The Knowledgeable Translator

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“…In 1981, already living in Tiruvannamalai I decided to go to Bombay to see [Nisargadatta] Maharaj a last time as he was suffering from terminal cancer. He looked a bit shrunken but, though having lost his exuberant gestures explaining matters, was nevertheless spirited enough. After talking a bit he pointed to a man sitting next to me who was not one of the regular translators when I lived in Bombay [in 1974]. This man, handsome, around sixty, looking distinguished in his three-piece black suit, closed his eyes, bent a bit backward and forward and then opened his eyes and mouth to translate. What came out was the most beautiful and precise English, leaving me in no doubt that he understood Maharaj completely. The feeling arose in me suddenly that this man was enlightened. Later I learned he was Ramesh Balsekar. Much later, reading his books and marvelling at his clear language, only confirmed my earlier intuition of his being enlightened. I have never met him in person again. Maharaj died five months later, in September 1981.”

- Marleen Boers in ‘What Has To Happen Will Happen’ in Sri Ramanasramam magazine Mountain Path, Advent issue, 2008

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