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A fragment of a circle by Andre Platteel , October 3rd

I haven’t seen him for quite some time, although our blood is the same and his hidden scars are no doubt to be found within me too. He drinks coffee; I drink tea, just a block away from where I live. He eats a chocolate cake, fast, as if he is afraid to really taste what he eats. Fastness, there has always been this fastness with him: no time to tune our hearts, ever. Now that he’s becoming older, fastness manifest itself as unease. He has his black leather jacket on, zipped, ready to leave any minute, although another coffee is on its way. I watch his lips turning dark brown, and take a sip of my tea; salty-tasting water. He dyes his hair dark ever since a few of them turned grey, covering the aging that would actually suit him so well. Although I’m watching his lips, I suddenly see that he is dressed completely in black. I can barely remember him in colours. And with that vague memory, the past suddenly arrives as a hole between us, our conversation disappearing into its nothingness. No words left to say ‘after’. Our jaws are muddy, having difficulties digesting the past. He is dying of something that he had hoped to live longer. My mind is full of anger, screaming ‘how could you ever’. I turned what I loved into light again And God wrote in the air about love first, death His kitchen full of white The sea so blue Impossible to know where it all begins He looks at me and talks through a mouth full of chocolate. And although his tongue speaks words that disappear before they reach my ears, I hear his voice reaching out to me, trying to tell me what my heart already knows: that he couldn’t have done it differently. His voice and my knowing, holds me fast. When the world screams for peace, there can still be war Between ‘then’ and now it is dark And for it to become bright The world that we hold between us, needs to leak Its anger and tears For years I have wanted to really meet him; confused by the idea that there was something in him still to be discovered, that somewhere deep in his heart there could be something more true than what I had encountered. But this is all what he is, and all what I am: this ‘thisness’, right now. The search for someone different made the hole bigger. And this thisness is much more than my ideas of him. “When are you going to marry?” he asks me, chocolate still covering his lips. I am surprised. It is such a sweet question. “I would love to see you get married to her.” + more I haven’t seen him for quite some time, although our blood is the same and his hidden scars are no doubt to be found within me too. He drinks coffee; I drink tea, just a block away from where I live. He eats a chocolate cake, fast, as if he is afraid to really taste what he eats. Fastness, there has always been this fastness with him: no time to tune our hearts, ever. Now that he’s becoming older, fastness manifest itself as unease. He has his black leather jacket on, zipped, ready to leave any minute, although another coffee is on its way. I watch his lips turning dark brown, and take a sip of my tea; salty-tasting water. He dyes his hair dark ever since a few of them turned grey, covering the aging that would actually suit him so well. Although I’m watching his lips, I suddenly see that he is dressed completely in black. I can barely remember him in colours. And with that vague memory, the past suddenly arrives as a hole between us, our conversation disappearing into its nothingness. No words left to say ‘after’. Our jaws are muddy, having difficulties digesting the past. He is dying of something that he had hoped to live longer. My mind is full of anger, screaming ‘how could you ever’. I turned what I loved into light again And God wrote in the air about love first, death His kitchen full of white The sea so blue Impossible to know where it all begins He looks at me and talks through a mouth full of chocolate. And although his tongue speaks words that disappear before they reach my ears, I hear his voice reaching out to me, trying to tell me what my heart already knows: that he couldn’t have done it differently. His voice and my knowing, holds me fast. When the world screams for peace, there can still be war Between ‘then’ and now it is dark And for it to become bright The world that we hold between us, needs to leak Its anger and tears For years I have wanted to really meet him; confused by the idea that there was something in him still to be discovered, that somewhere deep in his heart there could be something more true than what I had encountered. But this is all what he is, and all what I am: this ‘thisness’, right now. The search for someone different made the hole bigger. And this thisness is much more than my ideas of him. “When are you going to marry?” he asks me, chocolate still covering his lips. I am surprised. It is such a sweet question. “I would love to see you get married to her.” His words are the most old fashioned he ever spoke, the sounds the most lovely he ever gave me. I hold my breath and feel how he thaws something I was not aware of. Someone once told me that in ancient China parents helped their kids to build a house once the parents thought the kid was ready to live its own life, no matter what age. Helping to build a house was a way of imparting self-belief: this life is your life to be lived. He is a fragment of a circle I left to pick an apple from the tree On my way I found A snake It bit me and I screamed The circle round - less tagged:   father   light   circle   consciousness   God   love   wholeness   life    permalink  read: 8191  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Everything is what is besides language by Andre Platteel , January 18th

