balsekar: His Search for Truth

and its Fulfilment; His Gurus, and His

Enlightened Disciples

Group Interview

The interview took place in February 1995 during Ramesh’s two-

week seminar at Kovalam Beach (Kerala, India). Seventy-five people

attended and, at Ramesh’s invitation, the participants questioned

him about his experiences in his search for Truth and its fulfillment.

Mary: We’d like you to say something about your life.

R (Ramesh): I lived a fairly comfortable life. A fairly comfortable life is how I could describe my whole life. I never had any particular problems. I never had any particular suffering. Life was fairly smooth. The example of my life should be of great encouragement to the ordinary seeker.

Abe: I would say it could rather be the source of great envies.

Bill: Were you particularly devout as a Hindu Brahmin, or as far as religious practices are concerned?

R: That’s a good question. I was a devout Hindu, but not in a particularly active or aggressive way. From the very beginning I was more interested in Advaita.

Rather curiously, I had a palm-leaf reading in about the year 1950. To establish that the right palm-leaf predictions are being read to you, the reader will ask you many details about you and your family, including the names of the family members. He will see if your answers match with what is inscribed on the leaf concerned. Only after establishing the certainty that it is your leaf, will the reader read it for you. In my case, I could be absolutely certain that we had found my personal leaf because it stated correctly the names of my family members, and my

Ramesh S. Balsekar . 5

original name, Ganesh. My original name was Ganesh. My mother changed it to Ramesh. So, I got the reading done.

When asked what I was interested in knowing, I promptly said, I am interested in my spiritual house.

The reading said: "This subject is a Hindu Brahmin, but he is not interested in Hinduism. He is only interested in Advaita, or in something which has existed, and will exist, for all time. He has been interested in this subject since he was fourteen years old, but has not yet found a guru ; nor has he sought for one so far. He will find a guru in five years from now. The association with this guru will last for twenty years, but not much will come of this relationship. He will meet his real guru one year after his retirement. And during the first year of his association with the ultimate guru, enlightenment will happen for him."

The reading proved to be correct. I retired in 1977

from my job and met Nisargadatta Maharaj in November, 1978. And I was his disciple until he died on the 8th of September, 1981. On Diwali, 1979, enlightenment occurred in this body-mind organism.

That’s why, from my own experience, I can assure you that the seeking is already happening. You are not the seeker. The seeker is Consciousness, which first identifies itself as an individual. Then Consciousness dis-identifies itself again. So, the seeking is usually considered to be miserable. The seeking is misery when there is an individual seeker seeking. But when it is understood and accepted that no individual is seeking, that the search is truly an impersonal process, then there cannot be a miserable seeker. Only the seeker can be miserable. If you truly understand that the seeking is merely a process, as part of the impersonal functioning of Totality, then there will be no misery. Then the seeking, as it happens, will be merely witnessed. And it will be understood that the individual seeker who seeks enlightenment just doesn’t exist. This is what I learned from Maharaj.

The very first time I went to see him, I walked up the stairs to his loft. And one of the first things he said to me

6 . Enlightenment: An Outbreak

was, You have come at last. Come and sit down. I looked behind me to see if he was addressing somebody else. There was nobody else. He had meant to say it to me.

The disciple seeks the guru as much as the guru seeks the disciple. It is a meeting of two people. One of them considers himself to be an individual. The other one, the guru, knows from experience and conviction that he is not an individual. Ultimately, the guru converts the disciple, who thinks he is an individual, into something which is not an individual.

Heiner: Ramesh, you were saying you were brought up as a Hindu, but you were never interested in this religion. But you still carry out the rituals of a Hindu, and you do the pujas . Isn’t this a contradiction?

R: Let me explain that. My mother was a very devout Hindu who didn’t like my being such a casual Hindu. When asked why I wasn’t interested in the Hindu religion, I told her that I was only interested in that which existed ten thousand years before, which still exists now, and which will continue to exist ten thousand years after our time.

She couldn’t understand me. So, we came to an

arrangement. She suggested that I would choose and practice a few of the Hindu rituals which I liked most. Since then, I do a few religious things regularly. I don’t do the standard pujas, but I go every morning and evening into the puja room. I recite a few slokas, or something.1 When I go to the puja room, I go as a very devout man. I am not in the puja room as a phony. But the point is, I am not interested. I don’t expect anything to come out of it. I have done those rituals for sixty years, and I still do the rituals, as I promised my mother.

1 Ramesh performs a regular ten minute ritual. it includes a guru-puja to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Sri Ramana Maharshi; and the recitation of what is known as the Ramaraksha Stotra (a prayer to the Hindu god Rama, the protector against all evil.

Ramesh S. Balsekar . 7

Carol: Do you remember having had any usual feelings as a child? Did you have the feeling of jealousy, or wishing to be first when you weren’t first, as a young man? Were you ever in a place where you couldn’t accept what happened? Did you ever have a lack of acceptance?

R: On the contrary. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I always accepted whatever the position was. There was never any envy or jealousy towards anyone who came before me.

