Letter dated: May 20th 2004
Dear Mr. Balsakar,
I have been reading your works and the teachings of Sri Nisargadatta for many years. Both bring such Grace to my life, and a verification of what I call my “livingness” of this Divine Flow.
Many years ago, I began to notice a distinct yet ephemeral flow moving throughout my body. It felt physical in its appearance, yet was noumenal in its nature; a blend of coexistence of opposite values. I grew up in a spiritually based family, tending to the Silence within like a gardener tending to her precious flowers. Thus Silence has been the most important value in my life, and is to me my connection to God.
The change began slowly, peacefully gaining momentum until I took notice of the change of my silent, inner life. This “Flow” feels like a movement, a force, a swelling of energy or prana or the life stream – yet it comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. When I sit quietly, this moving Silence consumes me. It gathers force and I am truly consumed.
I am reminded that there is no “doer” that does anything to create this or to experience or live it. There are no thoughts, comes unbidden, and feels part and parcel to who I am. It feels like a blessing and I have often said to myself that if this is a taste of God’s grace than I am complete.
During my daily activities as a bookkeeper I go about my business as this Grace continues to move. I distinctly feel it as a movement, not stationery – or maybe it is stationery with such potential power that the feeling I have is just mistaken for movement and is really just a powerful vibratory potency.
When I ask myself, “Who am I?” or “to whom does this come?” this flow envelopes me. I laugh out loud at the bliss that this engenders in me. And, over the years, as I have gown to accept this state of Beingness as my own, I have asked many questions. Many of those questions were answered in your writings. And I deeply thank you. This is not something I share with the world. I am completely private about this as it is something so precious to me that I am not able to communicate it easily with others. Thus, I write to you.
I do have a question though. Oftentimes just writing it down tends to direct the answer back to me. Here is my conundrum: I still do experience the small “me.” The small “me” is very much apparent in my life. When I am aware of the Flow, then the “me” falls away. Just the Flow. Even though there has been no apparent change from one moment to the next.
When I have deeply investigated this “me” when enveloped in this Flow of Grace, I have perceive that this “me” is just a thought. It has the same flavor of a thought – no reality to it, just a thought. I am the Flow. There is nothing but the Flow. Anything other than this is a trick of the intellect.
Yet, at other times this “me” is more than a thought – it also consumes me. Consciousness becomes a background. It only takes a small shift in attention and the balance is corrected – Consciousness is all there is and the “me” is only a thought within it. I am confused whether this is how others experience Grace, or if I am caught in a swirl of misperception.
I just saw a videotape of you giving Satsang in your home in Bombay. During that tape you spoke of this “me” as a persona that will never disappear. If I am correct in my understanding, you said that it is the apparatus through which the eyes distinguish, the ears hear and so forth.
Maybe this me that I speak of is that apparatus, and I am expecting it to totally disappear. But, when I read your books and those of Nisargadatta, it seems like this small me does totally disappear – at all times.
I seem to move in and out of this small “me” awareness and then am aware of the bliss of this Grace – much of the time simultaneously. But, some of the time I am totally caught up in this small “me” and unaware of Grace until my attention shifts, or I am bumped by Grace and the deep contentment that accompanies it.
I don’t know if I am clear in my writing. Words can’t describe this adequately, yet I am compelled to write. My thoughts to you keep tumbling out and I am finding it hard to keep my question clear and uncluttered. I have not had anyone to share this with, so I am bursting with too much to ask and not enough of inner listening to balance this asking.
Your words have touched me deeply. I look forward, with your permission, to writing to you again.
Blessings,
Fleming
Response to my Letter from Ramesh Balsakar
Mumbai 25 September 2004
My Dear,
Thank you for your very sincere letter of September 15th.
This is the background to the practice of “Self-Investigation” that I recommend:
The seeker arrives at the stage where he knows that more intellectual acceptance of non-doership is not enough. It has to be total. So the question arises: What can I do to make the intellectual acceptance total? The obvious answer is “nothing”, because one is not the doer.
Then the seeker’s question is: I accept that the total acceptance can only happen, but while I wait for the happening to happen, is there not something I can do as a practice?
Only then do I suggest the practice that I call “personal investigation”. Take 20/30 minutes off, be undisturbed and comfortable, and then do some personal investigation, among the many events of the day. Select only one which you are sure is your action and then investigate. You will come to the conclusion – every time, without exception – that what you think is your action would not have happened if something had not happened earlier – one which you had no control – a thought or something seen or heard.
With affection and love,
Ramesh
Letters to the Universe 