It was the 12th of October. A Friday. And the sky had already turned gloomy. For the last four days he had had recurring dreams of a woman he had never met, whom he had fallen in love with ever since. Although she may just have been a product of his mind. He went for a walk in the woods near his house, and dreamed of her while he was awake. He forgot time and lost track – in a place he had known since he was a young boy. When he was a child he had tried to get lost but somehow never succeeded. I almost lost track of him that night. It had grown darker and his body was no more than a vague form between tall, dark trees. Only when my eyes adjusted to the darkness could I make him out again. He was a philosophical person, interested in life, but a philosopher only from a scientific point of view. He once told me there is nothing but language – through language we form life. Out in the woods he ran into someone. A woman, the one he had met in his dreams. At first he couldn’t speak, then tried to make conversation. She spoke in a strange language, one that shared nothing with any language he knew, or I knew. The sky turned a bit lighter – some clouds had moved on – leaving just one that was still dividing the moon in half. I could get a better picture of them now. She didn’t use her hands to make herself more understandable. It was as if she had no idea that he couldn’t understand her. He listened carefully. Logically, there was no way he could form even an idea of what she was saying. For me she spoke in sounds, carefully, silently, like a Satie composition. Why, I wondered, did I had to compare her speaking to something else. They hadn’t broken their stride when they met, which is what most people do when they encounter each other for the first time. She just joined him in his walk and they had kept on walking ever since, as if their encounter was pre-arranged, bound to happen. He spoke too, sometimes. No longer in a language I could understand. Not in the language he spoke before he met her. Not even in a language similar to hers. The light faded again. I saw darkness and movement in darkness. Their voices had become softer, as if the darkness absorbed the higher tones of their voices. But it could also be that they no longer needed to speak so loudly to communicate with each other. The words they spoke became less. Not like a conversation coming to an end – as if intensity now needed fewer words. + more It was the 12th of October. A Friday. And the sky had already turned gloomy. For the last four days he had had recurring dreams of a woman he had never met, whom he had fallen in love with ever since. Although she may just have been a product of his mind. He went for a walk in the woods near his house, and dreamed of her while he was awake. He forgot time and lost track – in a place he had known since he was a young boy. When he was a child he had tried to get lost but somehow never succeeded. I almost lost track of him that night. It had grown darker and his body was no more than a vague form between tall, dark trees. Only when my eyes adjusted to the darkness could I make him out again. He was a philosophical person, interested in life, but a philosopher only from a scientific point of view. He once told me there is nothing but language – through language we form life. Out in the woods he ran into someone. A woman, the one he had met in his dreams. At first he couldn’t speak, then tried to make conversation. She spoke in a strange language, one that shared nothing with any language he knew, or I knew. The sky turned a bit lighter – some clouds had moved on – leaving just one that was still dividing the moon in half. I could get a better picture of them now. She didn’t use her hands to make herself more understandable. It was as if she had no idea that he couldn’t understand her. He listened carefully. Logically, there was no way he could form even an idea of what she was saying. For me she spoke in sounds, carefully, silently, like a Satie composition. Why, I wondered, did I had to compare her speaking to something else. They hadn’t broken their stride when they met, which is what most people do when they encounter each other for the first time. She just joined him in his walk and they had kept on walking ever since, as if their encounter was pre-arranged, bound to happen. He spoke too, sometimes. No longer in a language I could understand. Not in the language he spoke before he met her. Not even in a language similar to hers. The light faded again. I saw darkness and movement in darkness. Their voices had become softer, as if the darkness absorbed the higher tones of their voices. But it could also be that they no longer needed to speak so loudly to communicate with each other. The words they spoke became less. Not like a conversation coming to an end – as if intensity now needed fewer words. Eventually I could hardly see them, could hardly hear them, could only hear the silence of their conversation. Which made me wonder: Was the tower of Babel an act of God to create confusion so people could not reach him? Or was it an act of God to show that what people were doing was actually confusion itself? That language is incapable of finding truth; that truth doesn’t lie outside our selves. That to find truth we first have to abandon those beliefs. The darkness had taken them, their forms and their voices. I had dared to draw closer. I could not leave even though it was as if there was nothing left to see, hear or feel. But I knew there was: in the woods I could see traces of everything. - less tagged:   consciousness   wholeness   language   darkness   God   Babel   philosophy    permalink  read: 4680  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

To make two mountains one, gone by Andre Platteel , December 21st

