Healing Gender Identity Disorder.
A report by Hans Stam
The case is a biological
male born person who from the age of 7 suddenly experienced his self as being a
girl. From this age till the age of 35 the person concerned suffered intense, not
being able to live it’s own identity. From the age of 35, help was given by a
medical team from the Vrije Universiteit
medisch centrum in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, to change the appearance
of the physical body from male into female by hormone treatment and gender
change plastic surgery, as previous years of intensive medical research had
shown that all known psychotherapy was not able to score any effect on this
mental disease.
In the years
that followed the person concerned also searched for inner peace and
self-confidence, and while working out a therapy found by chance the actual
source of this disease.
After finding the actual
source of the disease it took about 2½ years to get freed from the
gender-identity, at the point in life where it did not matter anymore what
shape the physical body had and whether the person was experienced by others as
a male or a female, because the person concerned had freed itself from the
obsession to be either of them.
This work
explains why and how human consciousness
is born and how an identity and its problems rises from this and the
interpretation of the existential world. Therefore it can also shine a new
light on other forms of identity-disorder.
The keys given
in this work can help anyone having problems with their physical appearance to
learn to accept the physical shape of the body as it is.
This work shows the other
picture: it reveals the richness that is concealed in disease, which can be
experienced in life in the process of healing. The wisdom that is unveiled in
this process, and the inner peace and happiness everyone can experience from
healing is underexposed in today’s life, in which for a great deal we try to
avoid to find the source of disease in ourselves by blaming it on our genes and
the misconception that it is the doctor who has to cure us. This work shows how
healing from identity disorder can change one’s life completely, and has great
influence on one’s spiritual development and understanding life and its
meaning, giving the opportunity to experience inner peace and happiness far
superior to what one experiences being pleased.
The Work:
Chapter
1. An explanation of the title and chapters.
Chapter
2. A rough sketch of the work of the gender-team.
Chapter
3. A short life history showing key steps.
Chapter
4. A cure found by chance.
Chapter
5. Anapanasati, a meditation practice.
Chapter
6. The churning of greed and aversion.
Chapter
7. Creation, Theology and Religion.
Chapter 8.
Major keys in the books that I studied on which my therapy developed.
Chapter 1. An explanation of the title and chapters.
I used Gender Identity
Disorder in the title because in my experience the more common expression
‘transsexuality’ gives the idea that it is all a matter of sexual preference,
something ‘fixed in our genes’, which it certainly is not. It is this wrong
interpretation of the disease that makes it impossible to set up a therapy that
really helps. It is this wrong idea that shuts the door to one’s development
through learning from one’s own stumbling blocks to deep wisdom and to find the
real source of this identity problem in oneself. This wrong view on the matter
disables one to really heal and find inner peace and happiness that is far
superior to what one can experience when one gets what one pleases.
To stress that the case is a
mental identity disorder that can be healed by a form of psychotherapy, and not
a wrong physical shape that has to be corrected by plastic surgery and hormone
treatment, I chose Gender Identity Disorder in the title.
An explanation of the
chapters:
Sketches, first of all
because I am a painter, not a writer. And to tell my entire life story in
detail would give the work the size of the Mahabharata, for most people
nowadays too big to digest. From my experience, sketches leave more to the
imagination of the readers and encourage them more to dig into themselves. Of
course I realize that sketches also leave a great deal out of all that has
happened in my life, and that therefore some people who in my work come across
themselves, can have a different view on some situations. My goal is to help
people find a way out of their misery, not writing my memoirs. To protect their
privacy, I have changed the names of some of the people that appear in this
work.
Chapter
2 gives a rough sketch of the work of a gender-team, a team of medical
specialists, and their attempt to relieve the patient from suffering, not
knowing the real source of the disease.
Chapter
3 gives a series of sketches from my own life showing the problems that
occurred after help was given by the gender-team, and the key steps I have
taken to heal from my disease, and stop my suffering by discovering the real
source of the disease.
Chapter
4 gives a series of sketches in which I try to show how I found my way out.
These sketches are meant to contemplate on and to help find the source of the
problem by discovering oneself.
Chapter
5 gives a meditation practice that is needed to heal, and to experience and
fully understand the explanation in the previous chapter. It will also give
balance to the activity of contemplation.
Chapter
6 explains what causes breathing, and its role in creation. This to help
understand the importance of the meditation practice.
Chapter
7 gives information how I used the metaphors that are found in Religious
stories to get a picture of the creation of my identity.
Chapter
8 gives the most important keys that I found in the books that I studied.
Chapter
9 concludes this work with some strong advise to Medicine to make an effort
to study this work, to discover its potentials and help develop a therapy for
other patients.
Why this publishing?
Because my goal is to pass
my knowledge on to help other people heal from this disease, and I found out
that shining a new light on the matter is the key to do this. Medicine, until
now, is unable to help healing because of a wrong view on the disease. Only a
new and a Right View on the one’s identity and how it is born enables one to
solve one’s identity disorder that at a very young age has crystallized out and
got fixed and is experienced as an absolute and unchangeable being that brings
much suffering and frustration in life.
Just reading this work is
not sufficient to get the healing process running. One has to live one’s own
life and learn from one’s own stumbling blocks. With this work I give a guide
to help oneself in life and to find happiness that in my experience is a very
peaceful and long-lasting happiness and far superior to the temporary happiness
one finds in getting what one pleases.
Another reason for this
publishing is that in my development I found the true meaning of Religion and
Theology, which provided a solid base to set up a therapy to heal from my
identity disorder. So I was able to connect Medicine to Religion and Theology
in a time where medical science for a great deal lost its connection with it,
churches run empty, and where a wrong view on religion is the source of
‘religious’ fundamentalism that brings terrorism, war, and deep suffering
amongst humankind.
Chapter 2. A
rough sketch of the work of the gender-team.
A gender-team is a team of
medical specialists that provides help to people suffering from Gender Identity
Disorder, by changing the gender appearance of the physical body of the patient
by hormone treatment and plastic surgery.
As there are more
gender-teams, I cannot write about the probably various protocols they use, but
give only a rough sketch from my experience with the gender-team of the VUmc
(formerly AZVU) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
In 1989 I first had a few
visits with dr. Verschoor, a psychologist who succeeded very well in having me
reconsider whether I was going to do the right thing. He made me dig deep into
myself to find whether changing my body was the solution to my identity
problem. In the three years that passed I found out that for me, as far as I
could see, changing my body was the only way out. In that period I had met dr.
Henneberg, a psychiatrist who was incapable of making a right diagnosis and
therefore incapable to help me at all.
In 1993, visiting dr.
Kuiper, a psychiatrist from the gender-team, we discussed my problems and the
solutions the gender-team was able to offer. I was told that many years of
research had showed that psychotherapy had no result in curing my disease.
