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The three voices by Andre Platteel , March 13th

And you stand on that mountain overlooking a sandless desert, hearing three female voices while a man in white walks up towards you from a place without time. It took a while for you to get there; and it takes a while for you to hear what is being sung to you. Step by step, the white-clad man draws nearer, a strong branch in his right hand to help him climb higher. He holds all time in his left hand. And in the fluorescent light of his eyes you read something vaguely familiar, something unsheltered and fierce. You feel like a newly born, reaching out to these voices. How many steps does it require for you to grasp the words that are longing so hard to reach your ears and caress your heart? You know it takes just one false step to fall from this mountain. “Dive into the infinite sandless desert!” a voice inside you commands. “That little river, crawling upwards, will carry you like a drop of rain returning to its source.” You are on the point of answering this devastating command. But just before you do, you remember the last time you were thirsty, and how drops of water created an invisible thread connecting you with everything that is, enabling you to understand how God could create Heaven and Earth in an instant. It was not the first thing He created. It is what is being created all the time. Some small stones lose the spot they had regarded as their home for centuries. A porcelain face draws near. The white cloth appears to be a dressing gown, nothing but a dressing gown, the name of an unknown hotel embossed on the left side, at breast height. Bare feet. You have been warned about him. He throws his branch into Earth’s gaping wound. As it falls, the air becomes electric, making the three female voices stronger. He opens his arms and before you know, before you know it is happening, the two of you become entwined. One. He is huge. It is almost impossible to wrap your arms around his waist; you have difficulty balancing, but the moment your feet remember the holy ground you feel like a spring flower – rooted and ready to blossom. His long grey hair is reaching out to your hands. Knowing that you grow younger with every breath you take in this position, he whispers something in your ear: “Silence never moves.” And: “Your heart: see what is happening within.” + more And you stand on that mountain overlooking a sandless desert, hearing three female voices while a man in white walks up towards you from a place without time. It took a while for you to get there; and it takes a while for you to hear what is being sung to you. Step by step, the white-clad man draws nearer, a strong branch in his right hand to help him climb higher. He holds all time in his left hand. And in the fluorescent light of his eyes you read something vaguely familiar, something unsheltered and fierce. You feel like a newly born, reaching out to these voices. How many steps does it require for you to grasp the words that are longing so hard to reach your ears and caress your heart? You know it takes just one false step to fall from this mountain. “Dive into the infinite sandless desert!” a voice inside you commands. “That little river, crawling upwards, will carry you like a drop of rain returning to its source.” You are on the point of answering this devastating command. But just before you do, you remember the last time you were thirsty, and how drops of water created an invisible thread connecting you with everything that is, enabling you to understand how God could create Heaven and Earth in an instant. It was not the first thing He created. It is what is being created all the time. Some small stones lose the spot they had regarded as their home for centuries. A porcelain face draws near. The white cloth appears to be a dressing gown, nothing but a dressing gown, the name of an unknown hotel embossed on the left side, at breast height. Bare feet. You have been warned about him. He throws his branch into Earth’s gaping wound. As it falls, the air becomes electric, making the three female voices stronger. He opens his arms and before you know, before you know it is happening, the two of you become entwined. One. He is huge. It is almost impossible to wrap your arms around his waist; you have difficulty balancing, but the moment your feet remember the holy ground you feel like a spring flower – rooted and ready to blossom. His long grey hair is reaching out to your hands. Knowing that you grow younger with every breath you take in this position, he whispers something in your ear: “Silence never moves.” And: “Your heart: see what is happening within.” And you look into your heart and you see a big bird hovering above an infinite sandless desert, searching for voices. And you open your eyes and see the bird. Big wings, strong feathers. It finds the three voices, which have gathered around a fire. The bird lands and decides to sit beside them. The weakest voice picks up the bird and throws it in the air. The bird returns. It is picked up again. And directed to leave this place. An order. The bird returns. Sometimes it is like this; sometimes something does not want to obey. The three voices start singing. Something inside the bird moves. It hesitates. It is not in its nature to hesitate. A loud cry, the spreading of wings: the bird leaves. And tries to find its way in the air. The fog between the three voices and you disappears. You hear what they were singing to the bird; you finally hear what it is the voices are trying to tell you: “Here I am, Here I am, Waiting to hold you.” The singing leaves you puzzled, like a new born: Shall you stay in this tangle with the big white-clad man, or jump to get even closer to the voices? The man with fluorescent eyes whispers, very slowly: “I am holding my mirror.” And you hear how his words come home in you, beyond any horizon. Looking into the light of his eyes you remember again why you were warned about meeting him: No step has to be taken. No step is needed to hear the voices more fully. And you speak without words. And you walk without moving. And you follow the three voices to their source. You hold yourself close to the light of your heart. - less tagged:   voices   God   light   singing   bird   heart    permalink  read: 8059  print  forward  comments: 1  add comment      name:  Daniel, March 13th • dit raakt een deel in mij dat niet letterlijk benaderd kan worden, alleen in gesluierde taal. Ik wordt er wakker van, bewust van mijn keuzevrijheid in... + more Daniel, March 13th • dit raakt een deel in mij dat niet letterlijk benaderd kan worden, alleen in gesluierde taal. Ik wordt er wakker van, bewust van mijn keuzevrijheid in elk moment. - less