He knew he had to go. His feet felt light. He was losing ground. That night he had prayed for a young man to come. In his prayer he had asked for someone he could teach his understanding to. He had not seen anyone for years. Most people don’t want to be in this hot, deserted land. He could see as far as his eyes could see without seeing anything but sand. And two mountains. But in the bright sunlight they seemed to be no more than a trick of perception. Away on the left and away on the right the mountains looked like two vague shadows staring out into the endless nothingness, the same nothingness that made him feel so full. The two mountains were part of a legend. He had heard the legend many times, when people interested in knowing life still visited him. Although he had never seen the mountains up close, one mountain was said to have a big hole slightly above the middle and to the left. The other mountain was said to have vertical stripes as if it was divided into different parts. The legend tells of a woman who had fallen in love with two men, brothers. The moment the brothers knew they loved the same woman, their love turned into hate. In the battle that followed, one of the brothers was wounded, slashed by a knife. Just before life left his body he managed to plunge his knife into the heart of the one whose blood he knew so well. Both brothers died and the woman cried so much that a river was created, connecting the two mountains. The river dried up long before he came to live there, more than fifty years ago. He was making tea when someone knocked at the door. A young man. He asked him in and they walked to a small table with two chairs. The fire was on. At this time of year the desert was cold. “It is said you can turn the two mountains into one,” the young man said by way of introduction, pointing through the window to the two vague mountains that seemed to be at the far end of an endless nothingness. The old man didn’t respond, not yet. “I want you to show me how you do it. Here...” He opened his hand and showed the old man his money, all the money he had saved, probably taking years. “Who are you to come into my house and to ask to trade my knowledge for money?” “It is said that in making two mountains one, the mystery of life becomes known”, the young man continued. “Why do you want to know?” “Because I want to know life!” + more He knew he had to go. His feet felt light. He was losing ground. That night he had prayed for a young man to come. In his prayer he had asked for someone he could teach his understanding to. He had not seen anyone for years. Most people don’t want to be in this hot, deserted land. He could see as far as his eyes could see without seeing anything but sand. And two mountains. But in the bright sunlight they seemed to be no more than a trick of perception. Away on the left and away on the right the mountains looked like two vague shadows staring out into the endless nothingness, the same nothingness that made him feel so full. The two mountains were part of a legend. He had heard the legend many times, when people interested in knowing life still visited him. Although he had never seen the mountains up close, one mountain was said to have a big hole slightly above the middle and to the left. The other mountain was said to have vertical stripes as if it was divided into different parts. The legend tells of a woman who had fallen in love with two men, brothers. The moment the brothers knew they loved the same woman, their love turned into hate. In the battle that followed, one of the brothers was wounded, slashed by a knife. Just before life left his body he managed to plunge his knife into the heart of the one whose blood he knew so well. Both brothers died and the woman cried so much that a river was created, connecting the two mountains. The river dried up long before he came to live there, more than fifty years ago. He was making tea when someone knocked at the door. A young man. He asked him in and they walked to a small table with two chairs. The fire was on. At this time of year the desert was cold. “It is said you can turn the two mountains into one,” the young man said by way of introduction, pointing through the window to the two vague mountains that seemed to be at the far end of an endless nothingness. The old man didn’t respond, not yet. “I want you to show me how you do it. Here...” He opened his hand and showed the old man his money, all the money he had saved, probably taking years. “Who are you to come into my house and to ask to trade my knowledge for money?” “It is said that in making two mountains one, the mystery of life becomes known”, the young man continued. “Why do you want to know?” “Because I want to know life!” “You can know life’s mystery,” the old man responded, “but will you understand it? What is the use of showing you? If I showed you life’s mystery you would never believe me.” “But is it true, can you make those two mountain one? Please take my money, and show it to me.” “If I turn two into one, your whole life will change. Do you really want that?” The old man poured the tea he had just made into two glasses; he drank his tea and somehow knew that the young man would leave before he had drunk from his own glass. “I need to know the mystery. If I know the mystery I can finally live. I will finally be free.” The old man was silent; he knew he would have to pray again that night. He opened the door and asked the young man to leave. The young man grew aggressive and threw his money on the ground. “You are a swindler. I should have listened to all the others who have visited you and who warned me that you are nothing more than a madman.” The old man closed the door. He walked back to the fire and finished his tea. He thought about the young man. He had felt the confusion of removing life from a life lived, turning one into two. But in his heart he knew the young man was whole, one. In the far distance the two mountains seemed to have disappeared. But this could easily have been a trick of the sunlight. - less tagged:   wholeness   understanding   life   desert   sun    permalink  read: 3650  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The dark brightness by Andre Platteel , December 9th

