I met Ramesh S. Balsekar for the first time in July, 1993. I rang the doorbell of his apartment in the Warden Road district of Bombay, and Ramesh himself opened the door. He greeted me and led me into his study, offering me a seat on a small bench facing his armchair.
After we had made ourselves comfortable, I introduced myself and he asked, "What can I do for you? Why have you come?
""I am seeking enlightenment," I replied. "I am ready to do anything to reach this goal. I will do whatever it takes. I am ready to steal or even to kill my own mother if I can only attain enlightenment. Can it be done? Can I do it? Just tell me how! How did you do it?" He answered, "Who is seeking what? When you understand the 'who' and the 'what' in your question, your search will come to an end."

This book is about the who, what, when, where and how of the spiritual search and its fulfillment in final enlightenment, and about the protagonists in this process: the guru, and the disciple or seeker.
When I first met Ramesh, I had been seeking spiritual liberation or enlightenment wholeheartedly for fourteen years. Throughout this time, I was driven by the conviction that "I" would be able to make enlightenment happen, provided I put enough dedication into the endeavor and followed the instructions of my guru totally in every point. I had made every effort to do so. In fact, I had been so thoroughly absorbed in work for my various masters, and in the meditations and spiritual practices they prescribed all directed towards the ultimate goal of enlightenment that, in all my time as a seeker, I had never seriously entertained the possibility that I might fail to attain enlightenment.

Ramesh shattered the illusion underlying this conviction at our very first meeting. He sat there, calm and relaxed in his armchair, and told me:
"The search for Truth and its fulfillment in enlightenment is, like any other event, merely an event in the impersonal functioning of Totality, God, Consciousness or whatever you want to call it. The individual with the sense of personal free will, volition and doership just doesn't exist. Buddha expresses the same truth with the words, 'Events happen, deeds are being done, but there is no doer thereof.' Because it so destined, or so willed by God or Consciousness, the occurrence of enlightenment may or may not happen in the case of the body-mind organism Madhukar.
That is why no power on earth can hasten or hinder the event of enlightenment from happening. Ramana Maharshi used to teach the same truth to the seekers of his time by saying, 'Your head is already in the tiger's mouth. There is no escape.'"

As Ramesh spoke, the truth of his words became abundantly clear. All doing and seeking was suspended. I simply listened and understood. There is no doer or seeker with an individual separate entity, no "me." There is merely this body-mind organism named Madhukar, functioning in and as part of Totality.
Who, then, could set the goal of enlightenment and strive towards it?
Of all the millions of people who, throughout the ages, have earnestly sought liberation, how many have actually made it, or rather: how many have been "made" enlightened by God or Totality? I realized that if God so wills it, I cannot help but become enlightened even against my own will (which doesn't exist anyway!) no matter what I do or don't do.

Ramesh went on:
"The seeker already is what he is seeking. What the seeker is seeking, is seeking! The seeker and his seeking are that which is sought. To understand this fact intuitively in the heart is enlightenment. Understanding is all."
His words made my seeker's mind spin. It lost all its reference points, and stopped. My heart sang and rang with joy and relief as the Truth sank in; a deep understanding occurred in an instant of oneness beyond time. And yet what I heard that day, and what I understood, did not suffice to make me walk out of Ramesh's living room never to return.
In my case, it turned out that the search had still not come to a complete halt.

"If you want to hear more of the teaching, come tomorrow!" Ramesh invited me. Yes, I wanted to hear more, and how much so! I came to hear him speak the next day, and the day after that.
I had then to return to Pune, a city some 180 kms south-east of Bombay where I was living at the time, but over the next two years I visited Ramesh perhaps a dozen times in all. I also participated in, and video-recorded, the two-week seminars he held at Kovalam Beach, Kerala, India, in 1994 and 1995. I made two documentary video films on Ramesh and recorded many of his talks in Bombay either on audio or video.
For readers who are unfamiliar with Ramesh's teaching, I should point out that these talks were not lectures or discourses. His teaching sessions are more like open discussions, or easy-going conversations in which he and his audience interact, sharing their experiences and clarifying issues related to the spiritual search through questions, anecdotes and comments.

