Ramesh Balsekar - Gut Schermau Seminar - 1998-06-27

I would very much like

if two, three, or four

would get up and tell me

what exactly they want

out of this seminar.

I rather expected this.

[Laughs]

So, my teaching is really based

on three very simple assumptions.

The first assumption is

that the totality of manifestation

has come from the Source.

The Source is only One.

So, in creating the manifestation,

the Source could not possibly

have taken

any other material from anywhere

to produce the manifestation.

So it must have been produced

out of Itself.

So, strictly therefore,

if the Source has

produced the manifestation,

if the Consciousness unmanifest

has become manifested,

if the potential energy

has become activized,

they are not two.

It is the same Consciousness

which was unmanifest

has become manifest.

Which is precisely

what Buddha meant

when he said:

Nirvana and Samsara

are one, not two.

Nirvana in action is Samsara.

When Samsara is not in action,

it is Nirvana.

They are not two.

Basically, that is the point.

They are not two.

And the human being

is part of that manifestation.

And what is the manifestation?

Totality of objects.

The totality of manifestation

is the totality of objects.

Which means, according to me,

the human being is an object.

The rock is an object,

the animal is an object,

the human being is an object,

with different characteristics.

The rock has no senses,

therefore the rock

does not need sensions

or consciousness

for the senses to work.

The animal has senses,

therefore it has sensions

which enables the senses to work.

But both the rock and the animal

are objects in the totality

of objects in the manifestation.

The human being, similarly,

is an object,

like the rock or the animal,

with the same sensions

as the animal has,

which enables the human being

to live his life

and for the senses to work.

The second thing

that my assumption is based on

is the statement of Lord Buddha.

In life, events happen,

deeds are done,

but there is no individual doer thereof.

The events and the deeds

are actions which happen

through any body-mind organisms,

or all body-mind organisms

together constitute the functioning

of that manifestation.

There is no individual doer thereof.

That is precisely

what Lord Krishna meant,

which is my third assumption.

Lord Krishna,

in the Bhagavad Gita, says:

You cannot commit a sin,

you cannot commit a meritorious deed,

you think in terms of sins

and meritorious deeds

because your knowledge

of your true nature

is clouded or enveloped by ignorance.

The word used is "ignorance".

And the ignorance which is referred to

in the Bhagavad Gita

is what we in modern times

use as the word "ego",

which is the basic problem

of the seeking.

Most teachings start with

the basic that it is your ego

which is the cause of all your suffering.

It is the ego which is

the cause of your suffering.

Therefore, you must kill the ego.

And in order to kill the ego,

various prescriptions are given.

So my question therefore is:

if the human being

is merely a created object

which is part of

the totality of manifestation,

where did this sense of individuality,

this ego,

which is supposed to be destroyed,

where did it come from?

Where could it have come from

except from the Source?

So, my concept is

that it is the same Source

which created the rock

and the animal with sensions,

and the human being

with sensions and intellect

which created the ego.

In fact, my concept is

that the thinking mind,

the intellect, the "me",

and the ego are names

for the same thing.

The intellect which considers

oneself as an individual

with a sense of personal doership

"I" do things, which is the ego.

So the "me"

to whom a prescription is given

to kill the ego

is the same thing.

I repeat:

you, to whom the prescriptions

are given,

to kill the ego

are not two.

So how can the ego

kill itself?

The ego cannot kill itself.

Therefore, my basic concept is

that only that power,

the Source,

which created the ego

can remove the ego

and that is precisely

what the source is doing.