Photo: André Platteel

In the heart of Otherness by Andre Platteel , January 29th

Although he had stood in front of the mirror probably a million times over the past decades, he had never before seen the little boy inside his heart. It happened by coincidence: he was walking in a shopping street, passed a window and suddenly clearly saw something inside him. At first he thought it was his reflection and that of something else coming together in the window. But the moment he saw the image he also became conscious: he felt the boy inside his heart. Although he felt the little boy, he didn’t feel he was discovering something he had known was there all his life, something that was suddenly and finally revealed to him. He didn’t know the little boy; had never seen him before. He was not shocked to see him inside him; it just felt as if his world had become utterly new, in less time than time can measure. He knew it by his breath. He thought of his breath as a fresh meadow in Spring, blossoming grass telling the animals it’s time to come home again. It was as if his heart had opened and he himself had just walked in. He knew how it felt when his heart opened slowly, like a flower. He had known love. But inside his heart now was not a lover but a little boy. And his heart was opening not because he wanted to give it to a lover: there was someone in his heart already. He moved closer to the window and saw how the little boy had found a small but perfect space inside his heart. The little boy was part of its flesh and blood. It felt so completely strange and so natural. He knew things were about to change for him. Everything always changes, so why not his heart, why not his breath? He had walked away from the window; people had passed him, one of them almost bumping into him, he had closed his jacket; he had crossed his arms high, protecting the area around his heart. He didn’t want anybody else to see the little boy he, himself, had only just discovered. What he had found was too precious to show to anyone else at this stage. When he arrived home he undressed and walked to the mirror. He stared at himself, met his naked reflection and saw two people. He had never before experienced his nakedness from within. + more Although he had stood in front of the mirror probably a million times over the past decades, he had never before seen the little boy inside his heart. It happened by coincidence: he was walking in a shopping street, passed a window and suddenly clearly saw something inside him. At first he thought it was his reflection and that of something else coming together in the window. But the moment he saw the image he also became conscious: he felt the boy inside his heart. Although he felt the little boy, he didn’t feel he was discovering something he had known was there all his life, something that was suddenly and finally revealed to him. He didn’t know the little boy; had never seen him before. He was not shocked to see him inside him; it just felt as if his world had become utterly new, in less time than time can measure. He knew it by his breath. He thought of his breath as a fresh meadow in Spring, blossoming grass telling the animals it’s time to come home again. It was as if his heart had opened and he himself had just walked in. He knew how it felt when his heart opened slowly, like a flower. He had known love. But inside his heart now was not a lover but a little boy. And his heart was opening not because he wanted to give it to a lover: there was someone in his heart already. He moved closer to the window and saw how the little boy had found a small but perfect space inside his heart. The little boy was part of its flesh and blood. It felt so completely strange and so natural. He knew things were about to change for him. Everything always changes, so why not his heart, why not his breath? He had walked away from the window; people had passed him, one of them almost bumping into him, he had closed his jacket; he had crossed his arms high, protecting the area around his heart. He didn’t want anybody else to see the little boy he, himself, had only just discovered. What he had found was too precious to show to anyone else at this stage. When he arrived home he undressed and walked to the mirror. He stared at himself, met his naked reflection and saw two people. He had never before experienced his nakedness from within. He stood in front of the mirror in silence, the minutes passing. The little boy smiled at him. He waved back. And felt ridiculous. Had he gone mad? Still naked, he made some tea. Somehow it didn’t feel appropriate to get dressed while this little boy was still inside him. He was afraid to insult him, as if by getting dressed he would be drawing the curtains; a strange idea actually, because he had originally seen the little boy when he was dressed. When the tea was ready he invited the little boy to join him for a cup. While they were enjoying the fine Darjeeling, he asked the little boy what he was doing in his heart. He had always been there, came the reply. Not as a little boy, but as everything. Did the little boy have a name, he wanted to know. “Now, I am Otherness; I am neither your past nor your future, nor I am you here and now. I am enduring. I am all the ones you have always been and all the ones you will become in the future, all at the same time.” “That’s not Otherness, that’s me in all of my stages,” he said to the little boy. The little boy took a cookie from the box that was always on the kitchen table. “If you believe what you already are, you can never become. In order to become who you really are you have to meet me, Otherness.” Otherness was starting to feel more and more strange to him. “Are there others hiding in my heart,” he asked, fear invading his voice. Yes, in a way, the little boy answered. And no, because all others were he - the little boy continued. “Why have you chosen to be Otherness now,” he then asked the little boy. “Because you have asked for me: you have invited me into you heart.” “How can I have asked for something I am not aware off?” The little boy did not answer. He smiled, not arrogantly or ironically, not even tenderly – just smiled. The room they were in grew darker. He could barely see Otherness now. He felt lost. Indeed, he did lose everything in a moment that cannot be measured by time. His heart screamed, as if the little boy in him was for the first time experiencing a never-ending, hard-core rollercoaster ride. It was as if he had dived to the bottom of the earth and any idea of him, the world or others faded. He thought he would die, and panicked. But the panic also faded. He met nothing. Within seconds – if you want to measure in time – his eyes adjusted to darkness and nothing, and he saw Otherness again, more clearly now, no longer as a little boy but as all that he had never known; all of which he now knew was him too, all of which he had known deep in his heart without being conscious of it. In the darkness he and the now formless Otherness drank more tea, ate more cookies and saw the brightness darkness is made of. Drinking tea, eating cookies and watching brightness in the dark – yes, that’s what they did. - less tagged:   otherness   image   consciousness   fear   Spring   flower   blood   change   gravity   darkness   brightness   heart   knowing   earth   irony   experience    permalink  read: 7532  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The eagle and the condor flying together by Andre Platteel , January 23rd