At the end of July 1995, I asked Ramesh if he would allow me to move to Bombay and live there, so that I could attend his talks on a daily basis.
He agreed.
I rented a room near his house in the Malabar Hill area overlooking the ocean and, from September 1995 onwards, I was able to attend all the talks he gave over the next six months. But it soon became clear that I couldn't just sit there in his room every morning listening to the talks.
My gratitude and enthusiasm for the teaching compelled me to serve Ramesh and his devotees in some way. So I began to make audio and video recordings of the teaching sessions I attended, providing duplicate tapes for fellow participants when requested. I also made transcripts of some of the talks I had recorded, xeroxed them, and laid them out in Ramesh's study, so that visiting seekers could take copies if they wished.

These documents, entitled Talks in Bombay were well-received and, seeing this,
I suggested to Ramesh that it might be helpful if I compiled the talks into a book.
I sought his approval for doing so, and he replied:
"I welcome the idea. There will be many repetitions though. But in this kind of talk, repetitions are acceptable. Even the questions will repeat themselves. However, the same question will elicit a different answer each time because they are asked in a different context."
The talks, he said, would often be hammering the same point, but the repetitions they necessarily contained would serve to drive the teachings home to the reader, just as they do for those present listening to them.

On the basis of recordings made between July 1995 and March 1996, two books have been compiled. The present volume Enlightenment May or May Not Happen covers the period July 1995-November 1995; its companion volume Enlightenment? Who Cares! runs from November 1995 through March 1996.
The books document the Advaita Vedanta teachings of Ramesh, as expressed in response to questions regarding meditation, the guru-disciple relationship, the spiritual search and its goal-enlightenment.
We will find Ramesh affirming that the spiritual search has definite stages leading up to, and ending with, enlightenment.
He describes it as "a proceeding process of disidentification in which the apparently separate 'me'-entity, with the sense of individual free will and personal doership, gradually weakens until its final and total dissolution is reached."

This teaching validates some of the most crucial and recurrent questions which we, as seekers, almost inevitably find ourselves asking as we practice, strive and yearn for liberation. Examples of such questions are:
"Am I making any progress? Is there any way to know? Are there any signs or milestones along the path which might tell me how I'm doing, how far I've come, and how far I am now from my goal?"

To clarify such issues, Ramesh states that the seeking begins with an individual who is convinced that enlightenment is attainable through his or her personal efforts. The desire for freedom compels this individual to follow certain spiritual practices (sadhana) in the belief that, "Enlightenment must happen!" as a result. Between this stage and the actual occurrence of enlightenment the two extremes of the spectrum of spiritual search Ramesh identifies two other stages which show that the process of disidentification is nearing completion.
The first of these is the realization that "Enlightenment may or may not happen." This realization implies complete acceptance of the fact that the seeker, as an individual entity with personal volition and doership, just does not exist.
He or she therefore has no power to influence the outcome of the search. The occurrence of enlightenment depends, strictly and entirely, on God's Will alone. This stage then merges with the penultimate stage prior to enlightenment itself. Ramesh expresses it thus:
"If you ask me, 'What is indicative of the threshold to the imminent occurrence of enlightenment?', I answer, 'The attitude and experiential conviction "Enlightenment? Who cares!" From this stage, enlightenment can occur at any moment."

The process of disidentification is thus seen to involve four stages, with the fourth stage being its culmination in enlightenment.
Each of the three stages preceding this event is underlain by a particular conviction or attitude on the part of the seeker, which enables it to be distinguished from the others. The "hallmark" attitudes for the first three stages, prior to enlightenment, are:

1) Enlightenment must happen!
2) Enlightenment may or may not happen.
3) Enlightenment? Who cares!

In this book, and in its sequel Enlightenment? Who Cares!, Ramesh speaks about these various stages in the spiritual search, and about the process of disidentification in general.
It may be heartening for readers to know that, in some cases, quantum leaps are possible; Ramesh readily admits that a seeker might not need to pass through each and every stage of the disidentification process. Enlightenment may happen at any time, from any level, without any precondition; again, it all depends on God's Will.