My house has many windows and every morning, after my shower, I drink a cup of green tea in front of one of those windows. In front of one particular window, actually, one that gives me an astonishing view of the old trees in the garden, which this morning are wet with rain. Since I live up high, I cannot see the trees’ roots, only their branches and leaves. It’s early morning and the sun has just woken, giving the soft rain on the leaves a velvety sheen. It seems as if all the birds have gone today, left for a warmer destination. In summer, the trees are full of birds, full of song, and their leaves are full of colour. Today, most of the leaves are still in place, but the colours have become one-dimensional. At the same time, however, a fast-changing light is continually turning this one colour into many. How many colours does orange have? The wind plays with the leaves but most are unimpressed and have no intention of falling. Only one leaf appears doubtful. It wiggles. I can imagine how tough the decision must be: when do you let go of something that has given birth to you? Should you hang on with every ounce of your strength or release your grasp and fall into the unknown? And how soft is the ground below? Suddenly I see the shadows of birds fall on the branches and leaves. The shadows appear, disappear – many times in a short space of time. A beautiful play. But although I see shadows, I don’t hear any bird calls; it’s as if the shadows have a life of their own and have chosen not to join the migrating birds whose reflection they are. In a book by Japanese author Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World), people have to give up their shadows before they can enter the city. The guard collecting them promises to take really good care of the shadows, but it is a lie: the shadows are underfed and their only future is death. Many of us would love to see our shadows put to death, shadows in the sense of sides of ourselves we are not proud of and want to get rid of. Can we kill something that is naturally a part of us? Have you ever tried, when walking in the sun, to escape from your shadow – to run away in a moment of shadow-weakness and leave it behind? Almost always (except in the stories of Haruki Murakami) the shadow follows. Yet the shadow’s determination to be part of us should not been seen, I think, as a visit by the devil to remind us of our evil parts; the shadow is just there to remind us of something that wants to be seen and recognized. + more My house has many windows and every morning, after my shower, I drink a cup of green tea in front of one of those windows. In front of one particular window, actually, one that gives me an astonishing view of the old trees in the garden, which this morning are wet with rain. Since I live up high, I cannot see the trees’ roots, only their branches and leaves. It’s early morning and the sun has just woken, giving the soft rain on the leaves a velvety sheen. It seems as if all the birds have gone today, left for a warmer destination. In summer, the trees are full of birds, full of song, and their leaves are full of colour. Today, most of the leaves are still in place, but the colours have become one-dimensional. At the same time, however, a fast-changing light is continually turning this one colour into many. How many colours does orange have? The wind plays with the leaves but most are unimpressed and have no intention of falling. Only one leaf appears doubtful. It wiggles. I can imagine how tough the decision must be: when do you let go of something that has given birth to you? Should you hang on with every ounce of your strength or release your grasp and fall into the unknown? And how soft is the ground below? Suddenly I see the shadows of birds fall on the branches and leaves. The shadows appear, disappear – many times in a short space of time. A beautiful play. But although I see shadows, I don’t hear any bird calls; it’s as if the shadows have a life of their own and have chosen not to join the migrating birds whose reflection they are. In a book by Japanese author Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World), people have to give up their shadows before they can enter the city. The guard collecting them promises to take really good care of the shadows, but it is a lie: the shadows are underfed and their only future is death. Many of us would love to see our shadows put to death, shadows in the sense of sides of ourselves we are not proud of and want to get rid of. Can we kill something that is naturally a part of us? Have you ever tried, when walking in the sun, to escape from your shadow – to run away in a moment of shadow-weakness and leave it behind? Almost always (except in the stories of Haruki Murakami) the shadow follows. Yet the shadow’s determination to be part of us should not been seen, I think, as a visit by the devil to remind us of our evil parts; the shadow is just there to remind us of something that wants to be seen and recognized. Most of the things about ourselves that we judge to be evil are potentially what makes us unique. But because they are so unique we rarely see these qualities in other people. This is why we think these qualities are evil. This is why others can convince us that these qualities are evil. Ironically, this is when they actually do become evil to us – because rather than embracing these qualities we hide them, neglect them and turn them into shadows instead. Our shadows then nag us. They hunt us down for as long as it takes, until we allow those things we have placed outside to come inside, become part of ourselves. This is apparently what comes naturally to us: individual uniqueness, whose only intention is to ground us to this earth, refusing to leave, always being there to remind us of its vitality. I watch the shadows of the birds playing on the branches and on the leaves. And I think I can hear them whispering. What I hear is absolutely not the sound of birds that might have come back; the voices come from the shadows you hear when truly silent. Out of nowhere one bird returns. He knows in an instant which shadow belongs to him. I have never known how bright darkness can shine. - less tagged:   wholeness   uniqueness   brightness   leaves   evil   shadow   Murakami    permalink  read: 3463  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: 5201  print  forward  comments: 1  add comment      name:  Frank F., November 30th • Is my hearth the centre of my thinking?

