In Search of Enlightenment and Immortality

"Oliver Boldizar died from living life his own damn way. He lived about as far from the mainstream as it's possible to go, free from the bonds of 21st Century self-repression, a man from a different age and time."
"At 38, he died too young, but he spent more than half of that travelling and lived far more than double that in intensity, as his liver attested during the autopsy. He didn't drink alcohol, but he did experiment with various forms of biohacking in his search for knowledge and immortality."
Obituary

Paul and Darina Boldizar were informed at 11:11 a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 2015 that the younger of their two sons, the habitual traveller, the searcher-for-truth, for the meaning of life and what lies beyond in the Universe, was dead. He was one day away from his 38th birthday. They were devastated, understandably, as parents hearing that their beloved child was no longer among the living, would be, but perhaps not quite as surprised by that rude intrusion by the Angel of Death as most parents would be.

Their son was born on November 12, 1977 in Boldice, communist-era Czechoslovakia, and when Oliver was a year-and-a-half old, the family, including his older brother Alexander, fled to freedom from Communism. They were penniless, but not without hope for the future. After living for six months in an Austrian refugee camp, they were accepted as refugees seeking haven to become future Canadian permanent residents. Immigration officials would never know that in the two young boys resided extraordinary minds.

The boys both excelled academically, as they did as well in sports activities. As news of Oliver's death spread among those who had known him, a Facebook tribute written by a former classmate at high school remembered him by writing: "You made high school look like preschool. In science and math you were unequalled". Summing up the cerebral success in academics that reflected the minds of both Alexander and Oliver Boldizar. But it was only Oliver who was destined to search for a deep philosophical spiritual meaning in existence.

Alexander, his older brother graduated from Harvard Law School, while Oliver dropped out of  university and instead chose to travel to Calgary to study with a guru, an Indian mystic, on an ashram. Later, his brother arranged an introduction to a Tibetan who had been one of his Harvard class colleagues, a man who is now Tibet's prime minister in exile, Lobsang Sangay. Oliver lived for six months with Lobsang's family in the Indian Himalaya, in Dharmsala.

Facebook photo of Oliver Boldizar

"That was the foundation of him studying Buddhism. But he found that too restrictive after awhile and started researching his own path and getting more and more into esoteric things", his brother Alex explained to a journalist. "Oliver didn't like conservatism of any sort. Even within the Buddhist tradition he felt most of the teachings were too conservative. He felt there was something more there, he just had to look a little harder, a little further, in a little more out-of-the-way place. I don't know what he was seeking. I honestly don't. I wish I could answer that."

Oliver did not come from a family of spiritual believers; the rest of his family are atheists, and he was, it seems, a born mystic. "He'd get into a philosophy or teachings and he didn't have that skeptical side that he had for corporations or the military industrial complex. He didn't apply that skepticism to whatever he was following in the moment. He would go in extremely deeply and come out the other side and see that it had flaws ... then he'd go on to something else. He was searching his whole life."

Searching for the unattainable. Nothing seemed to answer his queries to his satisfaction. And since nothing did, he simply continued the search. That search obviously gave purpose and direction to his life. It was what animated him. It created value in his life; his aspiration to find a definitive answer to his penetrating questions; the answer to which always eluded him and stirred him on to continue his search. That search took him to many exotic places in the world, and in those places to isolated areas where folk wisdom steered him toward the use of strange plants as medicaments.

Eventually his spoken Tibetan was fluent to the point that he could ply the professional trade of a translator, co-authoring a publication with the title Gongchig -- the Singular Intent, the Sacred Dharma. At times he would spend months as a spiritual hermit, living in a cave, meditating, his survival if not his nutritional needs met by a single daily bowl of rice brought to him as a tribute by villagers respecting holy men.

His mother was concerned over his welfare, a concern that lingered on his seemingly strange persona and interests. So much so that she persuaded her son on one occasion to allow her to accompany him to a hospital, for him to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. The outcome was that the doctors interviewing him felt there was nothing intrinsically awry with his mind. "Oliver talked circles around them", she concluded. Which could be interpreted as (a) a mother's pride; (b) his level of intelligence simply surpassing theirs; or (c) that he was able to conceal from his interlocutors the depth of his fascination for and singular devotion to his search.

When he was in high school, apart from his extraordinary level of academic excellence, he was interested in dating. And many years later in Brazil he had forged a serious relationship with a woman, which he eventually discarded. "Most of his life he was on his own. At the very end he was trying to transcend sexuality and gender", he brother explained. "I think he felt he should be celibate. But it wasn't in the Christian way of resisting temptation, it was more in terms of transcending biology."

When he was discovered, dead, in the room he had rented in Santiniketan, India, where he had been studying, his body was badly decomposed. An autopsy did manage to reveal that Oliver's liver was in a state of advanced cirrhosis. "He basically destroyed his liver by trying to make himself live forever", his brother said. The theory has been advanced that his liver poisoned his body, and stopped his heart from beating.

Facebook photo of Oliver Boldizar in childhood

Oliver passed away in Santiniketan, India, at 11:11 AM on 11-11-15 from complications resulting from living life his own damn way. He lived about as far from the mainstream as it's possible to go, free from the bonds of 21st century self-repression, a man from a different age and time. At 38, he died too young, but he spent more than half of that travelling and lived far more than double that in intensity, as his liver attested during the autopsy. He didn't drink alcohol, but he did experiment with various forms of biohacking in his search for knowledge and immortality.

He had no patience for organized structures of any sort, including school, but would have no problem doing 200,000 prostrations to get to the next stage in some Tantric teaching. He gave himself the equivalent of a PhD in several subjects, including ancient Tibetan texts, chemistry and eastern religions. He spoke English, Slovak, German, French, Spanish, Tibetan, Bengali, Hindi, Pali and possibly other languages he learned while living in caves, meditating for months at a time while villagers in India, Nepal, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, California, or any of the other odd places he lived, brought him one bowl of rice a day.

He had a beautiful mind and generous soul, and was loved as a son, brother, uncle, cousin, nephew, friend, but he would come back and haunt all of us if we gave him a mainstream funeral. In his honour, we have decided not to hold a standard memorial ceremony. Instead, we will plant him illegally under a tree in the Spring, so he can laugh at the Man one last time and his body can reincarnate along with his soul. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ottawacitizen/obituary.aspx?pid=176925015#sthash.DX3RwTHL.dpuf