An appointment followed with
professor dr. Gooren, the head of the gender-team, in which I explained my
problems again and asked for his help. He had discussed my case with
psychiatrist dr. Kuiper, and dr. Verschoor, the psychologist that I had met
three years before. Professor dr. Gooren agreed to help me change the gender
appearance of my physical body. Next I had an appointment with endocrinologist
dr. Asscheman. Professor dr. Gooren had given him the information about my
identity problem, and had asked him to co-operate in changing the appearance of
my physical body. Dr. Asscheman made a medical examination, especially on the
functioning of my liver. He explained the effects of the hormone treatment and
gave me a prescription for Androcur® 50 and Estraderm TTS®
50. We agreed that I would come back in three months time for a new medical
examination and if all went well I got a new prescription for Androcur®
50 and Estraderm TTS® 100. This medical examination was to be
repeated every once a year. Also a DEXA scan of my bone structure was made.
Before or after an
appointment with the endocrinologist I was now and then asked to co-operate in
psychological tests.
During the first year I
regularly visited a psychiatrist connected to the AZVU, who monitored my
spiritual development.
In January 1995, at the age
of 35, I underwent a gender change operation.
In the period from 1994 to
1996 my facial hair was depilated by a dermatologist.
Chapter 3. A
short life history showing key steps.
As I walked with my
girlfriend Marion across a small field to Kardinaal
de Jong primary school I became suddenly aware that I was a girl. And with
that certain conviction, fear came into my young life, and the knowledge that I
could never tell my parents of my discovery, as I knew they would not be able
to cope with this news. Isn’t it striking that at an age of seven one knows for
certain that one’s parents are unable to live with a kind of situation? Still,
the future turned out I was right at that time. As I am writing this, my family
ties are broken, beaten by storm and the high seas of indignation that had
risen from my coming out, and the blow that it had given to my parents’ high
expectations of me as oldest son and creator of kinship to be. The bitter
disappointment in each other, our mutual intolerance, my fury, and the shame my
parents couldn’t bear shipwrecked our relationship.
The years I spent at primary
school were not yet really problematic, as my gender-identity was still
concealed in its shell of childhood. But to concentrate on my lessons was
sometimes a difficult job, and the tension that rose from having to learn much
at a high speed and not seeing why, brought me many times on the verge of
crying. Why should I learn so many things by heart while one could easily find
it back in books? I liked to play outside in the open fields behind our house.
I can still remember the fragrance of the flowers and herbs in spring and
summer and the smell of damp earth when I dug with my hands in it to form my
child’s fantasy world. Another fantasy world I created in the attic of our
house, a miniature world of trains and houses and roads and fields and
mountains and people living in there. And in my imagination this entire world
was so alive and real that I could forget myself completely when playing. Often
my younger sister came to watch my little fantasy world, especially in the
evening when it got dark and the tiny electric lights in the houses illuminated
the fairytale scene.
But this safe dream world
was not going to last. As adolescence took a firm grip on my body, I had to
become a man, a role that I had to play and felt not happy about. With the
growing of years it became more and more difficult to suppress my real
identity, and I could only get off some steam by dressing up as a girl. This I
experienced with mixed feelings as I felt myself a failure to suppress this
identity, knowing my parents’ disgust even when they couldn’t be aware of my
behaviour, and still feeling imprisoned in the few hours on Sunday when they
were out to visit my grandparents. Dressing op as a girl, and later as a woman,
was not a solution. I had to live this identity in the world with all other
people, and yet I couldn’t, I dare not. And so I was caught in high tension,
imprisoned by this identity. Often before I went to bed I prayed to be given a
new body, a miracle, to get back into a safe womb where my body could change.
And even often I wished this lunacy would just simply vanish. I counted the
years, and every birthday I had to face that it was still there and I still had
to play man. I felt insecure and highly tensed. I couldn’t find inner peace
whatever I did.
At secondary school I often
had great difficulty concentrating on the lessons. My mind was frequently
wandering of from the subject I had to study. Frequently bothered by the
question why I had to study this or that, or why I had to study at all, I
played truant and went on my moped to an old castle ruin in the middle of
peaceful nature to think it all over. Why on earth did I had to live this life?
What was I to do with it? Seeing no future it was very difficult to become very
enthusiastic about what I had to learn at school and about life in general. My
schoolmates started to ‘chase the birds’, and I did my best to show I was part
of the gang. But I felt I was doing something wrong, it was all a show and I
felt very uncomfortable approaching the girls the way the boys did. I’d rather
be just good friends with the girls. Making love and so with them was something
I couldn’t do. For me girls had also something sacred. For some reason I had
great respect for them and I had to keep a respectful distance in a
relationship with girls and women in general. My identity was seeking the
security and love and support of a strong man. I was a woman and this Men’s
World where I got into showed empty and arrogant. But I couldn’t break out of
it, I had to live it whether I liked it or not. And as life was not offering me
anything else I joined in and tried to make the best of it. I played man,
copying the behaviour of popular boys and men. Actually, copying that behaviour
got me quite popular. But at the same time it left me very unhappy. In spite of
all the difficulties I managed to finish secondary school with a certificate.
Somewhere in the
mid-eighties of the previous century, I found a book in the public library of
my hometown: ‘I, Monique, a Woman’, a book in which a story was written about
someone having changed its male body into a female one. This person was called
to be transsexual. Here, I realized, was the solution to my problem as I felt
so much in common with this person. I realized I had to take action to get out
of my imprisonment, but it would take some years before I had the nerve to take
a first step. Actually it was that I could no longer suppress my identity. It
was in the late eighties that it cried out for life and I had to do something
to stop my suffering. There was no way I could longer play this man farce, I
was a woman and I had to live as one. At that time I was no longer living with
my parents and I had the privilege to be myself in the safety of my own
apartment. Of course in my work and when I was with friends I had to play man.
But I was so fed up with acting, I felt so disgusted about it. And I was always
so tensed en insecure. I had to be myself anywhere with everyone and stop this
ridiculous play, trying to be a man to others while I was not a man. Truth had
to live, and I found my first companions in this called transsexuality at a
meeting at the NVSH in Haarlem. From
one of them, who was already under treatment, I got the address of the
gender-team at the VU medisch centrum in
Amsterdam.
