1. PREFACE
2. INTRODUCTION
3. MY CHILDHOOD
The beginning
School
Natural medical doctor
4. ON THE "OTHER SIDE"
The Great Experiences/Ten years of
uniterrupted Bliss
Prophecy
A Dream
Vision of the Grail
Explanation/The Trinity
Appendix
My Inner Woman
To make love and be free…Tantra
The Master
REVELATION OF THE GREAT MOTHER
ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS
THE GREAT LIGHT
THE GREAT DEATH/THE UNDERWORLD
Commentary
The Ultimate Sutra
Amsterdam, August 1980
Dance
Kundalini
Silent Power
Nothing Is/The Cycle
Completed
5. DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
Personal integration:
twenty years of trial and error
Abandonment
Self-centeredness
Jealous Monologues
The Inner Adversary
Catharsis
Identity
Kennemerduinen 1990
Japan and Hong Kong
MeiMei
Tribulations/Escape from
the hell of the future
Brazil
Final tribulations
6. THE SACRED VALLEY
(“Sermon of the
Valley”)
The Descent
The Depth
The Return
7. TERESA OF AVILA
Teresa of Avila
A Miracle/PilgrimCare
8. MY LIFE'S MYTH
Looking back
Divine Wrath
Compassion
Renewal
Beauty
9. LAMENT FOR THE PLANET
Lament
Sovereign Living
The 7 Steps
10. THE GREAT MOTHER
Confession
Re)discovery
Acknowledgement
11. TURN ON
Great Mother Hymn
12. EPILOGUE
Being Available
“Evaluation”
The Green Grass
ABOUT THIS
BOOK
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Being Available
The folly of spirituality and religion is that what is understood as ‘God’ is eventually
just as ‘unreal’ as the illusory world of the visible things. By this I mean not
only the concept of ‘God’ formed by the mind, as is cultivated endlessly in
churches over the centuries, but I speak about the Ultimate, Reality ItSelf as Mystical
Experience and Realisation. Although this Experience transcends all that is relative, as
we know it, this Self is not the Ultimate. The nature of this Relativity is not that it
passes, as the incessant flow of our thoughts, emotions and desires, but that of perfect
Openness, Transparency and Non-Being Being (or Being Non-Being). The Experience in the
‘starting stage’ is still characterized by the radiant light substance of the
Divine, in the final Realisation every Light and any ‘substance’ appeared to be
totally absen, thought. This Perfect Transparency is the ‘Highest Condition’
that can be achieved in this life. However, there is Something higher. The I dissolves
into the Light (non-ego, Being), the Light into Transparency (pure Being), while the
Transparency dissolves into Absolute Nothingness (Non-Being). The Ultimate is thus the
‘Black Hole’, the Darkness, the Great Vacuum, ‘Eternal Mother’, the
Bottomlessness of Existence, where everything at the same Moment goes back into and arises
from, the Non-Being state in which everything is obliterated. In comparison to the
Ultimate state every "prior stage" is relative, while also perfect in ItSelf.
Thus ‘God’ exists, but it is not the Last Reality. Identifying yourself with one
of these ‘stages’ - including Enlightenment - is identification. Despite its
perfection it is imperfect. Usually the ‘ego’ is behind it.
In reality, life is discontinuous, it ‘jumps’ from one Reality to the other. In
order to live All of Life, it is imperative you do not attach to one of those Realities
– no matter how perfect in ItSelf - but live your life As It Is (or Non-Is-ness), as
It reveals ItSelf (in you). The vertical Dimension, the Here and Now, living in the Moment
is the (only) Opening. It is ‘the gateway to Heaven’. It coincides with roaring
laughter, because any identity, including that of the radiant Divinity will disappear. The
Great Mother is the Ultimate Bottomlessness where everything without exception disappears
into and is re-born out of. Do you surrender to Her, then you are Nothing yourself and
then there is nothing more between this Condition - you Actual True Self - and the things
around you. The highest stage of Realisation is thus ‘It Is as It Is’, living
life without wanting to add anything to it. Even the desire ‘to consciously want to
be or want to live in the Moment’ is already artificial. You impose something onto
yourself. Life is like a flower. In the morning she will open in the evening she closes
again. She is One with life.