While the books do not purport to provide a complete and systematic account of Ramesh's teaching, they do contain a fairly representative sample of the type of exchanges that took place during his daily morning talks over the period concerned (July 1995-March 1996).
Both books have been structured around questions which I personally asked Ramesh, and his replies to them.
To establish the proper context for these dialogues, extracts featuring interactions between Ramesh and other seekers have also been included, as have exchanges on related issues which, I feel, may assist the reader's understanding of various aspects of Ramesh's teaching.
The extracts contained in each chapter were all recorded on the same day and, like the chapters themselves, they are presented in chronological order, as they unfolded.
Chapter 27 (in this volume) and Chapter 33 (in Enlightenment? Who Cares!) each contain the complete unabridged transcript of one of Ramesh's morning talks in its entirety.

The transcripts are accompanied by a series of cartoons in which I express my personal views and understanding (and, at times, my misunderstanding!) of Ramesh's teaching.
The ideas for each cartoon arose spontaneously while I was transcribing the talks, and at first I paid them little heed. As the ideas accumulated, however, I began to realize their potential. Cartoons, after all, are excellent vehicles for swiftly conveying knowledge and messages, and are particularly suited for commenting on events and pointing up the humor underlying them.

The inclusion of these cartoons is thus intended to illustrate and underscore key aspects of the teaching they accompany. They emphasize and clarify, assisting the evolution of the reader's own understanding. And, of course, the cartoons are also meant to entertain and even, occasionally, to make the seeker (and hopefully the guru!) laugh.
They provide light-hearted touches of humor, generating amusement and laughter without losing sight of the teaching that informs them. Thus, the cartoons not only reinforce the teaching, they actually hit the bull's eye, landing the seeker right in the Heart whenever they provoke an outburst of laughter. For it is not possible to think and laugh at the same time the two events are diametrically opposed to each other.
Either one is thinking or one is laughing. What happens when one laughs totally?
In such laughter, mind evaporates. The "me," the ego, the one-who-laughs disappears and only laughter remains. In pure laughter, we are our true nature:-pure Being, Consciousness, Peace-expressing itself as happiness, lightness, pleasure, ecstasy.
In such laughter, we get a glimpse of moksha-spiritual liberation, freedom from the illusion of the "me."

Numerous enlightened masters from all sorts of spiritual lineages have told how their enlightenment experience was accompanied by indescribable joy and bliss, and by outbursts of laughter welling up unstoppably at the recognition of their true nature after all those decades or lifetimes of seeking. You may have read some such accounts yourself, but if you haven't, believe me: the occurrence of enlightenment sounds like a real treat. It's not something that anyone in their right mind would want to miss out on and, in many cases, I guess it's what you, dear reader, are really longing to experience.

Well, I'm afraid I've got some bad news. I've been looking at the statistics (such as they are) on the incidence of enlightenment throughout recorded history and, by means of certain rigorously scientific procedures, I have come up with the most up-to-date estimates of enlightenment probability yet available.
It doesn't look good, I can tell you. In fact, the chances that you or I will finally "get it" this lifetime are pitifully small.
My findings suggest that only 1 in 3,972,913 seekers will become enlightened in this current lifetime. Expressed another way, a seeker such as you or I should realistically expect to search for 24,765,538 years before enlightenment occurs.

Of course, these figures are indicative estimates only but, I think you'll agree, they are pretty disheartening. Sorry about that. The good news is that this contemporary estimate is a great improvement on that given in the Upanishads. There it is stated that, to attain enlightenment, a given being must first live through no less than 8.4 million lifetimes!

This daunting assessment of the seeker's chances provides yet another reason for the inclusion of the cartoons. They are dedicated to all those who don't want to wait any longer for that great outburst of laughter which, it is often said, arises at the moment of enlightenment. Why wait?
You are hereby invited to smile, to chuckle and to laugh-here and now.
Forget about the future, forget the past!
Laughter is a sort of no-man's land or better, a no"me" land-where the seeker and his search, the doer and his goal, all cease to exist. There is no thinker, no thinking, no thought ó time stops.
In short, laughter grants us a "free sample" of the enlightened state Sat-Chit-Ananda ó Truth, Consciousness, Bliss.

So, if you consider yourself (however sporadically) to be a seeker, I welcome you here and invite you to immerse yourself in the teachings this book contains. I sincerely hope and trust that, in so doing, you will encounter Truth, illuminating your understanding, and resonating in your Heart as your own direct experience. While you read on, the cartoons are there for your enjoyment.
God willing, they may sometimes raise a smile or a laugh that bridges (albeit briefly) the almost infinite, illusory abyss between the seeker and enlightenment itself.