First I made an appointment
with a psychologist, who asked me how on earth I got this idea that I was a
woman. I couldn’t explain, I didn’t know, and neither could he. But his
question rose doubt whether I was on the right path. Was I going to do the
right thing? I had to dig deep into myself but couldn’t find a clear answer as
tensions grew and blurred my sight on what to do. I decided I would suppress
this identity firmly, but found out I couldn’t, it had grown so big and
powerful. And there was this Truth; I had to live this Truth. And this Truth
was concealed in my real identity; I have to be honest, I am a woman, I will
have to live as one, and I will live as one! But at that time I was unable to
bare the tensions in my life, I was unable to think strait, I needed help
desperately. I got overstrained and started to smash all the idle luxury in my
apartment, got drunk every day to avoid myself and the world that I started to
hate. I hated its empty show, its arrogance, and its sheer stupidity. Friends
of mine saw my downfall and my inability to cope with whatever problem I was
fighting, and brought me into a mental hospital. The psychiatrist there
overheard my story and diagnosed travesty. He advised me to buy myself a nice
dress and find myself a nice girlfriend who didn’t mind me dressing up as a
woman, and that was it. As I was overstrained and very confused and not able to
live on my own I could stay at the hospital. The psychiatrist gave me
tranquillizers and sleeping pills but no therapy to help me cope with my high
tensions. Every Friday he had one hour in which he heard eight to ten patients
in one meeting. And all I can remember of these meetings was that it exhausted
me completely having to listen to other peoples’ problems, and I was not able,
not given the privacy the matter needed, to speak about mine. Every now and
then I met this psychiatrist in the hallway exclaiming: ‘Heavens, are you still
here?’ and then wandering off talking some Portuguese that he had learned on
his favourite holidays.
I started a diary, to mirror
myself, to get some clearance in my thinking. And I started drawing and
painting. Reading was difficult: I couldn’t concentrate for a long time and got
very quickly mentally exhausted. How I managed, I don’t know, but in half a
year I got out of this hospital and back into my heavily ruined apartment. It
took me another half a year to get back to work again, but I did not feel well
at all. For years after I got out of hospital I’ve been looking through a
pipeline, had great difficulty to concentrate and was quickly very high tensed.
I still drank a lot, but I managed to survive in this world that I hated more
and more. I felt very unhappy, and tried to escape my world treating my
eardrums with heavy sounds; music of Pink Floyd: Us and Them, Comfortably Numb.
No, my neighbours were not so happy either.
And then something strange
happened, I fell in love, some kind of love. I met a young woman named Irene.
She was going through a difficult time, recovering from an onslaught on her
life. I felt it was good to be with her, and she felt that it was good to be
with me. We talked about her problems, not mine. This helped me to a new escape
from my own problem and it also gave me the opportunity to stop drinking. So
far so good, and I really felt happy being with her. Although my true identity
tapped me regularly on the shoulder, I was surprisingly well able to ignore
that. Until one day I was to pick her op from her apartment and saw her
speaking near the elevator door with someone hiding his face in the hood of his
coat. It was late summer. I took respectful distance and waited till Irene and
her mysterious friend were finished speaking. We kissed, and then she said:
‘That person is a transsexual, but I don’t mind, I sympathize with this kind of
people. They have a very difficult life and I feel pity for them.’
Our relation was not one to last.
I don’t know what caused it but one day she got frightened. Somehow I had
triggered something she hadn’t got over, and she wanted me to go away. For more
than a year I was able to ignore the tapping of the Truth on my shoulder, for
more than a year I could resist my good old friend Alcohol. In that time I
tried to figure out what love really meant. I found out that I had never been
in love with Irene, but in love with the relation, in love with the fact that
this relation pleased my parents, in love with the idea that I could please my
parents’ secret wish that I was to continue the growth of our family tree: in
love with a situation. Truth fiercely slapped my face and my identity smiled at
me as I looked into the mirror. I had to take steps to live this Truth, to be
able to be myself. There was no way to avoid what lay ahead of me, I had to
pass through, I had to live, not to survive. ‘How’ I exclaimed, ‘meditation,
meditation’ I heard a voice saying. ‘But what is meditation, what am I to do?’
I asked myself. There came no answer. I tried to get some information about the
subject in the public library of my hometown, but found nothing satisfying.
It was during a quiet
holiday in Tarragona, Spain, before the tourist season, that I decided I would
have my body changed and start living as a woman. A man’s got to do what a
man’s got to do, and a woman too. When I got home I contacted the gender-team
and made an appointment to discus my situation. I explained my problem first to
a psychiatrist. I asked him whether there might be a possibility to treat this
transsexuality with psychotherapy, suggesting that maybe it could be treated
like schizophrenia. But no, they had tried, and had searched for many years to
find out whether transsexuality could be treated by psychotherapy, without any
result. He admitted that what the gender-team provided as help was in a strict
sense no real cure for the disease, but the best they could offer to take away
the suffering. Later I had a visit with a professor and head of the
gender-team, in which we discussed my problem and the solutions offered by the
gender-team once more. We agreed that a psychiatrist would monitor my
development so when things got out of hand there would be someone who knew
about my situation and professional help could be given. An endocrinologist
gave me a prescription for medicines that would slowly take away the masculine
hair growth and ad some feminine fat on my body to give it a more female shape.
My facial hair was to be depilated by a dermatologist. We agreed that the
coming year I had to live as a woman before there would be made a decision for
a gender change operation. In the meantime I had regular visits with a
psychiatrist, to discus my development and the problems I faced and how I tried
to solve these.
In spite of my incessant
mental exhaustion I tried to study myself with the guide of some books by von
Dürckheim, Jung, and Lama Anagarika Govinda that I had bought by intuition.
These books started to open my eyes wide for the fact that I had to find the
solution for my problems in myself. At that time I could read for about ten
minutes, then I had to rest to digest. When the psychiatrist who monitored me
took some time off to deliver her first baby I got another psychiatrist,
‘Niels’ he introduced himself. Niels was somehow different. From the start he
gave the impression that my story was something completely new to him, and he
showed great interest when I showed him the books I was studying. At that time
I read an article about Rachel Carson, a biologist who in the early sixties of
the previous century had written a book that had shaken the world: 'Silent
Spring'. The book had inflicted a war between chemical industries who had a
great interest in producing DDT for the agricultural sector that tried to
produce more crop by using DDT as an insecticide, and environmentalists who
noticed that the use of DDT had a devastating affect on nature and in
particular on wildlife. The article came with a photo of Rachel, which I used
to make a small painting of her ear for Niels, as a token for my gratitude for
his exceptional capacity to listen and sincere interest in my development.
After my first visits with
the professor and the endocrinologist I had to tell my family, my friends, my
employer and my colleagues about the change I was making in my life. My friends
took it all well, they somehow expected something like this. No one had ever
told me, but most of them thought I was gay. No, I was not gay, though a
relation with a man of course had passed my mind sometimes, but only with me
being a woman having a female body. At my work most colleagues in their first
reaction admired my step, and my employer promised me he would support me every
way he could. Having said this I gave him my full trust and my consent to
inquire the gender-team about the treatment and its effects on my capability to
work. So far all went well. Also my neighbours and many other acquaintances in
my hometown took it surprisingly well.