This is the paradox: precisely because at the deepest level you are free, you live
your life not only As It Is, but you can connect with everything and all. Because the Self
is the Self is of al-that-lives, Being-yourSelf is equal to connectedness. Nothing is
excluded. ‘Just like the time before the beginning of your inner Path’ the daily
is the only thing there is. With one difference: Everything is ‘normal’
in no way different or ‘transformed’ - everything is as it is - but the ordinary
has an added value in an extremely subtle way: ‘the grass is greener’. It is
‘your’ quality of consciousness, your clear transparent brightness that makes
everything new. It is like when you're simply awake. This Condition is the Original True
Nature of all-living: people, animals, plants, the earth and the whole cosmos. While
Nature lives there permanently without knowing it, people can bring their True Nature into
actualisation. Countless people, ‘ordinary’ and saints, fools and sages, women
and men, have continually and continuously experienced the different qualities of
Realisation. It is not just the potential, but also in Its actualisation the Spiritual
Heritage of mankind, for all times, in all cultures. Nobody can claim ‘patent’
(I am ‘the only’, ‘the first’, ‘the greatest’), those who
do, no matter how impressive the realised State, is in the Eye of Reality infinitely
ridiculous. Highest attainable level of enlightenment:
Everything is as it is, no exceptions
Everyone is in essence Divine and at the same time ordinary. Every
living creature is a child of ‘Heaven and Earth’, an earthly manifestation of
the underlying Unknowable Truth. This we share with all living creatures. "Only
because you are Enlightened, I am too". We all, without exception, participate in the
Eternal. Once experienced, you don't live for yourself anymore. As part of the Whole, yes,
being that Whole you got a new ancestry. You are child of the Light and ultimately of the
Cosmic Mother the Birthgiver of the Light. Thus everyone is a ‘sent one’. The
realisation of this depends on your consciousness: are you identified with yourself (your
little I), then you're just here for yourself (e.g. ‘find happiness’). As a
messenger you are here to accomplish a Mission to the benefit of the Whole, nothing
excluded.
Because even after the most perfect Enlightenment the ego sooner or later comes back*,
the danger is great that it starts to identify itself again. Are you in the service of
spirituality, or is spirituality in service of you, that is the question. Because they
have experienced the Great Opening, some face being confronted with fierce unprocessed
(archetypal) emotional complexes from the collective unconscious. Light suddenly turns
into darkness. This is in the tradition of the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’. With me
it took fifteen years....or more. It underlines the need for additional integration
(therapy). Is this being omitted; it may be that these negative complexes continue to
dominate your life until the end. "Saint" Augustin is an excellent example.
Although having experienced Enlightenment, he failed to subsequently work on himself.
Ironically, it the transparency of personality - I - that determines if your teaching
reaches the world in a pure way. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with him. His various
obsessions (also compare Martin Luther) were the cause of the fact that the
"Christian Good News" inflicted immeasurable misery on mankind. If therapy
proves to be insufficient you better acknowledge ‘that - despite your efforts - you
cannot solve it yourself’. It forces you to go back to the beginning, to recognize
that you - despite your Enlightenment - cannot play God. Thus, Enlightened people also
need salvation. They have to be freed from the identification with their freedom.
That’s why I was overflowing with joy , that in the moment of greatest crisis I
discovered the Great Mother, the Destroyer of every identification. Not Self Realisation,
but Surrender appears to be the ultimate liberation.
* A fact that is often denied .....
Nobody chooses (as some claim) to ‘be born as a (wo)man’ themselves,
since even the Unfathomable Depth does not choose, nor indeed can choose. In the
Ultimate Oblivion there is no individual self, all identity resolved in it. Both -
resolving and (thus) not choosing - you can experience here and now in meditation for
example. By the perfect tranquillity and peace of the true Self - being only the first
‘step’ to Ultimate Realisation – even on this ‘lower’ Level the
ability to choose already drops off of you. The Self - the identity of your little I
dissolves into it! – can not only not choose – people say quite often ‘I
had no choice’ when they come to that point - but also what you focus on (the items
in your mind) have since disappeared. In the Eternal all identity is resolved. You are one
with the One. Krishnamurti called this ‘choice-less awareness’ the hallmark of
an awakened mind. Conclusion: If the Ultimate already had not chosen for you to be born,
you're certainly not capable of doing so on your ‘own’. The best
‘proof’ that you are not here by your own choice, but by ‘Pure
Coincidence’- not by ‘personal’ intervention, but by a very natural process
- birth out of the Nothingness, wu-wei - (your life as a gift) to come upon this earth, is
the Innocence you were born with as a baby. There is no intention behind it (...). It is
the Essence of compassion you feel for a newborn. Would you have been born by your own
choice, it would have been a deliberate action certainly there would not be any
‘innocence’ in you.
* This goes against certain ‘karma’ theories, which say that
you yourself are the one who "decided to be born again". However, no self, no choice!