There are four of us, maybe six. It feels completely dark. The only light comes from the sky: thousands of stars and a sliver of moon reaching to the earth. Yet even though the sky above me is clear, the heavens still don’t provide enough light for me to see my immediate surroundings. Although we have walked this path along this amazing coastline at least a dozen times over the last five days, most of us carry flashlights. The near abyss is magnetic. I am having a lazy time in the place that gave birth to the Human Potential Movement, back in the early Sixties. Actually, the Sixties never stopped. There are people gardening naked; the food comes from little gardens within the compound; girls are painting flowers on the walls of buildings; in the evening we gather around a fire outside and those people with guitars play Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Bob Dylan. I went hiking through the wilderness the other day. The sky changed second by second. I walked through rain, in the sun, through storm and even snow, all in no more than half an hour. I felt like Hugh Grant near the end of Notting Hill, with a bit of Indiana Jones thrown in. I tried to find my way through the tall trees and wild bushes. There was no path. Then, the moment the wilderness opened up a bit, my eyes met those of three huge, powerful birds. They stared and shifted their long, thin necks in my direction. They spread their wings – at least six feet wide, I guess – not to take off but to impress on me how big they were. At first, fear stiffened my body. I tried to relax and backed off a bit, still looking into the eyes of these creatures. Condors. I had read in a guide that they used to live here, but had not been seen since the end of the Sixties. Had they been hiding since then, or had they returned? Watching these Condors, I felt a strange otherness I had never encountered before. I felt so alive. Sometimes it takes otherness to remind us what we are made off. + more There are four of us, maybe six. It feels completely dark. The only light comes from the sky: thousands of stars and a sliver of moon reaching to the earth. Yet even though the sky above me is clear, the heavens still don’t provide enough light for me to see my immediate surroundings. Although we have walked this path along this amazing coastline at least a dozen times over the last five days, most of us carry flashlights. The near abyss is magnetic. I am having a lazy time in the place that gave birth to the Human Potential Movement, back in the early Sixties. Actually, the Sixties never stopped. There are people gardening naked; the food comes from little gardens within the compound; girls are painting flowers on the walls of buildings; in the evening we gather around a fire outside and those people with guitars play Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Bob Dylan. I went hiking through the wilderness the other day. The sky changed second by second. I walked through rain, in the sun, through storm and even snow, all in no more than half an hour. I felt like Hugh Grant near the end of Notting Hill, with a bit of Indiana Jones thrown in. I tried to find my way through the tall trees and wild bushes. There was no path. Then, the moment the wilderness opened up a bit, my eyes met those of three huge, powerful birds. They stared and shifted their long, thin necks in my direction. They spread their wings – at least six feet wide, I guess – not to take off but to impress on me how big they were. At first, fear stiffened my body. I tried to relax and backed off a bit, still looking into the eyes of these creatures. Condors. I had read in a guide that they used to live here, but had not been seen since the end of the Sixties. Had they been hiding since then, or had they returned? Watching these Condors, I felt a strange otherness I had never encountered before. I felt so alive. Sometimes it takes otherness to remind us what we are made off. In the darkeness I tell about my encounter with the birds to the four (or is it six) others I’m with. A girl’s voice reacts. I recognize an Esalen-girl I had met earlier and who has lived here all her life. She says that the area is known for eagles and that the condors left decades ago. An Esalen legend tells that when the eagle and condor fly together peace will descend on Earth. Light will defeat darkness. The moment she finishes her story, we all look up into the sky, our attention grabbed by a huge fire high above. Something’s burning. An enormous fire, blazing away, the seconds dragging by. We stop and watch. We don’t speak. It can’t be a plane crash – it’s too high up and too intense. And it’s burning too long. You can see whatever it is trying to reach through the earth’s atmosphere. The fire crackles and bangs. It makes the normally invisible atmosphere visible. Watching the mysterious fire I find myself in the same situation as when I was eye to eye with the condors. Primal fear invades my body. My mind is posing questions that make me feel small: Just how little do we know of the place the fire comes from? How little do we know of the Earth as part of that? How little do I know about myself as part of all this? I feel vulnerable and mortal. Suddenly I feel the fire I see above burning inside me. As if there is no longer any difference between outside and inside. Vulnerability and mortality going up in flames, creating a huge fire. Earth, the Heavens and I are burning, too, but are not destroyed. There is only aliveness. Sometimes it takes fire to show us that what we are is always burning, and always will be. - less tagged:   fire   fear   life   heart   Eagle   Condor   light   darkness   Esalen   sky   understanding   spaciousness   reality    permalink  read: 7374  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