My two younger sisters had
great difficulty to cope with the situation as they lost their ‘Big Bro’.
Gaining a new sister couldn’t take away the pain they felt at this loss. For my
parents disaster struck. Their complete world of ideas, hopes and expectations
fell into ruins. They could not cope with this big loss and told me they no
longer wanted to see me.
At my work my new identity
caused sometimes trouble. Not all clients in the shop where I worked could
appreciate to be helped by a woman, some certainly not by a woman with still a
rather masculine face. And though I repeatedly told my colleagues that when
they had questions or remarks on my behaviour to speak out freely, some of them
just couldn’t. And so problems left unsolved, and with this, tensions between
some colleagues and me grew, and grew, and grew until my presence in the shop
became untenable. My employer gave me a job at the office, but there was no
real job to do for me there, moreover I had no experience at all in any office
work. On top of it I found out that the department I ‘worked’ for was trying to
sell goods to the USA while the rate of the US dollar was so low one could
better import goods from there and sell it in Europe. They were certainly not
making money. Business was not going as planned and my employer was very eager
to find ways to cut losses. I felt very unhappy having to do either useless or
uninteresting work and I was very eager to find my way out of the ever-growing
mess I was getting into. At my work tensions kept growing and I got ill,
overstrained, burned out, and was thrown out.
Fortunately there were also
some more favourable developments. One of them was a friendly relationship with
Iris, a dermatologist. Every once a week I visited here to have my facial hair
depilated. There, in the peace of her apartment she patiently listened to me
while she worked on my face and I told her about the dreams I had on previous
nights, and my quest for the Truth and search for inner peace and
self-confidence. She suggested I should meet her meditation-teacher, and ask
him if it was possible to join in a new group. Whether it would be helpful in
my quest of the Truth she didn’t know, but from her own experience she said it
would certainly give me some inner peace. And so, one day Iris took me to a
large house named Amitabha, in a small peaceful village. It had a large
meditation room and a shop selling books and Buddha statues. There I was to
meet Iris’ meditation teacher Peter. After he had given a lecture for a small
audience about Buddhism, I asked Peter whether this meditation practice he
taught would help me find self-confidence. He reflected on my question and then
said: ‘That might also be possible.’ I signed in. It would take me quite a few
years to understand what ‘meditation’ really meant. As I practised regularly
and did my best to study myself I got insight, bit by bit. I felt that my
regular visits at Amitabha did me well. José, the lady that ran the place, was
very kind and very helpful to find me books to study that fitted my
development. After a year Peter suggested me to join him on a holiday to
Thailand where I could meet his teacher, a Buddhist monk. My intuition told me
to go, go, go! My wallet showed me this was impossible. There were still seven
months to go, but how were I to find that big amount of money that was needed
for an aeroplane ticket and a three weeks stay in Thailand. And would I be fit
enough for this challenge, as I was still too ill to get back to work.
When my employer had shown
me the door he was legally not able to discharge me, Dutch law provided that
because of my illness, and I got a full salary paid by his health insurance.
Being ill and not able to work was something that bothered me. I found myself a
failure not being able to join in for work and having to depend on all those
people who worked for their living and had to provide for my income as well.
Iris pointed out to me that being out of work gave me the opportunity to spend
all my time on my spiritual development that was necessary to heal.
Of course I got angry when
my employer told me to go. But as I tried to imagine myself in his place, I
could understand his move and was able to forgive him. I realized how much
inner peace that gave me.
The mortgage on the
apartment that I lived in was becoming too expensive as the benefit I got from
my employers’ health insurance was stopped in April 1995 and was taken over by
the national Occupational Disability Insurance. I made a drop of income from
about thirty percent. I had to sell my apartment and rent a cheap one. The
money I made from this sale enabled me to go to Thailand, where I was to
experience very friendly people, warm weather and an atmosphere to relax and
have fun. I met some wise monks who told me some small stories. At that time I
was unable to understand these stories, but they showed to be valuable seeds
that developed into insight as I kept asking myself what they had meant by what
they had said. Many years later they showed to be the door to a development
beyond my imagination.
In my new apartment I found
it very difficult to find peace, which I needed badly to cure from my burnout
and overstraining, and to concentrate on my study. It was an old building that
was anything but soundproof, my neighbours virtually lived in my apartment. The
lack of privacy was a mutual source of tension and irritation for all
inhabitants. My Turkish neighbours were usually very quiet, and I could cope
with the situation, but I did not get any better. Tensions grew as they moved
out and were replaced by Dutch with stereo systems. I knew this was my payment
in kind for the past years of frustration in my previous apartment, in which I
had forced my company upon my neighbours with my music. I was to take strong
measures to create me a place where I could rest and cure. Having to listen to
music had become a torment. It annoyed me and exhausted me completely, whether
it was music in shops, music in the street, or music from my neighbours. Even
listening to my own music irritated me for I was well aware that, even at low
volume, my neighbours had to listen to it too. In change for my old stereo
system that had got out of use I bought a new CD player and a pair of
headphones. That was to be my contribution to peace in this building and for my
neighbours. Now being quiet myself I could convince my neighbours more easily
to do the same, I thought. But some of them were not easy to persuade, failing
to understand that I was ill and needed peace desperately to cure.
Getting a benefit from the
Occupational Disability Insurance was another source of high tensions, as I was
to be judged by medical doctors who were not educated in human psyche. Every
visit was like a Russian roulette and every visit I found another doctor who
was not well informed and not very interested in my problems either. Every time
I was called for an inquiry they told me that they could not judge about my
situation, as they were not educated for it. I asked Niels if he could make a
psychiatric report to help these doctors make a proper judgement. At that time
Niels was no longer working for the gender-team and had started his own
practice where he and some colleagues practised relation-therapy. We agreed
that I was to visit him once a month to discus my development, and in about
nine months he would be able to make a report. Writing my diary every day I
confronted myself with my daily situations, the questions that puzzled me, and
the answers that came unexpectedly. The insight that grew and the development I
went through I discussed with Niels. Also my problems, my incessant exhaustion,
my problems to concentrate and to sleep, my frustrations about the way I was
judged for my Occupational Disability Insurance benefit, and feeling out of
place in this world. And my grief over the reaction of my parents and being
showed the door by my employer. And the grief over my past, the many years that
I had been living in high tension and frustration, wandering and searching for
a solution. There was a lot for me to digest but I was sure that I was able to
do this and, like a true Alchemist changes Lead into Gold, change my burden of
life into wisdom and happiness. Niels was also convinced that I, if given the
time, could do the job. ‘Actually you don’t need a psychiatrist’, he once said,
‘You can do it yourself’, judging my development and the initiatives I took in
my quest for healing.