Photo: André Platteel

Making love by Andre Platteel , November 12th

In one of the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, a group of people is asked to make a map of a city. It must be as detailed as possible, charting every street and river. Every time the mapmakers present their work they are sent back with the request to make the map even more detailed. Eventually, the mapmakers end up in the nearby desert, where they have enough room to produce a map that is an exact copy of the city. Then, when the men have nearly finished the map, a storm whips in and destroys it. Only a few pieces of the map are ever found. The experience of being conscious, being connected, is often referred to as the experience of ultimate love. Everything is love I have often heard. Everything is love I have often said myself (to myself). Consciousness as the source of all life can only be good, bad is nothing more than confusion. What is love? Not so long ago I was in Big Sur, California, a beautiful era of rough nature between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I was surrounded by thousands of trees, many of them many hundreds of years old, thousands even, and by many plants and animals I had never seen before, neither in reality nor in books. To me, it felt like true perfection: the beautiful colours, the bio-diversity and the astonishing vibration of energy. Hiking for hours caressed my system. Life was streaming through my veins. I felt connected. Being here felt like heaven. Harmonious. Right here one could experience that consciousness is simply love. Looking closer, however, I could see a battle: trees fighting to be the tallest around so they receive more light (and so take light away from the others trees); plants twisted around trees, initially protecting, later suffocating them; animals hunting and playing a deadly game at every moment. There was a war going on! Where did love and goodness go in this God-like nature? Are these trees, plants and animals confused? Or is the sensation of perfection that we often encounter in exquisite nature, and which we often tend to call love, actually based on a misconception? Are we confused in what we call love? We tend to see love as something that feels good, something that touches us. To be more specific: as something that pleases us. But is that all that love is? Going by what I have seen around me and in what I have experienced, love can also say no. Love can also hurt. Love can suffocate. Love can damage. Love can even destroy and kill. Love can be anything. Just like life – and just like consciousness, being all. But we do not refer to all when using love; we refer to only that what pleases what we have called 'I'. + more In one of the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, a group of people is asked to make a map of a city. It must be as detailed as possible, charting every street and river. Every time the mapmakers present their work they are sent back with the request to make the map even more detailed. Eventually, the mapmakers end up in the nearby desert, where they have enough room to produce a map that is an exact copy of the city. Then, when the men have nearly finished the map, a storm whips in and destroys it. Only a few pieces of the map are ever found. The experience of being conscious, being connected, is often referred to as the experience of ultimate love. Everything is love I have often heard. Everything is love I have often said myself (to myself). Consciousness as the source of all life can only be good, bad is nothing more than confusion. What is love? Not so long ago I was in Big Sur, California, a beautiful era of rough nature between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I was surrounded by thousands of trees, many of them many hundreds of years old, thousands even, and by many plants and animals I had never seen before, neither in reality nor in books. To me, it felt like true perfection: the beautiful colours, the bio-diversity and the astonishing vibration of energy. Hiking for hours caressed my system. Life was streaming through my veins. I felt connected. Being here felt like heaven. Harmonious. Right here one could experience that consciousness is simply love. Looking closer, however, I could see a battle: trees fighting to be the tallest around so they receive more light (and so take light away from the others trees); plants twisted around trees, initially protecting, later suffocating them; animals hunting and playing a deadly game at every moment. There was a war going on! Where did love and goodness go in this God-like nature? Are these trees, plants and animals confused? Or is the sensation of perfection that we often encounter in exquisite nature, and which we often tend to call love, actually based on a misconception? Are we confused in what we call love? We tend to see love as something that feels good, something that touches us. To be more specific: as something that pleases us. But is that all that love is? Going by what I have seen around me and in what I have experienced, love can also say no. Love can also hurt. Love can suffocate. Love can damage. Love can even destroy and kill. Love can be anything. Just like life – and just like consciousness, being all. But we do not refer to all when using love; we refer to only that what pleases what we have called 'I'. So why call consciousness ‘love’? What use is there in seeing the source of all being as nothing more than that what pleases us? Most of the time we only use love to represent a wish. We call something love because we want to receive it – love; love being no more than a desire: excluding everything that does not fit our need. If someone does not agree with us, if someone loves other things or has other desires, we do not feel connected with that person, we cannot see love anymore. We make love for ourselves. Is love a wanting that excludes? Can we ever experience love itself instead of a projection of our needs? And if so, can we call that experience love? Once we speak of love, the experience of love is blown away; try to turn love into a word and we find only fragments remain. The word love does not include our experience of love – we are mainly distanced from it, excluding the parts of the experience that do not fit our mental definition. It seems to me that every time we try to define what we experience, we try to define life itself. We move our being to a dry, lonely desert, where we create a map instead of immersing ourselves in the experience itself; we wait for the storm that will take away what we have created, leaving only traces of disillusion. Even if such a map is called love, consciousness cannot be love. Consciousness just is – including what we generally call love. - less tagged:   love   consciousness   wholeness   spirituality   Borges   desert   experience    permalink  read: 4257  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