What are we guilty off? by Andre Platteel , January 12th

“Look to the left. Okay. And now your fingerprint.” While he’s talking and I’m doing, he is going through my passport. “Why are you here?” The answer is on the green form I gave him a minute ago. After a few seconds’ silence he says: “I am sorry Sir, but I need you to come with me for further investigation.” I do. We enter a big room with a lot of seats, like a waiting room in a large hospital. There are quite a lot of people in the room and as they are all black, they look a little surprised to see me come in. And judging by their expressions, they have been waiting a long, long time. I find a seat among everyone else and feel weird. My passport is given to someone behind a large desk; the only thing they say to me is “take a seat and wait.” So I wait. After more than an hour no one has been helped, or even asked to approach the desk. In my mind, I try to figure out what has gone wrong. Why was I picked out? What did I do? And as more time goes by, and jetlag starts to hit, I can only think: What am I guilty off? I can name a few things. I stole a bike once, with a friend. I was the lookout. I have hurt friends because I couldn’t be a good friend to them (whatever ‘good’ may mean in this context). I have hurt some girlfriends by not being honest with them. I have hurt myself doing all these things and many others besides. But none is a reason to be here, virtually on trial, I guess. My name is called, the first name to be called after two-and-a-half hours’ waiting. Being white seems to have advantages. “Why are you here?” the woman behind the desk asks, not looking me in the eyes. I repeat what I told the guy earlier. She repeats the question. After a while more in ‘Groundhog Day,’ I still don’t know what answer will satisfy her; I just want to say: “Yes I am guilty. And I’m very sorry. Although I don’t know what I am guilty of, it feels good to say it.” But before I can open my mouth, she throws my passport on the desk and starts busying herself with something else. I wait a few seconds, not knowing what to do, then leave like a thief in the night, grateful that my mouth was slower than my brain. What are we guilty off? + more “Look to the left. Okay. And now your fingerprint.” While he’s talking and I’m doing, he is going through my passport. “Why are you here?” The answer is on the green form I gave him a minute ago. After a few seconds’ silence he says: “I am sorry Sir, but I need you to come with me for further investigation.” I do. We enter a big room with a lot of seats, like a waiting room in a large hospital. There are quite a lot of people in the room and as they are all black, they look a little surprised to see me come in. And judging by their expressions, they have been waiting a long, long time. I find a seat among everyone else and feel weird. My passport is given to someone behind a large desk; the only thing they say to me is “take a seat and wait.” So I wait. After more than an hour no one has been helped, or even asked to approach the desk. In my mind, I try to figure out what has gone wrong. Why was I picked out? What did I do? And as more time goes by, and jetlag starts to hit, I can only think: What am I guilty off? I can name a few things. I stole a bike once, with a friend. I was the lookout. I have hurt friends because I couldn’t be a good friend to them (whatever ‘good’ may mean in this context). I have hurt some girlfriends by not being honest with them. I have hurt myself doing all these things and many others besides. But none is a reason to be here, virtually on trial, I guess. My name is called, the first name to be called after two-and-a-half hours’ waiting. Being white seems to have advantages. “Why are you here?” the woman behind the desk asks, not looking me in the eyes. I repeat what I told the guy earlier. She repeats the question. After a while more in ‘Groundhog Day,’ I still don’t know what answer will satisfy her; I just want to say: “Yes I am guilty. And I’m very sorry. Although I don’t know what I am guilty of, it feels good to say it.” But before I can open my mouth, she throws my passport on the desk and starts busying herself with something else. I wait a few seconds, not knowing what to do, then leave like a thief in the night, grateful that my mouth was slower than my brain. What are we guilty off? I was in a meeting once when a man suddenly stood up and asked the facilitator if he could say something. “I am very, very sorry.” The man’s words hit us like arrows. Straight to the heart, stirring something that had never been stirred before. And everyone in the room felt guilty. Not the kind of guilt that comes from having done wrong, but a deeper sense of guilt – the source of all wrongdoing – whatever that may be. I felt guilty of being mortal. This guilt, itself confused, is the source of the other things that confuse me, the other things I feel guilty about. As I walk through passport control and grab my lonely bag customs again pick me out. “What are you doing here, Sir?” the guy asks me. “I am being alive, Sir, and will never stop.” It’s another two-and-a-half hours before I can finally breathe the air outside. - less tagged:   guilty   confusion   mind   mortal   Groundhogday   heart   sorry    permalink  read: 3248  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Watch for the wind to blow by Andre Platteel , January 3rd