On the contrary, I always felt that I was lucky in whatever I received. In the bank, I got promotions regularly. I started as a clerk and I advanced to be the President of the bank⎯known, in America, as the General Manager. When the promotions came, I had the feeling, Why me? There were others who were more hardworking or more intelligent than I was, and yet the promotions came my way.

Mary: You spoke once about the four things which facilitated your ability to accept the teaching so easily. One, that you were never first. Two, that you always knew that life and manifestation were a dream, and not Reality. Three, that you had the deep conviction from early on that whatever was to happen to you was destined.

And four, that you never believed deeply in organized religion.

Could you elaborate?

R: I have just talked about my stand on organized religions.

It has been my conviction since childhood that the manifestation is a dream. What seems real is not real, and the real is something which is not apparent. Ramana Maharshi calls it the Self. I call it Consciousness. That conviction has always been with me. And therefore, it wasn’t new for me when I heard Maharaj speaking about it. I also was convinced, since ever I can remember, that providence would take care of whatever had to come my way.

Banking, seeking and yearning for enlightenment Mary: When did the seeking start for you? Could you describe that process?

8 . Enlightenment: An Outbreak

R: The seeking started really when I came across Ramana Maharshi’s teaching, when I was about twelve or fourteen.

My real inspiration has always been Ramana Maharshi.

He died in April, 1950, when I was thirty-three years old.

I could have met him in person; I actually made some sort of an effort. But it was at a time when I was new at my job, and I had hard work to do. In spite of a strong desire to see him, it was not the destiny of this body-mind organism to sit at Ramana Maharshi’s feet. I was destined to sit at Maharaj’s feet.

Ramana Maharshi’s teaching was total Advaita. When I read that, something was touched in me. Because that was exactly what I had in my mind and in my heart. His teaching was at one with my heart and my intellect.

Robert: Weren’t you also influenced at some point by the teachings of Wei Wu Wei? What in his books made such an impression on you?

R: Wei Wu Wei?

Robert: Yes. You said you were already reading his book when you were younger, and then you put it away for many years.

R: Yes. Yes.

Robert: One of Wei Wu Wei’s books is lying over there in the corner. I haven’t read it yet myself. But I would like to know what, from this author, impressed you?

R: I don’t know. Something in the book impressed me. You see, normally you read something and you say, Well, I don’t understand it, and you throw it away. In this case, my reaction was, I don’t understand it, but it is too valuable to be thrown away. And I kept i.

Christo: How would you describe your time as a seeker when you were also working as a bank manager? Or were you totally involved in your bank work? Were spirituality and work separate?

Ramesh S. Balsekar . 9

R: No. There was really no separation in the sense that the seeking took its own course. Frankly, I was never a seeker.

Christo: You were never a miserable seeker?

R: I was never a miserable seeker. I knew that the seeking was going on. When I would come across a book, I would read it. I wasn’t seeking to the exclusion of all other interests in life. I was interested in body-building, I played tennis and badminton, and I played golf reasonably well. I was interested in life in general. That’s why I was not really a miserable seeker. And there was only one reason for this: I didn’t consider myself a seeker.

Christo: If you weren’t a seeker, but there was an undercurrent of seeking, how did you define yourself? You must have been interested in spirituality. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have met your guru.

R: There was a passive seeking, but an absence of a strong, powerful, positive seeking. That’s why I say that if you don’t seek, the seeking isn’t going to stop. Even if you don’t practice your usual two hours of meditation, the seeking will not suffer. It will continue strictly according to your destiny.

Christo: Did you follow any discipline during those years? Did your guru give you advice, and did you follow it? Did he suggest any sadhana for you? Didn’t your discipleship with your first guru imply that you were a seeker? You told us you were doing the promised rituals. You told us you kept the promise you gave to your mother. Did you give any promises to your guru?

R: I met my first guru when I was thirty-eight. Before that, there was never any active seeking. But the undercurrent of passive seeking was always there. That’s why I had a natural, healthy sense of knowing what was right or wrong, helpful or hindering, to the spiritual progress. My natural characteristics included the lack of jealousy and envy towards others. That itself was very supportive to my search.

10 . Enlightenment: An Outbreak

Bharat: If you were not an active, strong, and wanting seeker, can I assume that your search originated out of an intellectual curiosity?

R: No, not at all. On the contrary, I had very very little intellectual curiosity. The curiosity came straight from the heart, since I was twelve or fourteen years old, when I found Ramana Maharshi’s words. I was never a student of religion or Hinduism. I was not interested in Advaita as an intellectual teaching. It was the heart right from the beginning. The intellect never came into it.

Elke: Do you want to say you never had the urge for enlightenment?

R: No. There was no such urge. Somehow, there was always an acceptance of What-is. Today, when I look back to the past, I realize that the acceptance of What-is was always with me. As I said, I had the conviction that all this is merely an appearance, that it is not real. I also was convinced that whatever had to happen to me as an individual was destined. Therefore, I knew that no power on earth could stop my destiny. No power on earth could stop my becoming the General Manager of the bank, if that was destined for me.

Mary: Did you experience yearning in the process of seeking?

R: How do you mean that, Mary? When? Do you mean to ask me if I had the strong yearning for enlightenment