The Infamous Ego

By Ramesh S. Balsekar

Ramesh S. Balsekar was one of the most profound spiritual Masters of this Age. He was both a brilliant writer and a captivating speaker. Shortly after retiring as the President of the Bank of India, he met the sage Nisargadatta Maharaj and began translating for Maharaj's daily morning talks. It was not long before Ramesh too experienced the Ultimate Understanding. He was therefore a wonderful blend of East and West, spiritual and material. His compassion and gentle humor infuse the Teaching with an energy that can only be described as being uniquely Ramesh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ramesh S. Balsekar
• Release date: Jan 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9789384363406

Ramesh S. Balsekar

Ramesh Balsekar, a teacher of pure Advaita, or non-duality, is an unearthly blend of the utterly human and utterly divine manifesting as a brilliant spiritual Master. His crystal-clear and profound teachings are backed by his complete understanding that “Nobody does anything” coupled with his life experience as a top executive of a major Indian bank, as a huband, father and grandfather – all lived knowing that it is all happening as God’s Will.For much of his full life Ramesh, whose Guru was Nisargadatta Maharaj, has been devoted to Ramana Maharshi, in whose spirit Ramesh welcomes seekers and asks “Who is seeking? Leave the seeking to Him who started the seeking.”

Book preview

The Infamous Ego

All there is is Consciousness. In that original state – call It Reality, call It God, call It Absolute, call It Nothingness – there is no reason to be aware of anything. So Consciousness-at-rest is not aware of Itself. It becomes aware of Itself only when this sudden feeling, I Am, arises. I Am is the impersonal sense of being aware. And that is when Consciousness-at-rest becomes Consciousness-in-movement, when Potential Energy becomes manifested energy. They are not two. Nothing separate comes out of Potential Energy.

It is Consciousness alone that exists. It creates the illusion of the world-appearance and the ego-sense and perceives the illusion of diversity in what is truly pure Unicity. It seems difficult to comprehend how the universe could exist in the infinite Consciousness that is supposed to be transcendental. Truly there is nothing other than Consciousness, and therefore Consciousness cannot but be immanent in everything that appears to exist. And yet no phenomenal manifestation can have any kind of relationship with Consciousness because a relationship can exist only between two different entities. It is in this sense that Consciousness is transcendental to the manifested universe. The universe exists in Consciousness like future waves in a calm sea – only apparently different in potentiality.

Every thing or object in the manifested universe is a product of Consciousness, both during the illusion when the manifestation appeared to be real and after the realization of the Truth. We are nothing but Consciousness, and never have been anything else. Perhaps it would be easier to understand the Truth if it is conceived that there never has been any we at any time, and that all there is – and has ever been – is Consciousness. We think of ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, as sentient beings and therefore as separate from the manifestation: we are the subject and the rest of the manifestation is the object. The reality is that we, as manifested phenomena, are actually nothing but a part of the one manifested universe. What makes us think of ourselves as separate is the fact that the apparent universe becomes known to us, as sentient beings, by sentience operating through cognitive faculties. This sentience is an aspect of Consciousness in Itself. And it is for this reason that we cannot get rid of the deepest feeling that I am other than the manifested appearance. And so indeed we are, but the illusion (the maya) consists in the fact that instead of collectively considering ourselves as sentience which enables us to cognize the manifestation (including sentient beings) which

Reviews for The Infamous Ego

[Tuna Eren · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

How simple and how profound deliverance of knowledge...
I am grateful.