At that time we both thought
it best that I had to be given more time to recover well from my burnout and
overstraining. It was very difficult for us to judge in what period I would be
able to return to work. After eight visits Niels considered it better to give
it another half a year and then judge the situation again to see whether I was
fit enough.
The medical doctor who was
to judge me this time for my benefit however thought differently. He first put
forward that he was not able to judge me, as my problems were psychical. Then
he put aside the psychiatric report he had received from Niels and said he
thought I was able to work for half days. This man got me so furious as I had
never been in my entire life. How could he, given the fact he was not educated
and therefore not able to judge, be so arrogant and plain stupid to put aside a
psychiatric report based on eight visits of one hour each taken over a period
of nine months and ‘judge’ that I was able to get back to work by a mere
thought. This man’s doctors certificate had no more value than one of the two
hundred and fifty blank sheets on a roll in my bathroom. In stead of half a
year to work on my recovery I got half a year of high tensions to fight
bureaucracy and get his judgement undone.
My health situation was
getting worse and worse instead of getting better. For more than half a year I
had to live on half a payment. It was when the institution that had so far
judged me for my benefit was taken over, that in the screening of my case
another medical doctor found out that something was seriously wrong. With many
apologies for the trouble it had given me the payment was repaired, but never
in my entire life have I been so ill and completely exhausted. My home had become
a mess, as I was unable to do the household. I was frequently unable to walk or
to ride my bike to do the shopping’s. Failing to keep standing on my legs I
often fell crying on the floor wishing death would take me from this ‘human’
world. I had lost my voice, was burned out completely and a nervous wreck
suffering from attacks of intense fury. In my fantasy I killed medical doctors
by the dozen, shooting them with loads of bullets and biting their throats like
a wild animal. With this I realized how people like Adolph Hitler, Joseph
Stalin and Pol Pot had come to their revolting crimes, and I felt myself a
criminal alike. This fury I had to get out of my life definitely as even the
smallest incidents fuelled it and made me react excessively angry. The incident
had given a severe blow to the already low opinion I had of the institute and
the doctors who judged patients for an Occupational Disability Insurance
benefit. Trust in certified helping hands had completely gone, the only
exception was Niels. He was pretty straightforward; he could not help me he
once said. But still he does, we correspond. Twice a year I write him about my
developments, once a year during his holiday he answers back and gives me
something to contemplate, suggests a book I should read, apologises for having
me misunderstood the previous letter, and compliments me on my development and
the insights I gained. With this I am convinced I have found the best solution
possible to get at least some psychiatric help, as in Niels I found someone who
shows sincere interest in my development and whom I can fully trust.
It was not until 1998 that I started to get a grip on
this fury. When I was studying the Majjhima-nikaya, a Buddhist bookwork that
explains how and what human consciousness rises from, I found out how feelings
came into existence by interpretation of the existential world. The right view
was twofold. First one has to acknowledge and accept what was happening. Second
one has to understand that one’s feeling and reaction on the happening depends
on one’s own interpretation of this happening. An example came with a televised
documentary about a passenger’s ship that had got on fire at full see. As it
was an old ship with a wooden deck, the fire spread rapidly. Most passengers
panicked as the lifeboats could not be used because the davits they hung in
were fixed by many layers of paint and were unable to manoeuvre them alongside
the ship. One man however did not panic and was therefore able to guide and
help many passengers to a safer place awaiting help from other ships. How was
it possible that this man, being in a situation where most people panicked and
feared for their lives, kept so cool? How was I to keep cool in situations that
usually brought me in high tension and anger?
In the summer of 1997 Achaan
Phra Chantaran Sri Pikul came to Holland. Achaan is Thai for teacher. During my
visit to Thailand in 1995 Achaan had become also my personal teacher. Since
then I am his Looksit, meaning pupil. Achaan is no ordinary teacher like a
schoolteacher, he is a Buddhist monk and the Lord Abbott of a temple in Chiang
Mai and a most kind and a humble man. He is a very friendly monk whose wisdom
is far beyond my comprehension. During his visit in the Netherlands he made me
realize that my healing was not only for my happiness and welfare, but my
life’s experiences and the wisdom that I gained was also to help others. Being
a living example himself he gave me the best reason for living. And so one day,
kneeling for a Buddha statue in the meditation room at Amitabha, and in the
company of my teacher, I wished sincerely and with all my heart that the
wisdom, compassion, and loving kindness of Buddha would pervade me, in all my
thoughts, all my speech, and all my actions, to enable me to help all other
living beings out of their suffering. And that this wish would be for the
support and inspiration of my teacher. These honest and powerful wishes started
a very strong development in my healing.
Achaan showed to be able to
help me in my quest for the Truth and in my quest for healing. Only at that
time I had no idea I was to find something more than just self-confidence and
healing from my burnout and overstraining. During his visit in the Netherlands
he gave some lectures and took interest in how the Dutch were living and had
created their land out of the sea. Because of my illness I was not able to meet
him as often as I would and join him and the group of looksit on his trips
through the Netherlands. But in the few occasions we met he was able to make me
see what direction I had to take in my life to heal myself and get out of my
misery.
In the years following his visit I got very ill. I got
a very painful liver and at night I was unable to sleep as I was coughing op
thick mucus out of my lungs. All nights I had to sit on the couch in the living
room, supporting my body with pillows to keep it strait up while I dozed. It
was impossible to lie down, as the mucus would choke me. It took two and a half
years before I had my first nights sleep horizontally in bed again. The pain in
my liver got slowly worse and exhausted me even more. The annual medical
examinations by the endocrinologist showed that nothing was wrong with my
liver. The pain had everything to do with the digestion of my spiritual burden.
In the meantime I did my best to study ‘the Majjhima-nikaya’, a bookwork
containing the life philosophy of Gotama Buddha. I also studied Lama Anagarika
Govinda’s ‘Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism’. Understanding the lectures was
one thing. Finding it as a Truth in myself another. I found out that answers on
my questions only came when I stopped thinking. Practising a meditation method
called Anapanasati from ‘the Majjhima-nikaya’ proved to help me there. It also
brought some inner peace. And when I was writing my problems in my diary trying
to find my way out of a problem I often concluded writing: ‘…and so I have to
practice Anapanasati. Anapanasati is a Pali word for
mindfulness-when-breathing-in-and-out. With breathing we usually only think of
the function of our lungs. But if one takes a closer look at the physiological
system that makes the physical body, one can see it as a whole system of breathing
in and out. And the breathing of the lungs influences all this breathing a
great deal. Peter once had me experience the effect of my breathing in and out
on my psyche. He told me to breath in and out about twice as quickly as normal.
