leonardcohenforum.com

From Sylvie Simmons, author of the forthcoming new LC biography:

Dear Jarkko and Forum members
Sylvie Simmons here, with a request. I'm trying to track down anyone who might have studied with the late Ramesh Balsekar, or anyone with insights they could share with me about his teachings, or about Leonard's visits to India. I've seen Ratnesh Mathur's fine piece on leonardcohenfiles.com but I'd love to find out more if I possibly can. Many thanks for any help you can give me, and hope to see you before too long.
Sylvie.

Please send your contributions to me at ja@nebula.fi - I will forward to Sylvie. Alternatively, you can also send me just your name and email address, and then Sylvie will contact you directly. Of course it will be also OK to share your contribution with all members in this thread!

Jarkko I have sent you an email re Ramesh Balsekar as I have a few friends who sat with him in the 90's..
thanks
Leslie

He says there's no free will ,was president of the bank of India and involved in financial and sexual scandals . "All is consciousness," he sez. Surprised Leonard would have anything to do with him if this is true.

"hearing revelations of Ramesh's longtime exploitation of certain women disciples as objects for his own bodymind's sexual pleasure...."
Just like "Sexy Sadie."

It's interesting that Sylvie is going down this route. I've never seen anything substantial written about Leonard's transition from Roshi to Balsekar, even though I have my own hunches of what might have attracted Leonard to Balsekar after the Mount Baldy era. I'd be particularly interested to know what Leonard himself gained or didn't gain from Balsekar's teaching. Although I haven't studied Balsekar mysyelf, I must say that I was surprised when I recently saw a passage from him (alongside people like Richard Dawkins) in a book called "The Myth of Freewill". I still tend to believe in freewill, but can accept that some of what we suppose is freewill isn't really so. Clearly many of our "choices" are based, not only on genes, but on parental, societal/religious conditioning, collective trends, peer pressure, old habits, fear of change etc.

People who say there's no free will often use it as an excuse for inexcusable behavior, or try to impose on the wills of others. In spiritual teachings it usually means how things seem from a point of view beyond the ego, the rational mind, ordinary reality, i.e. "cosmic consciousness."

Hi John,

I don't know what passage you saw, & I'm not very familiar with Balsekar, but I have seen a quote of his that says: "Actions happen - there is no individual doer thereof" which is very similar to the Buddha's words: "Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer, thereof"; & Balsekar suggested that people ask themselves: "Am I the doer of what I think are my actions?"

In Indian/Yogic/Buddhist teachings, these statements would be connected with the teaching of "tendrel" which means interdependence/interdependent factors/interconnection/etc. It means that everything is connected, & any individual occurrence/manifestation/action/etc. is connected to everything else that exists & that has ever existed. What one is in this moment is connected to causes & conditions that reach back to beginningless time & extend to limitless space.

There is the example of considering what makes the sound of a bell. Is it the body of the bell, the clapper, the hand that moves the bell, or the ears that hear the sound? It's not any one thing, but the interaction of all those things that presently exist. But the sound of a bell is also dependent upon having a bell to ring; the existence of the bell depends on the materials from which it is made, the process of production, the people involved in the production of it; it depends on the mining of the ore, for instance, & the people who mined the ore; the existence of the people who mine the ore depends on the families they were born into, as well as all the forces/circumstances that have influenced each member of that family & each of their ancestors, etc., etc.; & since the sound of the bell also depends on the existence of someone to hear it, the existence of the person hearing it also depends on that person's family origins,& their ancestors, etc., etc. So the process of exploring what's known as the "causes & conditions" of the sound of a bell, can be carried on until the entire universe in time & space is included. In this way, the process of exploring any given occurrence/action/manifestation, if explored thoroughly, will eventually include the whole universe, & all of time & space.

So I think that the thoughts that are triggered for many Westerners, by the words "free will" or "no free will", are often different from what is implied by a teacher from the East who says those words. It has to do with the idea that there is no doer or action that exists separate from the rest of the universe, because there are all these millions of forces & events that are interrelated, & whatever manifests at any given moment, is produced by the manner in which all these forces interrelate with each other.

That's an engaging and illuminating explanation, HolyDove – thanks!

Sheila

Thank you, Sheila - glad you found it helpful!

A hunbling revelation!

Leonard from Montreal

yes, nice description of the law of codependent arising, Holydove. It's nice to reflect upon one's own individual powerlessness, in relation to this idea, in the same way as it is good to give in to what you are fighting along to "If it be Your Will". Leonard's paraphrasing of something from the Bhagavad Gita sticks in my mind, from the I'm Your Man film: "You will never untangle the circumstances that brought you to this moment, embrace your fate." Conversely though, it is psychologically healthy to believe that you do have free will; that "where there's a will there's a way", if not now, then later; and of course to take responsibility for your own actions. I imagine the 'problem' lies with the fact that language itself clouds the issue, forcing an either/or explanantion, whereas in fact we probably both do and don't have free will.

ps, but I digress from Jarkko's request - sorry I don't know about Ramesh Balsekar.

When I listen to some songs or interviews of Leonard, it seems to me that he doesn't really believe in free will. It goes rather like this: We make our plans as if there was a free will, and this is something we must inevitably do, but we can't command the consequences and if we look back we understand that it all was according to some plan; we just can't understand the whole scheme of things. The song "There for You" seems to convey this idea very well. I guess there might be some influence of Ramesh Balsekar in it.