Question 6: Can you tell me what exactly happened with you? Did something happen actually?
Oliver: My search for "the lost paradise" began, as it does with every seeker, with the beginning of the apparent separation in my earliest childhood. Before the appearance of that thought of separation there was only oneness. There wasn't any separation in subject (me) and object (you). When the thought of separation emerged at one point in the first years of my life, a deep longing appeared simultaneously. A feeling of having lost something wonderful. Since that time the unconscious search for oneness and for this once well-known inner peace was my constant companion.
I simply forgot the fact that this inner peace I was searching for all the time had always been here and had never gone. I overlooked the nearest and most common thing. Mind started looking for something it could never find. Like an eye trying to look at itself. It's a hopeless struggle. But even this struggle is part of leela, the divine play that is called life. It's perfect.
Very soon the search for unity lead me to religious and spiritual paths. I assumed they were better suited to find THAT which had never been lost anyway. I started to accumulate concepts in my mind that I gathered out of an amount of spiritual literature. These concepts were interesting, intellectually logical and therefore were almost devoured by the mind. They helped to change the conditioning of the body-mind-unity called "my body". I became more calm, more aware, less aggressive. But IT still remained hidden. Apparently hidden.
I got almost crazy from all these concepts. My head was overflowed by the thinking. Until words from books of so-called neo-advaita in the form of transcriptions of satsangs suddenly resonated in me. These words told me to leave all concepts behind and to stop searching. Just to leave it and not to care about the concepts "enlightenment", "liberation" and "eternal happiness" anymore. To be quiet. To go home, drink a cup of tea and read the newspaper. Wow, what an unbelievable freedom! Deep inside I knew that these words must be true.
Clarity came one night when the opposites "deep sleep", "dream" and "being awake" dissolved within one moment. The feeling of being a person, the identification of a personal "me" disappeared. It wasn't a spectacular event because Being is the most familiar thing. There were no explosions in the brain, no glowing tunnels or transcendental events. It's so simple. The border between sleep and being awake, between life and death ceased to exist.
Of course so-called spiritual, transcendental experiences can appear too. Everything can appear. But what appears can and will disappear again. Any time. Maybe. It can't be held. Truth being held isn't truth anymore. This realisation means total liberation, but for nobody because there isn't anybody left.
The only thing left since then is a kind of basic feeling of existence. All other things are concepts of the mind, this collection of thoughts which creates concepts all the time. The I AM, the basic feeling which is there without any effort is the basic reason of the world appearing in me. Without that I AM there is no world. It's the first thought arising out of consciousness and creating a dualistic world. A world that is only a thought form. That basic feeling had always been there. It was close to me all the time. It's the nearest thing. It's all there is. It's oneness.
The I AM, I EXIST is so close that it is overlooked constantly. Like glasses you have been looking through all the time but forgot that you wear them. It's the most evident thing there is. It is only seen in the absence of mind which likes to keep and understand it. When mind is quiet for a tiny little moment, then it's here. When mind ceases to classify and analyse it, then it's here. Then mind leaves "it" in peace and attends to the daily business in its function of a working and organising mind. This can be anything according to "your" conditioning or, even better, according to the conditioning of the psycho-biologic-machine you once were identified with.
The body-mind-unity formerly known as a person named Oliver continues to function according to the conditioning through heritage, socialization and experience of life. But there isn't anybody left who is involved in this leela, the divine game. The body-mind-unity is identified, by no one, as what it is. As a thought form ascending and descending out of the ocean of Being like a wave. It's a wonderful dance. It's life.
Question 7: Is consciousness aware of itself?
Oliver: Because consciousness is all there is it can't be aware of itself because separation between subject and object doesn't exist. The linguistic separation between consciousness, awareness or Being is completely unnecessary beyond the analytical mind. You can say: there is just consciousness. Full stop. Everything appears and disappears in it. That's of course only a concept for the analytical mind. Actually nothing appears or disappears. It just IS. YOU just are.
Question 8: Who is the seer and the thinker?
Oliver: There is only seeing and thinking. There is no one who sees and thinks.
Question 9: There is a difference between consciousness and the content of consciousness in the advaita philosophy. Consciousness is the element of being aware whereas contents of consciousness appear as perceived objects in this awareness (subject). For example, I can see a flower. The seeing contains two aspects: the flower as the object being perceived (content of the consciousness) and the awareness (consciousness) as a subject. Thus, perception is always a consciousness of a second thing.
Oliver: In the context of this website I understand "advaita" as "non-duality". It's not about (rational) philosophy - that's for philosophers - but it is about the ONE without a second thing. It's crazy to see the human mind trying to separate (analyse) two things by creating an "advaita philosophy" (nota bene a philosophy of nondualism!). The philosopher in the form of the analytic mind tries to cut the ONE into two and more pieces by using analysis (philosophy) in order to understand it. He uses many words to do so, many definitions and concepts. That's entertaining for him and gives him an apparent security. So far, so good, he can't help it. But every division of the whole leads of course away from the whole. The philosopher has to accept that he will never understand the ONE and therefore has to disappear so that (impersonal) understanding can appear. Together with the philosopher all questions will disappear immediately.
Question 10: If consciousness isn't aware of itself silence would be emptiness and not fullness... the seer would be cut from the seen?
Oliver: Now I tell you something that kills the strongest philosopher: in the world of non-dualism beyond time and space the law of cause and effect doesn't work any more. So there is no "if...then". Thus, silence is, if you want, emptiness AND fullness at the same time. So is the seer and the seen or the hen and the egg. They are at the same time. Sounds paradox. It is but only for the philosophers mind. Beyond it, in the silence of being is clarity. You are not the philosopher but the philosopher appears in what you are. You just ARE, uninfluenced by the philosopher. Forget about definitions and concepts and enjoy what is now. Do whatever you do. You will never find what you are looking for because you are the seeker and the sought at the same time. What you are looking for is always there.