As I did so, I felt more and more uncomfortable unto a point I nearly started
crying. So the way I breathed had shown not only to influence my physical body
but also directly my spiritual wellbeing.
Studying the Majjhima-nikaya
and practising meditation showed to be very helpful in gaining insight in how
my identity had come alive, and it shone a bright light on the real source of
my identity problem. The insights I got were immense and very detailed and came
always at a time I least expected it. As they were much to detailed to write
them down I transmuted them into metaphors and made paintings of them to keep
the insights alive.
I started realising that the
only way I could find security in life was by not depending on self.
Rather than depending on self-confidence, depending on Truth I was to find
inner peace. Self, as I found out, was a creation to find out all about life,
and having found out all about life, becoming unnecessary and being left. With
this I do not mean one can live without a self, but one is no longer attached
to a fixed idea of self. It became clear to me that my self, my identity, was
like a barricade behind which I tried to find security from fear that rooted
deep in my sub-consciousness. My conscience was emerging from this abyss to
confront me with life I somehow dreaded much. But I was unable to remember what
wrong behaviour of mine had created this. From the first day it had emerged to
my consciousness my fear and dread and my search for security were all neatly
covered under a general accepted normal idea of ‘boy and girl’. So no one was
able to find the trapdoor through which my girl-identity at the age of seven
had come alive.
So I had to change my view
on life entirely to get freed
from this self and the problems that it caused. The wrong view on the
existential world, where my self was built on, had to be changed for a right
view, a right interpretation of the existential world. Here Truth came into
vision, Truth that so many years had lain hidden behind the many vales of my
self, pervading it with its virgin light. Truth, whom I’ve been carrying in my
spiritual womb all my life was finally born and showed its face.
In the Majjhima-nikaya I
found the clearest explanation (sutta) of how an identity comes alive. The
Madhupindikasutta in there explains step by step how the fortress of self is
built, pulling up barricades of fixed ideas based on a wrong view of the
existential world, and how it gives birth to obsessions. But before I was able
to understand this explanation I had to study myself for quite a while
guided by the previous suttas and other books. Wisdom was certainly not coming
free of charge. I had great difficulty concentrating on my study and was
quickly mentally exhausted. The continuing pain in my liver wasn’t making life
any easier either. It was all to clear to me that I was going through a kind of
starvation, or you may say a kind of mourning. It was really very painful and
not at all easy being mirrored the results of my own ignorance and my wrong
grasp of the existential world and digest everything my conscience showed me in
order to learn from it, get rid of it and heal myself. Often I felt all-alone
with my feelings as it was so difficult to explain to others. I think that only
Achaan, Niels and Iris understood the heavy struggle I went through and the
deep suffering I experienced. My eagerness to work my way out of this painful
misery caused also tension and frustration. I had to learn to accept that
healing needed time and I could not do more than my best to acknowledge and digest
whatever problems life served me to let wisdom mature and take away the source
of my problems.
The year 2000 AD was the year in which all pieces of
the big puzzle came together. I had finished studying the first part of the
Majjhima-nikaya and I felt the need for a little change. In February I bought a
copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses which I found surprisingly understandable as I saw
from my study of the Majjhima-nikaya how Ovid’s world had come into existence.
The people who lived 2000 years ago and understood this story fully must have
lived in another state of awareness than we do today. For instance today the
idea of the sun being the centre of our solar system is an idea as fixed in our
view on life as two thousand years ago the idea of the sun circling the earth.
But the people of that time must have had a better understanding of the fact
that the sun could be seen as a metaphor for a state of consciousness in a
hierarchy of gods and nymphs and all other kind of beings that mirrored their
sub-consciousness and made clear why certain happenings had occurred. The whole
Roman pantheon is a model to give insight into the source of our being, either
wellbeing or misery and disease. It is an ancient model for psychotherapy in
which one could reflect oneself and if in trouble could find a way out of it.
Whatever pain we feel it is always spiritual. It is not the physical body that
feels pain. The physical body just passes signals; there’s sensory impingement.
But experiencing pain is depending on consciousness and the interpretation of
the sensory impingement on the six sense organs.
That summer I bought myself
a Dutch translation of the Nag Hammadi-scriptures, the Upanishads and the Tao
Tê Tjing. They shone a new light on my problems and how they were born. I found
that my previous study of the Majjhima-nikaya was very helpful to understand
these treatises and works. Together they gave me the full view on how and why
human being had come into existence and with that also the purpose of my
development. As I had the full view on creation and with that the creation of
my gender-identity and the problems that had arisen from this, I was able to
let go of my gender-identity. There was no more need for it to stay alive, as I
fully understood it had no base to protect me. I realized fully that in
absolute sense there exists neither men nor women; there are human bodies. And
human bodies were mirroring human being, mirroring happiness and sadness,
mirroring joy and sorrow, mirroring old and young; mirroring human life to one
another. And so I freed myself from life behind the magic mirror called ‘own
body’ that I once ignorant had stepped into and identified myself with.
At that time also came a
vision of a rare world of atoms in which all solid bodies dissolved in a play
of tiny nervous moving glimmerings. Immense thought-forces brought tensions and
worked upon them churning and giving them shape. I realized how futile my
personal power was in this creation. It was clear to me that I would never ever
be able to get any grip on this process, let alone in a way that it would bring
me long-lasting peace and happiness the way human being tries to get it
nowadays. I realized that trying to get what I want and to avert what I don’t
want only works the wrong way. All my blind obsessions create a perpetual
mobile of craving and aversion, in which I would be caught for a lifetime and
more if I had stayed ignorant and not knowing what caused it all.
Now I also clearly saw what Jesus Christ meant with
‘The Holy Father’, ‘The Kingdom of my Father’, ‘His Son’, and it became all
clear to me how my heavenly conscience had pushed my identity into being as
fear and dread and shame from wrong conduct in previous lives had made me
search for shelter behind a barricade of self to avoid being faced with the
payment in kind I was to receive. I acknowledged my ignorance and my arrogance,
and tears came into my eyes as I felt deep remorse for all that was laying as a
burden in my sub-consciousness’ conscience. Understanding the Parable of the
Lost Son right and fully I told my Holy Father of my ignorance and my
arrogance. Feeling deep remorse I asked Him to reach me His Right Hand, Jesus
Christ and help me find my way back to His Kingdom, His unconditional love, His
all embracing compassion and everlasting peace and happiness. In the full
awareness that it all lay in my self, I had to find my way through the many
veils of my self into my sub-consciousness. And here the explanations of Gotama
Buddha and the practising of Anapanasati would help me. Jesus Christ and Gotama
Buddha showed to be brothers, helping me each in his own way but both from the
same Truth.