It is long since dark but still early in the evening. There is no wind or rain: outside is nothing. I’m sitting round a table with a few other men and our host, an old man who has been kind enough to give us shelter. The old man has boiled some water to make tea. Just as he’s about to pour it, the electricity goes off. It is dark, completely dark – nothing to see. The electricity can be shut down at any time of day. Someone told me the other day that the former communist regime used to shut off the electricity as a punishment: many people didn’t pay their bills, and since under communism everybody was to be treated equally, everybody was punished for those who didn’t pay. I hear the sound of something being placed on the table; I hear someone walking away from me; I hear the sound of a door; I hear someone opening a drawer; I hear the sound of objects being moved around by a hand that is searching for something. Seconds later a candle splutters into life and I can see that it was the old man who was their source. Silence again, and a bit of light. He must have lived here for a long time. The old man is barely able to walk anymore, though he managed to avoid hitting any of his many bits of furniture during his search for a candle. Although there is no wind outside, I see the wind inside playing with the candle’s flame. It makes the flame longer, stretches it. And it makes the flame go out. Darkness. I hear the sound of a man stand up and a door being closed. A moment later the candle gives us light again. The old man starts to talk: he cuts-up his story carefully, so the translator can do his job properly. “If you listen to the wind carefully and follow it precisely you will be led to what gives you warmth, to what is most dear to you.” You can see he enjoys talking. He uses his hands, slowly, to craft his words, as if his hands are shaping the sounds more precisely before they reach our ears. “When you find what is most dear to you, a fire will be lit inside of you. It is a strong fire. It is the only fire you need. It will keep you warm in the darkest hours, in the coldest nights. ” + more It is long since dark but still early in the evening. There is no wind or rain: outside is nothing. I’m sitting round a table with a few other men and our host, an old man who has been kind enough to give us shelter. The old man has boiled some water to make tea. Just as he’s about to pour it, the electricity goes off. It is dark, completely dark – nothing to see. The electricity can be shut down at any time of day. Someone told me the other day that the former communist regime used to shut off the electricity as a punishment: many people didn’t pay their bills, and since under communism everybody was to be treated equally, everybody was punished for those who didn’t pay. I hear the sound of something being placed on the table; I hear someone walking away from me; I hear the sound of a door; I hear someone opening a drawer; I hear the sound of objects being moved around by a hand that is searching for something. Seconds later a candle splutters into life and I can see that it was the old man who was their source. Silence again, and a bit of light. He must have lived here for a long time. The old man is barely able to walk anymore, though he managed to avoid hitting any of his many bits of furniture during his search for a candle. Although there is no wind outside, I see the wind inside playing with the candle’s flame. It makes the flame longer, stretches it. And it makes the flame go out. Darkness. I hear the sound of a man stand up and a door being closed. A moment later the candle gives us light again. The old man starts to talk: he cuts-up his story carefully, so the translator can do his job properly. “If you listen to the wind carefully and follow it precisely you will be led to what gives you warmth, to what is most dear to you.” You can see he enjoys talking. He uses his hands, slowly, to craft his words, as if his hands are shaping the sounds more precisely before they reach our ears. “When you find what is most dear to you, a fire will be lit inside of you. It is a strong fire. It is the only fire you need. It will keep you warm in the darkest hours, in the coldest nights. ” His body moves a little. He appears to me to become weightless, as if he is letting the wind – barely noticeable to my body but strong enough to blow out the candle – carry him. “Once the wind has guided you and led you to the fire, the wind is no longer needed. The wind will come back, but only to put out the fire again. For the candle to keep burning, to see it burn, it is important to shut the door, to shut out the wind.” He closes his eyes and breathes deeply. You can see that he is using his entire body to breathe. His lungs are the engines that enable the body to breathe fully. “Of course, fire needs oxygen to burn. But it does not need it from the wind. If the fire burns inside, it will create oxygen itself. We do not need to breath for it; good breathing happens because of the fire.” There is no conversation – only he talks – though I feel my body respond to his words. There’s a dialogue. “Know the quality of fire: it will destroy and it will create. It will destroy what has appeared most dear to you. What it will create has and always will be most dear to you. Is you.” He has a funny face, this man. With every word he speaks he seems to recreate himself. His appearance is fluid and at the same time solid. Grounded. He puts his hands around the candle’s flame. The flame seems to want to go in all directions and becomes bigger; the fire is trying to reach his hands. - less tagged:   understanding   fire   wind   flame   heart   dialogue   body   punishment    permalink  read: 4333  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Video: André Platteel

