Gautam Sachdeva is a spiritual teacher and guide from Mumbai whose teachings focus on peace of mind in daily living, just like those of his teacher and contemporary Advaita master, Ramesh Balsekar, did. He is the latter’s direct disciple and spent over nine years of his life with him.
I have been drawn to Gautam and his teachings through my affinity for Ramesh Balsekar and his teachings. Ramesh was, as Gautam describes, a simple grandfatherly figure who used to sit every morning in his rocking chair (wearing a plain white kurta pyjama) and share his teachings with the spiritual seekers who were drawn to him. The tenet of his teachings was that everything is God’s will.
For me, Ramesh’s simple oral teachings seemed to be in stark contrast with his books on the subject of spirituality, and Advaita in particular, which I found to be quite technical. However, according to my understanding of Ramesh’s teachings after listening to his talks, the following are the five principles or pillars that they rest on:
1. All there is, is the Source.
2. In the waking state, which we know as life and living, the Source has identified with the object—the body-mind.
3. In life, pleasure and pain are inevitable. It is the very nature of life.
4. Thy will be done. Everything is God’s will.
5. Nobody is the doer of their actions.
From whatever exposure I have had to Gautam and his teachings, I have gathered that he focuses and reiterates Ramesh’s core teachings:
· We (me and the other) are not the doers of our actions and everything is God’s will.
· Life is about relationships, namely, our relationships with others, with ourselves and with the situations and circumstances that arise in our lives.
· Happiness and peace (sukh-shanti) can be found in understanding that nobody is the doer of their actions. It is possible only when you fully accept every situation in your life and your relationships with everyone, and understand that without God’s will, actions as well as situations would not exist. This applies especially to people you do not like and to situations you do not desire, as that would be the true test of complete acceptance.
Now how does one see these teachings as stemming from Advaita Vedanta, which says that your true nature is Brahman (the Ultimate, or Absolute Reality) and that this world is maya?
Advaita Vedanta attempts to show the individual (jiva, or identified consciousness) that their true nature is pure awareness and also that the phenomenal world that they experience is nothing but an illusion (maya). However, it further clarifies that the declaration of this world as maya is in relation to the Absolute Reality (Brahman). Although Brahman is absolute or unchanging reality, referred to in Vedanta as Paramarthik Satya, it is nevertheless true that the world has its own level of reality—transactional or changing reality—known as Vyavaharika Satya.
Additionally, and most importantly, Advaita Vedanta claims that the world we experience is also Brahman. It is akin to saying that Brahman appears as the world with its inhabitants and occurrences. So the essence of Advaita Vedanta philosophy is that there are no others; it is one Reality, whether you call it Brahman, Consciousness or Pure Awareness, which appears to Itself as this phenomenal world.
Coming back to Gautam’s teachings, when summarized, they are about fully accepting people and events in one’s life. However, this acceptance is not a resignation or forced acceptance. It comes from an understanding that whatever appears in the form of people, objects or situations is nothing but God, or the Absolute Reality. It is a welcoming of the next moment in the form of whatever it brings.
To come to this understanding, a complete recognition that nobody is the doer of their actions is necessary. Ultimately, this recognition has to be experiential and not merely intellectual. It is the recognition of the one Source manifesting as the multiplicity of the world or, in other words, of non-duality (not two). When this happens, the ego drops, and the understanding arises that there never was any individual (jiva). It was always the Source, or God, expressing Itself through people, objects and situations.
When someone wrote to Swami Vivekananda that his teaching ‘All is God’ is beautiful, he wrote back saying that he never taught such a thing and what he actually meant was ‘All is not; only God is.’ This beautifully summarizes the message of Advaita Vedanta.
In my understanding, Ramesh’s teachings and Gautam’s elaboration of the same lead one to the investigation of whether there is truly an individual doer and, thereafter, to a recognition that the Source is the only doer. When this is fully understood, then there is no other. That is the essence of Advaita.
I would like to mention a saying from the great Indian sage Gorakhnath, whom Gautam often refers to. To me, this is a mantra for complete acceptance:
Sahaj mila so doodh baraabar
Maang liya so paani
Kheench liya so rakht baraabar
Gorakh bole baani
What comes naturally (unasked) is what is meant for you,
it is like getting milk
When one asks, it is like getting water
When one takes (snatches) what does not belong to one,
it is like getting blood
Thus speaks Gorakhnath
Comentarios