Become what you Are: Incarnated
Eternity
That the process of learning was tough had become quite
obvious. Not being noticed was the most painful for me. The Ultimate State is so
transparent, that nobody notices It. My need to be recognized was frustrated for thousands
of times. Confirmation by other people, where I had such a tremendous longing for, was
extremely rare. I was so painfully thrown back onto Myself, that I ‘had to do it by
myself with It’. Now I don’t care anymore. Wherever I Am, it is good, with or
without people. For my own happiness I need no clients, listeners or followers. I am now
servant of the Great Mother. Simply being here is availability. The dependence on my
environment has dropped off of me. I dare now to show my Originally Face. It must first
come to a point where there is no desire to attract people anymore, so much so that you
don’t care whether someone shows up on your Path or not. So yes, I am here for
everyone and everything, but only when I’m called for. The intangible only manifests
ItSelf, if It is being addressed. Does it want to become active, ‘the question should
be asked’. Without your question and admissibility, there is no impulse, I'm
speechless, nothing arises within me, I can’t talk about the joy of the Original
Innocence, the Essence of all-that-lived, without first experiencing your initial input and engagement. So I am the one who is infinitely grateful
for everyone who takes this (sweet) burden from me....
Continuous It rejoices in me: I know! It is the triumph inherent to
Being Enlightened. I have grasped Life in all its dimensions. It comes out of Absolute
Nothingness, the Unknowable, where Nothing Is, the Mystery of life. By surrendering to the
Mother She grants me her Divine Light Body. Which is the reason for continuing gratitude,
joy and awe. Through Her I represent the Essence in its purest form, so much so that I and
the whole are one. From the very first moment that I ‘remember’ the Ultimate -
Realisation – it actualizes itself. I no longer need my breath to realize It.
Incredible joy time and time again takes hold of me. The subtlety, freshness and the
grandness are indescribable. It is not mine, that’s why I want to share it with
everyone and everything. But how many people really opened up to it in the past 30 years?
Because nobody wanted It, therefore I was forced back unto myself. For the first time I
accepted the fact that it was me who received this, that it was a
"personal" gift. I always had considered It as being ‘impersonal’ -
which of course it is - not something I could or can possess. But, apart from this truth
it also had to do with my ‘inability to receive’. A paradox was this: only after
I allowed me to rejoice in the gift - that apparently was "for me alone" - was
my gratitude of a corresponding nature. Unbelievable, that this could be bestowed onto me.
My life had become one big song of praise to the Mother.
The essence of Enlightenment is
rebirth into the world
‘Evaluation’
The reason to write a spiritual autobiography? I checked within myself and came to the
conclusion that the main reason it is the deep-seated sense that my views and Experiences
are not my own. How can I further clarify that? Let’s take the Experiences as a
starting point. The Essence of this is perhaps that if It is there, you - your small self
- no longer exists. In the Infinite Timelessness all personal identity is lost, there is
no bordered personally or I any more. There is nobody left to comprehend the Experience.
Instead of you having an Experience, you are merged in IT. The Experience is not something
that belongs to you.....on the contrary, you belong to the Experience. But not only you or
I, everything shares the Divine, everything and everyone is within it, whither you
experience it or not. The Infinite Timelessness is the Essence of all existence. It is the
Groundless Ground out if which everything arises. All that exists is part of it. It is
therefore impossible to see it as a part of yourself. It is the other way around: you're
part of the Whole, just like everything else is. Therefore, if the Whole has revealed
ItSelf to someone, it reveals ItSelf to everyone. It belongs to all. Everything and
everyone shares in it, because of that I felt the inner urgency to share It, to let it
flow onto others. I therefore am unable to keep it to myself.
The second thing I would like to say is that this Joyous Condition can be bestowed unto
anyone. In fact, It is continuously in everything and everyone. You are already
continuously participating in It without realising. So that which fundamentally matters is
already present, that is not so much the problem. The problem is much more consciously
opening yourself to It. Because you're embedded in it, it's closer to you than your own
skin, consciously being aware of it, that’s what it’s about. This is very
hopeful, because it is not something that is only reserved for certain privileged
individuals. Instead, the Experience is the most fundamental of all of us. It is the
heritage of all beings. And it is also not true that It has been reserved for a few
historical figures, only. People who unfortunately got placed on such pedestals that
entire generations thereafter were so blinded, in such a manner, that they forgot to
Realise the Self themselves. There is however a continuing Revelation. Everyone without
exception may receive this Grace. It is therefore time that we will be the bearers of
Renewal, you and me. Our critical times beg for it.