The Swordsman by Andre Platteel , October 31st

Someone takes the seat opposite me in the train. He sits down very silently, almost as if no one is doing so. He looks at me for a few seconds, without wanting anything. I move my head slightly with the idea of making a friendly gesture. We pass Leiden, a small Dutch city that I used to live in. It has great universities, and a great hospital – a huge complex, almost a village really, mainly coloured yellow. I have never understood that colour. Memories in my body remind me of the times I spent in that village of sick people. I reboot my brain to the here and now. But this doesn’t stop my mind from raising questions. How come so many people get sick? Sickness isn’t our natural state, is it? So why do so many people get ill? It strikes me: And why haven’t I felt really healthy for a long time? I am glad I don’t live in Leiden anymore. I feel the eyes of the man opposite resting on me. When I look back I see not only a man, but also someone, probably of Japanese descent, wearing a beautiful suit; he has small but bright eyes and short black hair. The lines in his face are fine, no particular marks. He doesn’t have a big nose, nor does he have a strong jaw or pronounced lips. I find it hard to guess his age. His face could be anyone’s face. On his lap he holds a long black object, longer than the span of my arms. It looks as if it is made of strong material; probably containing something inside, but I have no idea what that could be. Or, to be more precise, ideas about what could be inside are bubbling up in my mind (some quite bizarre), but I can’t verify any of them – unless of course I grab the object and look inside. I don’t move. When we pass The Hague, he starts talking to me. He whispers, but his words are crisp and clear. He tells about great Chinese and Japanese warriors. “The best fighters did not fight that much,” he says. “A great swordsman often did no more than show an inch of the shaft – nearly that was enough to make the other person decide to back off.” Someone wants to sit next to me, but for some reason he then steps back and decides not, walking further to look for another seat. He carries two bags and I am sure they have books inside since I recognize the name of the shop printed on the bags. Books. For a long time I was addicted to buying books. I bought more than I could read. And the more I bought the less I read. I could no longer make a choice about which one to choose. One day, I got fed up with stories and sold almost half my collection. Most of them left my house unread. “That small but sharp and shiny piece of metal was enough to show the other that the limits had been reached. And let there be no confusion, if that warning was not understood clearly, the sword was used, without hesitation, fully and deadly. And without sorrow.” + more Someone takes the seat opposite me in the train. He sits down very silently, almost as if no one is doing so. He looks at me for a few seconds, without wanting anything. I move my head slightly with the idea of making a friendly gesture. We pass Leiden, a small Dutch city that I used to live in. It has great universities, and a great hospital – a huge complex, almost a village really, mainly coloured yellow. I have never understood that colour. Memories in my body remind me of the times I spent in that village of sick people. I reboot my brain to the here and now. But this doesn’t stop my mind from raising questions. How come so many people get sick? Sickness isn’t our natural state, is it? So why do so many people get ill? It strikes me: And why haven’t I felt really healthy for a long time? I am glad I don’t live in Leiden anymore. I feel the eyes of the man opposite resting on me. When I look back I see not only a man, but also someone, probably of Japanese descent, wearing a beautiful suit; he has small but bright eyes and short black hair. The lines in his face are fine, no particular marks. He doesn’t have a big nose, nor does he have a strong jaw or pronounced lips. I find it hard to guess his age. His face could be anyone’s face. On his lap he holds a long black object, longer than the span of my arms. It looks as if it is made of strong material; probably containing something inside, but I have no idea what that could be. Or, to be more precise, ideas about what could be inside are bubbling up in my mind (some quite bizarre), but I can’t verify any of them – unless of course I grab the object and look inside. I don’t move. When we pass The Hague, he starts talking to me. He whispers, but his words are crisp and clear. He tells about great Chinese and Japanese warriors. “The best fighters did not fight that much,” he says. “A great swordsman often did no more than show an inch of the shaft – nearly that was enough to make the other person decide to back off.” Someone wants to sit next to me, but for some reason he then steps back and decides not, walking further to look for another seat. He carries two bags and I am sure they have books inside since I recognize the name of the shop printed on the bags. Books. For a long time I was addicted to buying books. I bought more than I could read. And the more I bought the less I read. I could no longer make a choice about which one to choose. One day, I got fed up with stories and sold almost half my collection. Most of them left my house unread. “That small but sharp and shiny piece of metal was enough to show the other that the limits had been reached. And let there be no confusion, if that warning was not understood clearly, the sword was used, without hesitation, fully and deadly. And without sorrow.” The train stops in Rotterdam. I need to get out, but my body somehow refuses. A voice carries through the train, announcing stuff. “Every day, we take our sword out of the sheath, just an inch, many times. But most of us don’t know we do it. The movement of the sword remains unconscious. Some of us take out the sword and use it. But most of us not to the full, and with regret.” He takes the long object from his lap, moves his body slowly and stands up. He puts the object on the seat and tells me: “Know when you show your sword, use the sword when necessary – use it fully and without regret.” He walks away. At the next stop I get out too. As I leave the train I look through the window at the seats where the man and I were just sitting. The long object is still there. I know that what is inside must be inside me. There is no need to take it along. - less tagged:   swordsman   Japan   warrior   Chinese   fighting   wholeness   understanding   fear   Hero   martial-art    permalink  read: 4589  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The man on the bench by Andre Platteel , October 22nd

