Toss a Coin is a disarming book that sneaks up on the reader. Through a handful of ordinary moments (a book left by a swimming pool, a train ride to Mumbai, a few conversations in a modest flat) Philippe Nirav captures the lived impact of Advaita Vedanta when it is no longer philosophy but perception. His encounters with Ramesh Balsekar are rendered with honesty, humor, and vulnerability, revealing how the illusion of control dissolves through seeing. This is not a book about becoming enlightened; it is about relaxing into what already is. Gentle, precise, and deeply human, Toss a Coin stays with you long after the last page.
—Ursula, Germany
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In TOSS A COIN, Philippe Nirav recounts a brief yet transformative meeting with Advaita teacher Ramesh Balsekar that upends a lifetime of spiritual seeking. Set against the vibrant backdrop of Pune and Mumbai, the book weaves nonduality into everyday life– love, doubt, longing, and chance encounters, without abstraction or pretense. Nirav’s writing is candid and alive, refusing spiritual shortcuts while pointing with clarity to the absence of a separate doer. This is a book for seekers who sense that effort itself may be the final obstacle, and for anyone curious about what happens when seeking finally gives way to seeing.
—Irwin
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A deceptively simple book about a radical shift in perception. TOSS A COIN traces Philippe Nirav’s encounters with Ramesh Balsekar and the moment when decades of spiritual striving soften into clear seeing. With warmth, precision, and disarming honesty, Nirav shows how awakening unfolds through its most ordinary moments. Powerful and deeply human.
— Michael R., 54, clinical psychologist, Vancouver, Canada
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I have been reading nonduality literature for over three decades, and very little surprises me anymore. TOSS A COIN did. What Philippe Nirav offers here is not a rehash of Advaita concepts, nor a polished spiritual autobiography, but something far rarer: an honest account of what happens when seeking itself begins to lose credibility.
The power of this book lies in its restraint. Nirav does not dramatize his encounters with Ramesh Balsekar, nor does he elevate them into myth. The settings are modest: a living room in Mumbai, a cafe, a conversation between two human beings. And yet, within this ordinariness, something irreversible takes place. The idea of a personal doer begins to dissolve, and it does so as lived experience.
What I appreciated most is the author’s willingness to include doubt, attraction, humor, and uncertainty without trying to resolve them. Awakening is presented as a deep relaxation into how life actually functions. For readers who are tired of spiritual ambition and subtle hierarchy, TOSS A COIN offers a breath of fresh air. It reminds us that clarity does not belong to effort, lineage, or achievement, but to simple seeing.
— Daniel K., 62, meditation teacher, Santa Fe, New Mexico
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I was drawn to Toss a Coin expecting a spiritual narrative. What I found instead was a finely written meditation on attention, intimacy, and the moment when certainty begins to unravel. Philippe Nirav writes with a calm, unforced clarity that allows meaning to emerge without insistence. The prose never pushes. It listens.
What moved me most was the way spiritual insight and human tenderness coexist in this book. The relationship threads, the small gestures, the hesitations and inner questions are treated as part of its texture. There is no division here between insight and life. Mumbai’s noise, the intimacy of a shared space, the vulnerability of attraction…all of it belongs.
Ramesh Balsekar appears less as a master figure than as a quiet catalyst, someone whose presence exposes the reader’s assumptions as gently as it does the author’s. By the end, Toss a Coin feels less like a book you have read than an atmosphere you have entered. It left me slower, more attentive, and strangely relieved. Claire M., 47, editor and essayist, Lyon, France
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As someone who works daily with identity, control, and the limits of personal agency, I approached Toss a Coin with skepticism. I expected abstraction. Instead, I found a grounded, psychologically intelligent narrative that explores what happens when the belief in a central “doer” begins to loosen.
Philippe Nirav’s strength as a writer is his refusal to bypass experience. He documents confusion as carefully as clarity, and never frames insight as superiority. The meetings with Ramesh Balsekar are described without reverence, which paradoxically gives them more credibility. Nothing is imposed on the reader; the implications arise naturally.
What makes this book valuable, even outside spiritual circles, is its examination of responsibility without self-blame, and freedom without fantasy. Toss a Coin does not offer solutions. It offers a different way of seeing the problem. For readers interested in consciousness, agency, or the psychology of belief, this is a subversive and deeply humane book. Michael Jordan, trauma therapist California
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