Dear reader, you have now come to the end of the book. Putting it down and reflecting on what you have read, you may find that you have fully understood Ramesh's teaching. You may realize that your concern or was it even an obsession? with your spiritual search has ceased. If you find that you are blessed with the deep and total understanding and unshakable conviction, borne out by your direct intuitive experience, that:

1. the totality of manifestation is merely an appearance in Consciousness like a dream, and its functioning is an impersonal, self-generated process in phenomenality;
2. the billions of sentient body ó mind organisms (including your own) are merely the instruments or dreamed characters through which this impersonal process takes place;
3. there is truly no doer, no separate "me"-entity with personal free will, volition and doership;
4. whatever happens, happens because of the Will of God or Consciousness;

Then your seeking has ceased, and all desire for enlightenment will have died.
If such is the case, this book has fulfilled its highest possible purpose, and you, dear reader, are truly free, living egolessly in utter surrender to God or the Absolute. Congratulations! May I now suggest that you help propagate the teachings contained herein by recommending this book to your loved ones, relatives and friends. Meanwhile, the rest of us look forward with impatience and great expectation to the publication of your own book: No More "May's" or "May not's"Enlightenment Has Happened.

Alternatively, dear reader, despite what you have just read in this book you may still be somewhat uneasy. You might feel nonplussed at seeing the whole validity of your search shattered, without any final rewarding resolution. The phrase "Enlightenment may or may not happen" might have acquired a certain familiarity for you, but its full significance may yet lie just beyond the threshold of your acceptance. The mind might have it all quite clearly as a new intellectual paradigm, yet the experiential actuality may seem to somehow lag behind. Deep down, you may think or feel that you need to understand the teaching somehow "more,""better," or "deeper." If this is the case, it may be of some comfort to know that many other recipients of Ramesh's Advaita teaching have suffered similar bewilderment. A typical expression of this is contained in the following dialogue, recorded at Ramesh's Kovalam Beach seminar in February 1994:

Heide: I have problems with the part of your teaching which holds that it is in no way up to me to prepare myself for enlightenment to happen. I just can't believe that I can't do anything for enlightenment. I hear you simply say, "Nothing can be done for it to happen."

Ramesh: Nothing can be done other than what is already happening. Therefore, I say, let what happens already, happen; let continue what you have been doing so far. What you want to know is, "Can I do something additional to what I was doing so far, or is there something which I wasn't doing yet?" Or you want to know, "Should I stop doing what I was doing so far?" Both questions point to the same thing, that is: you want to become something which you are not. Or you want to get something which is not there now.
So, so long as there is a "me" wanting to become something which she is not yet, or so long as there is a "me" wanting to get something which is not yet there, enlightenment cannot happen. The problem is this "me." However, what can be done is accepting what happens, witnessing what happens, and let things take their own course without waiting for, or expecting, something to come or change. That is the only thing which can be done.
There is nothing to be done other than what you are doing now, nor is there anything to be stopped which you are doing now.

Heide: I need to get deeper what you are saying. I need to understand it on a deeper level. What you are saying has to sink in deeper.

Ramesh: No. You cannot get that deeper. (laughter) It can only go deeper by itself whenever and wherever it wants to. I am not playing with words. What I am saying is the real thing.
I'll tell you a story of a guru and a disciple.

The story Ramesh goes on to tell is given in the Introduction of the sequel to this book Enlightenment? Who Cares! I have saved it for the second volume because it provides a convenient bridge between the two books, and also serves perfectly to set the tone for the teachings which it introduces. For now, the typically uncompromising response quoted above brings us back, once again, to the understanding expressed in this book's title: enlightenment may or may not happen.

Ramesh repeatedly affirms that the spiritual search and its culmination in enlightenment are part of the impersonal functioning of Totality. Hence, he tells Heide that, "Nothing can be done other than what is already happening." Because the search is part of an impersonal process, the individual seeker can in no way influence or determine the form that it takes, or its eventual outcome. Indeed, the spiritual search is actually a process of disidentification "in which the apparently separate 'me' -entity with individual free will and personal doership gradually weakens until its final and total dissolution is reached."