The man who loved too much by Andre Platteel , December 4th

She’s sixteen, sweet sixteen. She’s only lived here four years but speaks the language fluently, cleverly. She says she loves being here, but would also have loved stay at home. Not because of her new country, she explains, but because she doesn’t know the father she’s living with. Back home she only saw him two weeks a year, yet even after spending four years with him here, he still is a stranger. “He is a clever man with a great memory.” I am listening with ten other young people and we have only one purpose: to really listen to what each of us has to say. “He always knows anything and everything. He can see inside you: what you think and how you will act. I never really liked talking with him though. I always had the feeling that there was a competition going on: who will win the conversation?” She doesn’t talk silently, to herself; her voice is clear. She eases into the eyes of us listeners. She has big brown eyes, beautiful eyes. “And if, occasionally and miraculously, you won the battle you still had the feeling you had lost, because he had permitted you to win the game. As a child, he let me win several times. And although I knew I won because of him, I liked those moments. I had the feeling of having a father for a few moments.” None of us is asking questions. None of us is impatient. “He is a strong man,” she continues, “with a strong body and a strong sense of justice. With him by your side you feel protected against all evil, protected against all the bad things that could ever happen to you – even the things you were never afraid of in the first place. When I first came to this country he warned me for all the dangers, and for the first few weeks I could only walk outside with him by my side.” There is just a little pause, and a beautiful silence, before she continues, as if she is taking the time to lead us to the next chapter. “He is a great man, actually.” + more She’s sixteen, sweet sixteen. She’s only lived here four years but speaks the language fluently, cleverly. She says she loves being here, but would also have loved stay at home. Not because of her new country, she explains, but because she doesn’t know the father she’s living with. Back home she only saw him two weeks a year, yet even after spending four years with him here, he still is a stranger. “He is a clever man with a great memory.” I am listening with ten other young people and we have only one purpose: to really listen to what each of us has to say. “He always knows anything and everything. He can see inside you: what you think and how you will act. I never really liked talking with him though. I always had the feeling that there was a competition going on: who will win the conversation?” She doesn’t talk silently, to herself; her voice is clear. She eases into the eyes of us listeners. She has big brown eyes, beautiful eyes. “And if, occasionally and miraculously, you won the battle you still had the feeling you had lost, because he had permitted you to win the game. As a child, he let me win several times. And although I knew I won because of him, I liked those moments. I had the feeling of having a father for a few moments.” None of us is asking questions. None of us is impatient. “He is a strong man,” she continues, “with a strong body and a strong sense of justice. With him by your side you feel protected against all evil, protected against all the bad things that could ever happen to you – even the things you were never afraid of in the first place. When I first came to this country he warned me for all the dangers, and for the first few weeks I could only walk outside with him by my side.” There is just a little pause, and a beautiful silence, before she continues, as if she is taking the time to lead us to the next chapter. “He is a great man, actually.” And: “His greatness became even greater the moment he saw that his behaviour had been coloured by fear and pain. That is why he always wanted to win; that is why he made himself so strong: to protect himself. He told me how afraid he had been to lose, to lose everything of value. I was with him the nights and days he cried away his pain and fear. Now he is happy again. And strong, he says.” We are all part of her story. If you were here, you would be able to sense it. “He tells everyone he has an open heart now. He says he only acts from love, only with a message of love. He tells everyone that his love pours from his heart so easily. This gift of God gives him the ability to see what is wrong with you emotionally, mentally, physically, and what you can do to become just like him. Made purely of love. He wants to become a spiritual teacher now. In the name of love he guides people to become love. You know, my father loves his love so much, and the love he receives when he turns you into love.” Another little pause. “A lot has changed for me since then. Suddenly, there is someone who pays me attention and guides me, like a father should do. But at the same time I do not feel complete. There is always something to fix. Despite my love for him, the love of my father is simply too good to be true to me.” - less tagged:   understanding   mind   spirituality   uniqueness   heart    permalink  read: 3568  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Where the heart is by Andre Platteel , November 27th