As long as there is even the slightest bit of sun about, you’ll find him there, sitting on a bench in Spui square, in the heart of Amsterdam, shouting at everyone who passes by: ‘Who do you think you are?’ His voice is not aggressive, nor ironic – it’s just his voice speaking, asking. He almost always wears a sweater and always has his racing bike next to him; he leans it against the bench he’s sitting on, which makes it impossible for others to sit next to them – should they even dare to consider it. Some people are annoyed by his challenge, some act as if they haven’t heard the question, some answer by giving their name, some just laugh, and some – although I have not seen more than a few people try this – attempt to answer the question seriously and walk up to talk to him. ‘Who do you think you are?’ In my case, the question reminded me of Pirandello’s story ‘Uno, Nessuno e Centomila’ (‘One, None, and a Hundred Thousand’). A man looking at himself in the mirror is confronted by what he sees when his wife points out his big nose, which he had never noticed. He becomes confused because he thought he knew himself so well, his behaviour modelled on the picture he had created of himself. He starts asking his friends how they see him and discovers that each has a different picture of him and that none of these pictures match the picture he has of himself. So he abandons his mental self-image and the behaviour he thought went with it and starts to act and behave in the moment. His ‘I’ is released and in doing so he escapes the rigid, suffocating structure of his earlier self-image; he becomes ‘fresh’: his thinking is no longer connected to a mental structure but to what appears at every moment, again and again. ‘Who am I?’ The confusion is already in the language. When we speak of a flower we use the word to refer to a collection of sensations: its colour, scent, shape, form and so on. There is no flower without these sensations or qualities. There is no flower behind or besides these. The flower is in the sensation, in the phenomenon that we call ‘flower’. It is similar with ‘I’: there is no such thing as ‘I’ behind or besides the sensations we experience. There is only what we experience. Most of the experiences we have, at least my own, anyway, are not even experiences but mental projections – just like the guy in Pirandello’s novel. We do not see a flower, a friend, a building or a guy sitting on a bench; we see a mental projection – we are looking in the past and relating a fresh moment to something we have already experienced. + more As long as there is even the slightest bit of sun about, you’ll find him there, sitting on a bench in Spui square, in the heart of Amsterdam, shouting at everyone who passes by: ‘Who do you think you are?’ His voice is not aggressive, nor ironic – it’s just his voice speaking, asking. He almost always wears a sweater and always has his racing bike next to him; he leans it against the bench he’s sitting on, which makes it impossible for others to sit next to them – should they even dare to consider it. Some people are annoyed by his challenge, some act as if they haven’t heard the question, some answer by giving their name, some just laugh, and some – although I have not seen more than a few people try this – attempt to answer the question seriously and walk up to talk to him. ‘Who do you think you are?’ In my case, the question reminded me of Pirandello’s story ‘Uno, Nessuno e Centomila’ (‘One, None, and a Hundred Thousand’). A man looking at himself in the mirror is confronted by what he sees when his wife points out his big nose, which he had never noticed. He becomes confused because he thought he knew himself so well, his behaviour modelled on the picture he had created of himself. He starts asking his friends how they see him and discovers that each has a different picture of him and that none of these pictures match the picture he has of himself. So he abandons his mental self-image and the behaviour he thought went with it and starts to act and behave in the moment. His ‘I’ is released and in doing so he escapes the rigid, suffocating structure of his earlier self-image; he becomes ‘fresh’: his thinking is no longer connected to a mental structure but to what appears at every moment, again and again. ‘Who am I?’ The confusion is already in the language. When we speak of a flower we use the word to refer to a collection of sensations: its colour, scent, shape, form and so on. There is no flower without these sensations or qualities. There is no flower behind or besides these. The flower is in the sensation, in the phenomenon that we call ‘flower’. It is similar with ‘I’: there is no such thing as ‘I’ behind or besides the sensations we experience. There is only what we experience. Most of the experiences we have, at least my own, anyway, are not even experiences but mental projections – just like the guy in Pirandello’s novel. We do not see a flower, a friend, a building or a guy sitting on a bench; we see a mental projection – we are looking in the past and relating a fresh moment to something we have already experienced. The confusion I repeatedly encounter with self-inquiry and understanding who or what I am, lies in language. In spiritual literature, to refer to what we truly are often means using words like Self (with a capital), Spirit (also with capital) or Big Mind (something immense, probably behind something that is called Small Mind). But what I am, what I experience, lies in the phenomenon itself. There is no Self, Spirit or Big Mind behind or besides what I experience. Believing there was would put me on a endless journey to find what can never be found, because it is here – all the time and readily available. In being with what is. Making space for the phenomenon to settle and ‘unpack’ in my mind is not only seeing what truly is at that particular moment (a flower, for example) – and therefore experiencing it afresh – but also and simultaneously understanding who I truly am. In seeing the flower anew, I see myself. In that process my connectedness with others and the world becomes more than just a thought. - less tagged:   consciousness   spaciousness   Pirandello   language   flower   wholeness   connectedness    permalink  read: 4833  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Unity in diversity by Andre Platteel , September 4th

