One spring afternoon in 2009, the last piece of the puzzle found its place, effortlessly.
The simplicity of the information stared at me as I made my way back to the train station. While walking away from meeting Leo Hartong in Holland, his simple words “Yes, this is It,” had once and for all confirmed that I already knew the answers to the questions: “ Is it the Beingness of what we are?", "Is this what the search is all about?”, “Is this really It?”, “Is it really this simple?” It started as the trees lining the streets and the people walking and shopping. Nothing had changed and yet everything was different, direct, immediate.
Not that I did not know this intimacy. I had been having Oneness experiences in which the little child, the adolescent, the adult disappeared, and the thing that remained was the field of awareness with sounds, sights, and smells in vibrant clarity. Only, it had taken a journey of 25 years to come to grasp that This is what it is all about.
While I boarded the train, I wondered: “How come this obviousness had not been recognized before?”, “How can I have been so dense that I had failed again and again to notice it while it already stared at me right in the face all this time?” (Continued on Anamika's bio page.)
Anamika's website: anamikaborst.com
Book: Life at Zero distance: The freedom of being nothing and none
The story of Anamika's owl.
Interview recorded at the Science and Nonduality Conference, 10/23/2014
Wind noise may make parts of this interview difficult to hear. Here's a transcript that will help you follow it.
Dutch transcript of this interview
YouTube Video Chapters:
00:00:00 - Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump!
00:01:32 - Dutch people and speaking English
00:02:46 - Travel through Nepal and India
00:04:14 - The core of Sri Aurobindo's teachings
00:05:47 - Wrong ideas about enlightenment and the teachings of Sri Aurobindo
00:07:28 - Brahma Realization and the Interpretation of Teachings
00:08:57 - Understanding the system
00:10:27 - Loss of personality and self-exploration
00:11:43 - Discovering an unknown result
00:13:19 - Misuse of non-dual teaching
00:15:03 - Meeting with Leo Hartong in the Netherlands
00:16:10 - Deconditioning and experiential reality
00:17:43 - The spiritual quest
00:18:58 - No choice, everything is encounter and impulse in the direction
00:20:34 - Preference for Chocolate or Vanilla
00:22:27 - The Longing for Truth
00:23:41 - Releasing energetic tension
00:25:03 - Acceptance of what is
00:26:20 - The natural tendency towards health
00:27:40 - Unity that decides
00:29:06 - The Oneness of Things
00:30:45 - Ideas about something
00:31:43 - A caution about the tendency to say
00:33:36 - Meeting with Leo Hartong
00:34:45 - The process of personal growth and change
00:36:22 - The origins of the book
00:37:35 - The Old Age Home in Pondicherry
00:38:57 - Service as a spiritual practice
00:40:29 - Openness and inclusivity in life
00:42:15 - Interrogating concepts and beliefs
00:43:35 - A conversation with Anamika