This process of disidentification has certain discernible stages through which the spiritual seeker passes before enlightenment occurs. These stages, or rather the seeker's attitudes towards enlightenment which underlie them, may be summarized thus:

1. "Enlightenment must happen!" a conviction that enlightenment is something which can be achieved; its attainment depends solely on the intensity of my own personal volition, efforts and deeds to accomplish it.
2. "Enlightenment may or may not happen" the recognition that the occurrence of enlightenment is not actually in my hands, but in God's hands alone.
3. "Enlightenment? Who Cares!"the individual seeker (the "me"-entity), the seeking and the sought (enlightenment) have dissolved; only the impersonal What is remains. This is the final stage prior to the actual occurrence of enlightenment.

To conclude this volume, and to set the scene for its sequel Enlightenment? Who Cares!, let us look a little closer at these three stages. In the first one, the seeker entertains the notion that he exists as an individual entity with personal volition and doership. He, the subject, wants to experience and enjoy the permanent, uninterrupted peace of enlightenment ó the object of his desire and he uses all the means at his disposal to achieve it. He thinks to himself: "I want enlightenment. I really want it. And I reckon I can get it; I can make it happen if I only try hard enough. It sure is tough going, though! I wish I could speed things up a bit... Am I getting anywhere at all? How can I tell? What are the signs I should be looking out for? I wonder if, to make real progress, I need to do more than I'm doing now. Maybe I should practice longer and harder. Or maybe I should try something else some other method might help me grasp the Truth and understand it better, deeper or more fully." Prompted thus, the seeker leaves no stone unturned in his search. He finds himself pursuing all sorts of practices and exerting every possible effort to attain what he desires.

The seeker's arrival at the second stage"Enlightenment may or may not happen" is marked by the realization that he has done everything in his power to reach his goal, but it has all been in vain. He remains unenlightened and there is nothing more he can do about it. He is faced with the incontrovertible fact that he cannot make enlightenment happen through sheer force of will, determination, effort, power or actions. He comes to realize that the occurrence of enlightenment is not in his hands, but in the hands of God or the Absolute.

At this second stage, however, the seeker's perspective is not devoid of expectation for he still considers himself to be a "me" an entity separate from God. He wishes that through God's Grace he would be granted the enlightenment he has been longing to enjoy, yet he also, somewhat wearily, recognizes the futility of this wish. His attitude is something like this: "Dear God, please, go ahead and do whatever You like. If You wish enlightenment to occur in this body-mind organism, then let it occur and if not, then so be it."

This attitude may be accompanied by a sense of defeat and helplessness, or by a sense of freedom and absolution. The seeker may continue with his customary spiritual practices but, with the realization that enlightenment may or may not happen regardless of what he does or doesn't do, his concern or obsession with spiritual progress subsides. He becomes, in effect, a "retired" seeker: he has given up all ardent, active and arduous seeking but he still follows pretty much the same routine as he did before retirement. In doing so, he is driven more by force of habit than by any burning desire or expectation. The striving and the quest have been transformed into a kind of waiting, which may in turn become a mode of simply being and accepting the What-is as it arises. Enlightenment has still not happened, but the unenlightened state no longer irks him. He goes about his life in a more relaxed way, accepting (or accepting his non-acceptance of) whatever it brings.

At the third stage"Enlightenment? Who cares!"the fictional notion of the "me"-entity, of the individual with his sense of personal volition and doership, has faded away and, with it, all desire for enlightenment and all expectations vanish. Without this "me"- entity, the whole impetus driving the search collapses. What prevails is the apperception, borne out by the direct intuitive experience, that the whole manifestation is part of an impersonal self-generated process which is merely an appearance in Consciousness. The ex-seeker, his guru, and all the other billions of sentient beings are therefore seen to be dream characters without volition, mere instruments through which this impersonal process takes place. With this understanding, all seeking, all yearning, all expectations, questions, doubts, hopes, fears and sufferings come to an end.

But, you might ask, surely this means that enlightenment has happened? In reply, let me ask you: when is an apple ripe? Is it only ripe when it has fallen from the branch? I would suggest that it is already ripe just before it falls. And so it is with this third stage: the individual has dissolved into egoless maturity, like an apple that has ripened on the tree. It still hangs there, suspended, but it is ripe now and will fall sometime soon, for sure. When? Who cares!