I’m in New York. The city of Woody Allen. I turn on the TV in my hotel room and watch Zelig, a mockumentary, or fictional documentary. For anyone who hasn’t seen it (you should), Allen plays the title character, Leonard Zelig, a man with the ability to transform his appearance so he blends in with the people around him. Put him with doctors and he becomes a doctor. Put him with overweight people and he starts piling on the pounds. Among Orthodox Jewish men, he sprouts a beard and his clothes transform into a black suit. To those around him, Zelig is the "human chameleon". To doctors, he’s a puzzle: no one understands how he can be constantly someone else. Enter Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow), a psychiatrist, who establishes that the cause of Zelig’s condition is his overwhelming desire to ‘belong’. So overwhelming that it leads him to forget his own identity and assume that of the people around him. Zelig’s mind – his thoughts – determines his appearance, his physical form. Dr. Fletcher sets out to help Zelig trust his own identity. Who he is. It works, but there are problems. When Fletcher’s boss makes a casual remark about the weather, for example, Zelig doesn’t just disagree with him, he beats him up. Zelig’s self-trust is now so strong that he can’t accept other people’s opinions any more. It doesn’t take long before Zelig starts to feel the consequences: his whining, his insistence on being right, makes him unloved. No surprise then that his desire to be loved + more I’m in New York. The city of Woody Allen. I turn on the TV in my hotel room and watch Zelig, a mockumentary, or fictional documentary. For anyone who hasn’t seen it (you should), Allen plays the title character, Leonard Zelig, a man with the ability to transform his appearance so he blends in with the people around him. Put him with doctors and he becomes a doctor. Put him with overweight people and he starts piling on the pounds. Among Orthodox Jewish men, he sprouts a beard and his clothes transform into a black suit. To those around him, Zelig is the "human chameleon". To doctors, he’s a puzzle: no one understands how he can be constantly someone else. Enter Dr. Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow), a psychiatrist, who establishes that the cause of Zelig’s condition is his overwhelming desire to ‘belong’. So overwhelming that it leads him to forget his own identity and assume that of the people around him. Zelig’s mind – his thoughts – determines his appearance, his physical form. Dr. Fletcher sets out to help Zelig trust his own identity. Who he is. It works, but there are problems. When Fletcher’s boss makes a casual remark about the weather, for example, Zelig doesn’t just disagree with him, he beats him up. Zelig’s self-trust is now so strong that he can’t accept other people’s opinions any more. It doesn’t take long before Zelig starts to feel the consequences: his whining, his insistence on being right, makes him unloved. No surprise then that his desire to be loved soon re-establishes itself and he falls back into his old ways. But this, too, isn’t the answer; in fact it creates so many problems that he has to flee the U.S. After a long search Dr. Fletcher finds Zelig in pre-World War II Germany. Zelig has embraced the Nazi Party. It’s there, the mockumentary voice-over declares, that Zelig can go about his life unnoticed. Like Zelig, the Nazis have abandoned their individuality, their trust in themselves, for a group ideal. Dr. Fletcher doesn’t give up, however. During a speech by Hitler, she manages to get Zelig’s attention and they escape in an airplane, being welcomed as heroes when they land back in America. After watching Zelig, a couple of questions bubbled into my head: How can you interpret your unique place on this planet – a place no one else can interpret and which can feel lonely at times – and at the same time accept the ‘places’ of others? Places and interpretations that differ from our own, sometimes to the point of being poles apart? Should we accept that we share a common cause with others who, like us, are trying to understand their place in the world? Doesn’t unity derive from our differences more than our similarities? Is togetherness really a form of unity in diversity? - less tagged:   Allen   NewYork   Zelig   body   patterns   Nazis   uniqueness   wholeness   connectedness    permalink  read: 4961  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The Wholeness of being by Andre Platteel , August 20th

This Blog is focusing on the growing awareness that everything is connected and that we are all part of one whole consciousness. As part of life you are an expression of consciousness - you are a highly individual and therefore particular manifestation of Wholeness. It takes no great vision to understand that the questions we are confronted with in our lives cannot be solved in isolation. We have no choice but to think and act together. Though the fact that we think and act in connection with others is only the beginning of our understanding of interconnectedness. We are coming to understand our true nature as a coherent whole which is ever changing and unending. The growing insight that the perceived world of duality is embedded into a greater whole transcends our relationship for the good with others, the earth and ourselves. This Blog has the intention to document the unfoldment of consciousness, which gives rise to natural, more enduring behaviour and new expressions of being. As the initiator of this blog I would like to share my thoughts, struggles, doubts, insights, confusions, ideas and understandings regarding consciousness. Not with the idea to oppress any truth or to cause any confusion, but with the intention to share. I would love to invite you to use this space for conscious sharing in order to co-create the emerging biography of the conscious society. tagged:   wholeness   co-creation   consciousness   connectedness   understanding    permalink  read: 3417  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

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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