As I sit in the back of the four-wheel drive and look down through the window, everything looks upside down. Things I usually look up to see are now far below me: houses and mountain roads are all down there. The only other time I have been this high is in a plane. The boat that was to bring us back didn’t go. Why is not clear and, at this moment, almost on top of a 1600-meter-high mountain, no longer relevant. We have decided to take the mountain road instead, a seven-hour trip through an astonishing, empty landscape. Our driver has never driven this road before. This road is the reason people use the boat. It’s a road that isn’t really a road, more a surface of dirt and mud barely wide enough for a car. It’s raining outside. We drive slowly, slipping and sliding. The driver tries to reassure us, telling us he’s concentrating to the full – he wants to see his wife and children again. But somehow his words do not reassure me. How close do you have to get the edge of the cliff before you decide to jump and test the powers of gravity? The road’s height and narrowness play an interesting game with my mind. The road is just wide enough to hold the car, but for some reason I begin to doubt the solidity of the mountain itself – will the mud and stones hold us? And although I am sitting on a solid seat, I also begin to doubt the solidity of the car: what if it suddenly decides to grow? Then another question starts to bug me: Why do mountain roads always go so high? One of the reasons becomes visible after we make a sharp turn: the rain has moved on from this side of the mountain and the view is unbelievable: I see a huge lake with five rivers entering and leaving. Various dams form ‘compartments’ that control the flow of water. The rivers come down the mountain into the lake then leave it again to continue their journey, to discover the land. The image resonates with my picture of the human heart: blood from different veins and information from different cells flowing into the heart, welcomed within the different chambers of the heart. Blood and information brought together, momentarily becoming one then immediately leaving as separate flows once again. The heart – the organ that welcomes differences – both brings together essence and accepts that this essence will leave again via different, separate routes. + more As I sit in the back of the four-wheel drive and look down through the window, everything looks upside down. Things I usually look up to see are now far below me: houses and mountain roads are all down there. The only other time I have been this high is in a plane. The boat that was to bring us back didn’t go. Why is not clear and, at this moment, almost on top of a 1600-meter-high mountain, no longer relevant. We have decided to take the mountain road instead, a seven-hour trip through an astonishing, empty landscape. Our driver has never driven this road before. This road is the reason people use the boat. It’s a road that isn’t really a road, more a surface of dirt and mud barely wide enough for a car. It’s raining outside. We drive slowly, slipping and sliding. The driver tries to reassure us, telling us he’s concentrating to the full – he wants to see his wife and children again. But somehow his words do not reassure me. How close do you have to get the edge of the cliff before you decide to jump and test the powers of gravity? The road’s height and narrowness play an interesting game with my mind. The road is just wide enough to hold the car, but for some reason I begin to doubt the solidity of the mountain itself – will the mud and stones hold us? And although I am sitting on a solid seat, I also begin to doubt the solidity of the car: what if it suddenly decides to grow? Then another question starts to bug me: Why do mountain roads always go so high? One of the reasons becomes visible after we make a sharp turn: the rain has moved on from this side of the mountain and the view is unbelievable: I see a huge lake with five rivers entering and leaving. Various dams form ‘compartments’ that control the flow of water. The rivers come down the mountain into the lake then leave it again to continue their journey, to discover the land. The image resonates with my picture of the human heart: blood from different veins and information from different cells flowing into the heart, welcomed within the different chambers of the heart. Blood and information brought together, momentarily becoming one then immediately leaving as separate flows once again. The heart – the organ that welcomes differences – both brings together essence and accepts that this essence will leave again via different, separate routes. I don’t know if this image of the heart does it justice biologically, but it does justice to the way my heart feels. When open, my heart is an instrument to receive information from the world, information that comes from different sources, different people all expressing their uniqueness in their own way. At the same time – and inspired by consciousness – the heart sees the unity within these differences. Yet in seeing unity, the heart does not attempt to make all things one, it simply accepts the expression of Oneness within the differences. As we drive further I see that one river is drying up. A bit further still and more inland, another of the other rivers is also drying up. Yet it seems as if the first river is trying to help the second: it has divided itself and appears to be trying to reach the same place that the other river is trying to reach. But thanks to all this splitting and dividing, both streams of water have become weak. The translator tells me that one of the dams in no longer functioning. This sends my thinking, or is it my heart (a doctor recently told me that in the process of thinking, there is more activity in the heart than in the brain), off in a new direction: What if the heart is unable to bring back the flow released by one of its chambers and cannot create unity in the first place? - less tagged:   heart   flow   fear   wholeness   oneness   consciousness   body   river   unity    permalink  read: 5192  print  forward  comments: 1  add comment      name:  Frank F., November 30th • Is my hearth the centre of my thinking?

