Who Am I?

Dear Ramesh Balsekar the great advaita teacher died on 27th Sept 2009. Wayne Liquorman's letter is here Dear Friends, It is with the heaviest of hearts I write to tell you of the passing of our beloved Ramesh this morning at 9AM in his home in Bombay. His death was quick and peaceful. Ramesh was truly an extraordinary being. His life as a successful banker, author and spiritual teacher directly enriched the lives of tens of thousands of people. Having met Ramesh was one of the defining moments of my life, as I am certain it was for many of you reading this note. His generous spirit, open, loving presence and spiritual Understanding combined to make him one of the truly great Sages of the 20th century. We are truly blessed to have known him...be it "in person" or through his Teaching. Ramesh lives on. Though his body will this evening return to the elements, his spirit lives on in his books and in the hearts of all of us who have known him and loved him.. Twenty-two yea...

Ramesh signing one of his books for us as he always did One of his inscriptions is here: "The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; the water has no mind to receive their image" "Conciousness is all there is" See here for an excerpt from 'Pointers' by Ramesh, on the teachings of his guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj "All effort at controlling thoughts, appetites and desires cannot but strengthen them along with the ego" "The seeing is the only doing necessary." "What you are trying to find is what you already are" "If you but cease from useless conceptualizing, you will be what you are and what you have always been." "What constitutes bondage or hindrance to Realization is not activity or even effort but the sense of personal doership" As the Buddha said, "events happen; deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof" "The final truth, as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Mahara...

One day in 1990 I was staying at Puttaparthy and went out at 4am to walk round the mandir. The sky was black, and it began to rain heavily, but of course it was warm. As it was raining, few came out that morning and those who did stood in the embrasures of the wall facing the mandir and waited for the rain to stop. At once Baba came out of his rooms on to the platform of the mandir and looked across at us sheltering in the embrasures, and smiled. He then raised his arms to the sky and two bolts of lightning appeared from the clouds, shot down his arms and down his body to the platform and formed a ball of lightning at his feet. He then played with the ball, sending it spinning across the platform with a wave of his arm, and calling it back with another wave. When it came back to his feet, he motioned it back up his body and, raising his arms again sent it back into the sky - where it disappeared in to the dark clouds. He then turned to us again, smiled and went back into his rooms. ...

One day at Puttaparthy, when staying at C1 Sai Vadan through the kindness of Jagdish Bhavani, I was doing seva in the fields, helping to pick up a dried crop and put it in carts to be taken for storage. I had the key to the apartment's padlock in my pocket, and there were no others. Imagine my concern when at the end of the day I arrived back at the apartment and found I no longer had the key. I was wondering what on earth to do, but before I could become seriously worried, a man came running up the stairs and gave me the key. It had been found, he said, at the bottom of one of the carts. Considering I had been in the field all day and many loads had been taken in, and no one knew that I had lost the key, it was astonishing that the key had been found and that someone knew that it was been mine - and where to find me. I never saw the man again, and I believe that he might well have been sent by Baba. A real Baba lila! Puttaparthy Thunderstorm Hong Kong The Perth-London fl...

One day while being driven back from a lunch in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong in 2005, I was musing about reality and said to Baba "Baba, I know that what we see and sense is only a relative reality, but would you give me a sign to show me that this is really the case? If what I am seeing is only an illusion, will you make that man walking alongside my taxi turn and look at me?" In an instant the man - an ordinary Chinese labourer - turned and stared - really stared - through the taxi's window directly into my eyes. It was a completely deliberate act, not in anyway coincidental, and after a few seconds he turned back and continued walking. I never saw him before or since. A lovely Baba lila! Puttaparthy Thunderstorm Puttaparthy Seva The Perth-London flight Baba in the Smoke

Fishing on the River Itchen. Photo by Derek Hampshire Today - at about 2pm on Friday 21st August 2009 - I finished writing out my step-grandfather's monograph on dry fly fishing. It's here . A few minutes later I wrote on Facebook 'Herry Lawford is learning about fishing - and wished he'd taken it up years ago.....'. About two hours later a friend, (who isn't on Facebook and has no connection with it), wrote in an e-mail 'By the way are you into flyfishing – I have a beat on the Test on 21 September if you would like to join me??' It is the only invitation to a day's fishing that i have ever received. For those unversed in the lore of fishing, the Test in Hampshire is the holy of holies and generally regarded at the finest dry fly river in England. Another Baba lila...... Baba in the Smoke

The highest truth can be found in the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj, a barely-educated tobacco-kiosk owner who died in Bombay in 1981. The classic book of his teachings is 'I Am That' transcribed and translated from his native Marathi by Maurice Frydman. There are also fine books on his teaching such as 'Pointers' by Ramesh Balsekar and those of Jean Dunn and Robert Powell . 'The dialogue, one evening, was started by a young Canadian, wearing a lunghi and a thin kurtha. He said that he was twenty-three, but looked barely out of his teens. He wore around his neck an elegant little silver cross on a dainty chain. He said that he had come across the book I Am That in a bookshop in Bombay a couple of days ago. A cursory glance at a few pages impelled in him a desire to meet Maharaj personally. He had already gone through the book reading almost continuously, through the afternoon, evening and night, and had finished both volumes only a few hours ago. Mah...