As my gender-identity had
become without foundation it started to crumble down. The need to live as a
woman had gone. Wearing female clothing made me even feel uncomfortable as it
had become an empty show. I had never worn much make-up, but now I stopped
using it at all. There was a great change coming over me. Going through my
garments I found many of them not fitting my new identity which had become
neither male nor female. And so I took them out of my wardrobe and put them
into plastic bags and gave them to the Salvation Army.
I also realized that I had
to stop taking hormones. But this proved to be more difficult than I had
expected. ‘What if I were to go to Thailand?’ I asked myself, ‘Then I would
have to pass the customs, showing my passport which states: ‘Female’. Now I had
to play woman when I was not a woman. But I could not keep on taking hormones
just because I had to pass the customs in Thailand or to live up to other
people’s ideas that there exists either men or women and I had to be one of
them. I knew when I was going to stop taking hormones the body would slowly
lose its female appearance and would certainly gain a more male one. How was I
to live with this in a society that is based on fixed ideas of man and woman?
To appear as a woman I had to take these hormones. To appear as a man was
impossible because of the gender change operation I had undergone. On my birth
certificate was added by juridical decree that my gender was changed from male
to female. All my identity documents were now based on this.
My conscience told me I had
to be honest and live the Truth and stop the hormone treatment. It took months
of inner conflict, till finally my liver signalled that if I wanted to keep on
living I had to stop taking these medicines. It was in December 2000 when I got
ill and the pain in my liver got worse. And even then I could not stop. I
clearly had to digest the death of my old identity. In February 2001 I was able
to let go of it and stop the hormone treatment. After that it took me still
another year of mourning and digesting to have my insight fully matured and
being able to live according to this insight. It was in February 2002 that a
young man from the secondary school opposite of my apartment asked me: ‘Madam,
are you a man or a woman?’ that I replied him with a big smile and without any
hesitation that I was neither. Leaving him speechless and me experiencing
profound happiness and inner peace. I knew I had cured myself from my gender
identity disorder. Never before in my life had I experienced such a superior
freedom and inner peace and happiness.
My feelings of
fear are declining and I feel free, strong and stable now the barricades of
self have been left and I have no other foundation than Truth.
Chapter 4, A
cure found by chance.
As all of them have had an
education based on a bio-chemical scientific approach of human being, for many M.D.
the word meditation has the idea of something vague and not fitting in with
modern Western Medicine. Because of a wrong idea and prejudice many of them are
reluctant to listen to any explanation, let alone try and practice it. This is
not only due to their educational background. Many people who practice
meditation are not able to explain it properly either. Unfortunately the past
two decades of the New Age movement have only contributed to this vagueness and
prejudice.
The Majjhima-nikaya however
is a Buddhist scripture that gives clear and very detailed information in
various ways on a meditation practice called Anapanasati that one needs to
experience in this healing process. What I mean with the word meditation is
‘state of awareness’. To give an example: As you are reading this, your state
of awareness is focused on the meaning of this writing and therefore this
influences you. But looking at this screen with its writing you can also focus
on the sentence, thinking ‘there’s a sentence’ and whatever is written does not
influence you anymore. A next step for instance is to focus on the fact that
you see black (the letters) and yellow (the background). Thinking ‘there is
black and yellow’ you are no longer influenced by the idea that there is a
sentence. Next step is to focus on the fact that there is visual consciousness
and you are no longer influenced by the idea that there is black and yellow.
This is something one has to practice and experience to see that the whole idea
of oneself, one’s identity, is something that is liable to change, depending on
an interpretation of the existential world. It is of outmost importance that
one experiences how one
creates one’s own identity. Only than raises the awareness that one can truly
take away the problems that rise from this identity by changing one’s view on
the existential world.
With existential world I
mean whatever impinges our sense organs. For instance what we call light or
sound or taste or smell, or what we can touch, and the mental objects we experience
when we dream, remember or imagine something.
If you look at the body
thinking: ‘This body is mine’, this idea influences you. If its appearance is
something you like, you‘ll start feeling happy. If you do not like it you’ll
start feeling unhappy, and if you approach it neutral you’ll be loosing
interest and neglect it. Feeling happy about it you will have to do a lot to
keep it that way, because bodies tend to change and with age lose their
youthful attraction. Feeling unhappy about it you might try and do everything
to change it into a form that pleases you. Plastic surgery can do a lot to help
you there, but what is provided is not lasting very long either and always has
an other side of the picture that is only showed after one has undergone the
treatment. Many people having problems with their physical appearance are
getting so depressed that they are given anti-depressives to suppress the
mental pain. It should be clear that this is no healing and not helping these
patients to find the source of their problem in themselves, and by taking away
the source getting rid of the problem. Neglecting the body is not a healthy
attitude either. All three points of view will not give inner peace and a
long-lasting happiness.
How on earth did you get
this idea that you are your own body? How on earth
did you get this idea that you have your own body? Think this
over! These ideas we have sucked in with our mother’s milk and we have never
ever reflected on how these ideas have come into existence. Even so the ideas
of boy and girl, and man and woman. We’ve never ever questioned ourselves how
these ideas came alive and got fixed in our minds as absolute beings. Without
giving it much thought we are spoon feeding each other daily a wrong conception
of human being from our mutual ignorance. This way we create a man’s world and
a woman’s world, a boy’s world and a girl’s world and forget that we are all
equal human beings in the first place. How do we create these worlds? Why do we
create these worlds?
Take a closer look at what
you are doing now. Yes, you are reading. But has this action only come alive
from your curiosity? No, of course not. Someone else made this writing and is
at this moment influencing your eyes to come alive, to focus on this writing.
The reader and the writer together cause the life of the
eyes at the moment and the life of
the rest of the body that supports them. No one owns a personal body. All human
bodies are brought alive constantly by an idea of Two: ‘Me here’ and ‘someone or
something else there’. Now I’ll write it a little different:
‘Me-here-and-someone-or-something-else-there’ and I name this an idea of One.
Just reflect on this. See how the idea of Two is made out of the idea of One
and vice versa just by a different interpretation, by a different state of
awareness.
As the idea of Low cannot
exist without the idea of High, the idea of Wet cannot exist without the idea
of Dry, the idea of Hot cannot exist without the idea of Cold and the idea of
Young cannot exist without the idea of Old, it is that the idea of ‘I here’
cannot exist without the idea of ‘The Other there’ and the idea of Male cannot
exist without the idea of Female. This way of ideas coming into consciousness
is called Duality and its base is Oneness. You might also say that Duality is
concealed in Oneness; [ .
