I Sleep

DThere is a strange place within me, there where the word Self wants to point to something. That place of stillness and calm where I am with myself and keep watch for the Self. A place deep in the heart, free from ties to the outside world; a place where being alone feels right, where no expectations are active. Other people may certainly be present there, in memory or in thought, but they have no influence. That place, where the word Self wants to refer to something, is a place where I spent a great deal of time as a teenager. At times I was very depressed — heartbreak, parents, puberty: the usual. In comparison, it was probably not as bad as it felt, even though those around me sometimes perceived me as depressed. I seemed that way because I spent a lot of time in bed, thinking about the Self. I simply did not know what other people meant by it.

I argued a lot, sometimes even ruined parties, because I would challenge a group of twenty people to a discussion that then became so heated that the host had to intervene. That happened to me several times. In the schoolyard, classmates would come up to me wanting to discuss, to test themselves against me, and to show me what this Self was. I resisted. I would not let myself be convinced of its existence. I knew that place where others suspect the Self to be. I was present there: strong, argumentative. I wanted to find the Self there. By now, I think that this Self, as such, does not actually exist — but that something entirely different can be found there.

That ground of being upon which one’s own existence is thrown back onto itself and understands itself as the center of all existence, without becoming megalomaniacal. Because here there is a sense of being held that is not anchored in anything concrete, but is one with emptiness, with being, consciousness, Brahman. This experience of one’s own existence within existence itself is perhaps the point from which the soul arises. Because that, after all, is what I have been searching for since childhood. It was always clear to me that this was about something other than my small ego, or what others see in me. The soul is not something we recognize early. Many never recognize it. Some recognize it spontaneously, and with great luck even very early. It probably has very little to do with religion. There are people who are soulful and deny being religious, and there are probably also many people who understand themselves as religious and yet have no contact with their soul. Perhaps the two really can be separated. When someone is truly conscious of their own existence, and even understands it as unique, then they are already very close to the soul.

But how can this be awakened? How does such a rebirth happen? Where does the light go on, and what is illuminated there? That is what I always wanted to know as a teenager. Those were the discussions I had, with many people, constantly — and for a long time I had forgotten this. Back then, I received no satisfying answer. I thought I was asking the right questions. I felt superior to others, but I did not know the answer. Now I am a little closer to it. To understand oneself as held within the greater whole, to be conscious of that, and to understand oneself as alive — that is the first step. This place, where the word Self now wants to mean something, is nothing other than that to which it points. I am here and now, part of the whole, and I carry everything within me. This is how the Isha Upanishad begins. And from here, certainty flows. From here, there is no fear. Certainly, one does not know everything. One is not fully conscious of oneself. Perhaps one has not yet found one’s expression. But it is an awakened being in the world.

For me, it has always been this way: I had to realize this being through the four states of the Mandukya Upanishad — in the constant movement between waking, sleeping, dreaming, and insight: Turiya. Only when we pass from one state into another and back again can I become conscious of myself. That is why I used to spend so much time in bed, and why even today I still have phases in which I sleep through a weekend and move between these states in order to locate myself anew. It is a search in peace and quiet. It leads to transformation. I emerge from such phases changed. That is my way. Others may create, or surrender; perhaps they preach, perhaps they contemplate. I sleep.