Photo: André Platteel

A new heart by Andre Platteel , August 24th

Are we becoming conscious of more or are we becoming more conscious? Have we gained more consciousness now we have freed ourselves from the belief structures, which were once the fundaments of our modern society? Or has the lost of power structures weakened our late modern society - have we as an industrialized and wealthy society lost our heart? If so, knowing that it is impossible to live without a heart, is it imaginable that another heart has invaded our society without us knowing who's heart it is? I saw a beautiful film with many story lines not long ago. One of the stories tells about a young man with a weak heart who gets a 'new' heart implanted. Once out of the hospital the man is restless, his new heart feels strange to him, something unknown has invaded his life. He wants to know who's heart he is carrying and invades the life of the woman who was once the wife of the man who gave him back his life. From the moment he meets her it becomes impossible for him to live without her. He falls in love with her. This does not prevent his body from rejecting: his heart stays unknown. + more Are we becoming conscious of more or are we becoming more conscious? Have we gained more consciousness now we have freed ourselves from the belief structures, which were once the fundaments of our modern society? Or has the lost of power structures weakened our late modern society - have we as an industrialized and wealthy society lost our heart? If so, knowing that it is impossible to live without a heart, is it imaginable that another heart has invaded our society without us knowing who's heart it is? I saw a beautiful film with many story lines not long ago. One of the stories tells about a young man with a weak heart who gets a 'new' heart implanted. Once out of the hospital the man is restless, his new heart feels strange to him, something unknown has invaded his life. He wants to know who's heart he is carrying and invades the life of the woman who was once the wife of the man who gave him back his life. From the moment he meets her it becomes impossible for him to live without her. He falls in love with her. This does not prevent his body from rejecting: his heart stays unknown. The narrative of the film is fragmented: the lives of different people who have never met cross due to coincidence. Although you only see fragments, it is as if every fragment is complete in itself. The film cannot be understood by adding up all the fragments: and yet in each fragment the potentiality of the total film can be received. The fragmented structures resonate with today's culture: due to increasing media we receive many information most often conflicting. However, I doubt whether we receive the potentiality of our culture. More information and more sources do not lead automatically to transparency. Just as with irony 'true' meaning can hide behind. In our mediatised culture, institutions know very well how to hide behind. The power institutions of today, the big organizations and their brands, tell us that we can be (more) beautiful, (more) happy, (more) safe and (more) attractive, we can even be (more) ourselves. However, all of this only by entering the brand's world. Such a freedom is a double bind: freedom only if. Is this double bind the secret heart that has been implanted into our culture without us knowing? Does this heart make us restless just like the weak hearted man, because something inside of us feels unknown? And do we just like the man with his new heart, try to solve the unknown outside of ourselves? By falling in love with that which is outside of us? By buying and consuming? Such a society is not a conscious society; it is just a different totalitarian institution. - less tagged:   totalitarian   disorientation   consuming   heart   fragment   consciousness    permalink  read: 2647  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

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June, 2010 Dutch Political Leaders Receive book Our World		May, 2010 Resistance Decadence New Book: Our World		April, 2010 Arrogance Naivety Ignorance		June, 2009 Mother of all memories
May, 2009 Come again, and again, and again		April, 2009 The Wolf		March, 2009 The three voices		January, 2009 Born to adore This Dancing with the Beloved
December, 2008 Listen carefully		October, 2008 A fragment of a circle God’s Gods You, me and everything else		September, 2008 Man with powers		August, 2008 The hidden promise Crazy for love
May, 2008 Dr. Feelgood What’s the limit of love		April, 2008 Spring Snow will fall The Cleaner		March, 2008 Motherless Child What I am made of Falling upwards Northern Lights		February, 2008 Glass-made-mind The outer layer of the mind Growing younger On Holy Ground
January, 2008 Watch for the wind to blow How is Diego Maradona doing? What are we guilty off? Everything is what is besides language The eagle and the condor flying together In the heart of Otherness		December, 2007 The man who loved too much The dark brightness The windmills of our mind To make two mountains one, gone Bigger than the stars		November, 2007 Act of passion Making love Life has no meaning Where the heart is Oneness is never the same		October, 2007 Mind blowing Becoming authentic Coloured Mind Hide and Seek Culture of fear The man on the bench The Swordsman
September, 2007 What is thinking? World happening Unity in diversity Smell no evil Going in all directions without beginning or end Alternative routes Superheroes don’t age No place like Utopia? Fog		August, 2007 The Wholeness of being Spirit through matter Looking in the mirror A new heart Is matter what matters? World of opinions. Spaciousness for a flower to grow