Sure, some say, all well and good, but how do you feel day to day? Answer: normal.
Everything is as it is. The life - the unity - is a song of praise on diversity. The
Ultimate is so transparent, that there is no difference between It and everyday life. The
final Realisation and Actualisation is returning to everyday life: towards the
‘marketplace’. Eventually, the tree simply is a tree, once again. Does someone
still claim a certain ‘level’, and then he or she is stuck in the process. It is
in contradiction with the Essence of the spiritual Path: namely that the Ultimate is so
transparent, that it does not have ‘substance of its own’, any more. The Final
Realisation is that there is nothing anymore between ‘you’ and the visible
reality. Everything turns out to be ‘One Big Joke’. After a divine flight you
end up back on your feet. What ‘remains’ is so subtle, that the ‘normal
folks’ don’t even notice it. Hence, that in some traditions it is stated:
‘that the True One leaves no traces’. He or she stands next to you on the tram
and you don’t see or feel it. You must thus bear in mind that every human being (is)
can be a Buddha.
There is always a smile in my heart. Riding my bicycle, I often roar with laughter.
Everyday life is totally fulfilling and I don’t need anything to be happy. Without
exception, I let everything arise within me, moreover, I don’t have a distinction
between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. Everything is conscious in my own
Space. I never force a certain state of consciousness. I laugh at my own foolishness. I am
grateful for everything that happens; I am filled with never relentless amazement about
the things I already know since every step is the first. Does the sun shine: great, does
it rain: just as great. The clear presence conjures everything to beauty. MySelf in
connectedness: means everything in the same Space, in the realisation that I Am, I feel
fresh and always new, uninhibited and without judgement, free of anything, comprehensive.
Every day I work on my assignment, resting in the One I come from nowhere and go nowhere,
a constant joy of Nothingness. I demand nothing from life, grateful for all the small
things, I love all without distinction: the blackbird in the grass, the mother with her
children, the merchant who advertises his goods, the falling leaves in the square to the
young pierced woman. I see the coherence of things and ask forgiveness for any minor
"offence"...
Sharing is my passion, speaking directly to your heart, so the spark can kindle inside of
you. You know that we are all at a turning point, indeed, with our backs against the wall.
All known roads have been tried and don’t help anymore. Only a leap into another
Dimension can save us. I am here to offer you an extended hand. My work is a guide that
can safely and accurately deliver you out of labyrinth. I therefore appeal to anyone who
wants to hear to ‘waking up!' My effort serves the Whole. In such moments I
immediately recall my Vision. The Vision helps me to once again see what life is
ultimately all about: ‘strive for Enlightenment, restructure your life and serve
others’. It compels me to pour everything, without reservation, without something to
want, without a goal devised by myself, without aiming for a result. So I repeat here, not
in the least for myself that everything I've written is only there as a recommendation.
There is no other intention behind it other than selfless sharing. For me, that is the
greatest joy there is. Whether you accept something is entirely up to you. Now is the
right time. And: ‘Awakening is the easiest thing there is’.
The Green Grass
When I look around me now, the fresh green grass at my
feet, the clumps of newly bloomed firewood around me, the silent-clear water in the
evening sun, I am silenced by so much beauty. Everything breathes a simple presence that
is overwhelming. Open as I am for the silence, the air, the water and the motley mixture
of all these different bird sounds. Breathless I observe an owl as it came up out of
nothing and flies by silently, as it sways over the reed borders. Before me appears a
swarm of mosquitoes, that swirl high in the sky above the woods and the water. And behind
the rising mist above the ponds, the cows are only still partially visible. Everything
breathes such freshness, such brightness, a presence that pervades everything.
This country is of unutterable beauty, it is hard to imagine. I'm sitting here on
my boat and watch the setting sun. A masterpiece, of this moment, and every time in a
unique form, that never repeats itself again. The golden reflection in the water reaches
up to the front of the boat. It is already late, 10 pm, and although early in the year it
is pleasant to be outside. A duck has been calling for my attention for some time; it
quacks and remains swimming in a small circle. I talk with him, give some bread, he quacks
some more and occasionally trustingly closes his eyes. Life, I realise here is so rich and
full, I know and feel a part of it, I am all this mySelf. It is a fountain that constantly
overflows. Never can I be grateful enough for all of this.
now I walk through the streets
unveiled
everything has something more and
I have a little less
the more
that has everything already
the less
I never possessed
the inner emptiness that
face to face
brings forth the light
to the eye of the world
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© 1999 Copyright by Han M. Stiekema. All rights reserved.
Last update:07/24/13 |
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