As Low is born out of High
and at the same time High is born out of Low, and Wet is born out of Dry and at
the same time Dry is born out of Wet, and Hot is born out of Cold and at the
same time Cold is born out of Hot, and Young is born out of Old and at the same
time Old is born out of Young, it is that ‘I here’ is born out of ‘The Other
there’ and at the same time ‘The Other there’ is born out of ‘I here’, and the
idea of Male is born out of the idea of Female and at the same time the idea of
Female is born out of the idea of Male. Let it be clear that no single idea can
exist on its own. Every idea that comes to our consciousness has a partner; a
suitable companion.
It is written in the Bible
book Genesis that woman was created from man’s rib while man was asleep. It
should be right understood that with man
is meant a state of human consciousness.
And man was not taking a nap, but this human being was not fully awoken. Man
was ignorant and not able to live and learn from life. This Bible story
is not to be taken literally; it mirrors how human being comes to consciousness
by division, by creating duality in oneness, by making Two from One:
God-and-man, Adam-and-Eve, [ , being the necessary basic idea on
which human consciousness could develop further. And it tells us how
consciousness crystallizes out more and more by giving names to ‘thing-dom’. In
the end of the book Genesis we are warned not to strive for more than granted
is and to know more than we should. The mess you’re in shows you missed that
line. You’ll have to set yourself a goal in life to get out of it. Only a right
goal will give the right help.
As in creation our
consciousness comes alive by division, by making Two out of One, religion does
the opposite, making One from Two, bringing our consciousness back to
experiencing oneness again. Religion (re + ligare; "to bind",
from Latin) means nothing more than realising oneness, by seeing with wisdom
that ‘I here’ and ‘the rest of the entire world’ are mirroring one another and
are in fact one, a unity, each part born from each other and dying together.
Sleep on this and wake up!
The idea of self is born
from consciousness of oneness, but you experience this idea of self being
separated, by a wrong interpretation of the existential world. It is judgement
that gave birth to you! Sleep on this, wake up and stop judging!
Going downhill in division,
getting fixed by a wrong view on the existential world, your identity will
crystallize and get more solid. In an idea world of man-and-woman it craves for
living either one of those (man or woman) you think being a save heaven. But in
doing so you create more and more restlessness and trouble.
Going uphill in religion,
your identity will become solvable. By a right view on the existential world
your identity solves, detaches from fixed ideas, and gives inner peace and
happiness.
A right view, a
right interpretation of the existential world, is the base for right thought,
right speech and right action. Right thought, right speech and right action are
the vehicles you need to develop the right way. They on their turn are the
foundation of a right way of living, free of al forms of greed, aversion and
selfishness. And as the right view is a view of wisdom it will also inspire you
to make effort and cultivate yourself in a broad and right way. It will help
you to live mindful of your entire behaviour and direct you to experience life
in a higher (no, not up there but more pure: cleaned from the stains of greed
and aversion) consciousness and help you to concentrate on what is really
necessary in life. In Buddhist scriptures this is explained as the Ariya
Atthangika Magga; the Nobel Eightfold Path.
Instead of going down the
road of division, you have to turn around and start going up the road of
religion. At this point you make the real conversion in life. Nowadays, with
conversion is generally meant a person’s spiritual change or adoption to a
certain religious belief. But the real
conversion is made when one’s self related consciousness is left for a
universal consciousness. When
duality is transcended and one experiences the reality of oneness. You’ll have
to make a 180° turn on the path of life you’re walking by seeing with wisdom
that division is the way towards creating your idea of being separated from the
rest of the existential world. Religion is the way back towards experiencing
oneness by seeing with wisdom that your identity forms one with the rest of the
existential world in which it is mirrored.
To get detached from the
wrong fixed idea of self, your identity which brings so much misery, you’ll
need to make this turn in life. Seeing with wisdom that the foundations of self
are born from a wrong view, a wrong interpretation of the existential world,
can take away these foundations and detaches the self from a fixed idea. So the
identity becomes solvable, workable, by a right view on the existential world.
Depending on a fixed idea of
self, you depend on a wrong view of the existential world, and that is why
self-confidence is always under attack and cannot provide long-lasting peace
and happiness. Here is the main switch in life that has to be taken: from
trying to get self-confidence to not depending on self. This can
only be done when you see with wisdom that the ‘I’ aimed self, which for
instance causes selfishness and greed, is born from the ideas ‘I here’ and ‘the
other there’ and by seeing with wisdom that both ideas cannot exist without
each other, are born from each other and are in fact one. So you’ll have to
make a conversion in the way you look at the existential world. You can create
I-related consciousness by the view that ‘I here’ is separated from ‘the other
there’. You can create a universal consciousness by the view that ‘I here’ is
linked with and born from and forms oneness with ‘the other there’. The first
view is called a wrong view because it leads into misery. The second leads out
of misery and is therefore called a right view.
With division there is
another force working in creation and that is the Word. It is by giving a name
to someone or something that it starts to come alive in a way we can remember
it and discus it. This is the birth of the faculty of reason in which you can
advance a thesis, take a position, built yourself a mental fortress and have a
discussion or a debate. Life shows clearly that being attacked is inherent to
having taken a stand, a position, a stronghold, or having advanced a thesis. So
no everlasting peace can be found in this. But you cannot avoid this part of
creation. The fact that you read this at the moment shows you’re in it. But
there is a way to get attached to it and therefore also a way to become
detached from it again.
Let’s again have a look how
it all comes into existence:
There are eyes
and there is a material shape, and the two of them give birth to visual
consciousness. There are ears and there is sound, and the two of them give
birth to auditory consciousness. There are noses and there is smell, and the
two of them give birth to olfactory consciousness. There are tongues and there
is taste, and the two of them give birth to gustatory consciousness. There are
bodies and touches, and the two of them give birth to bodily consciousness. And
there are minds and there are mental objects, and the two of them give birth to
mental consciousness.
The next you do is combine
parts of these different spheres of consciousness. E.g. this material shape
plus that sound plus that smell, and you give it a name: Dog. To give it a name
enables you to take a position and discus about it. The dog now has become an
idea built up from a certain material shape plus a certain sound plus a certain
smell, but this idea has not yet got fixed. This fixing is done by the magic
word ‘is’. The sentence: ‘We name it Dog’ gives a different impression than:
‘This is a dog’.
One day I visited my sister,
whose two young children were playing House. They were building ‘their house’
from some small furniture and piles of magazines in the living room, creating
walls and rooms and windows and doors in their minds from it. As the youngest
one, Michelle, walked between two piles of magazines her older sister Tarisha
told her angry: ‘You mustn’t walk trough there! We agreed that there was the
window, the door is over there!’ pointing between a chair and another pile of
magazines. This is a striking example how we create our world and what can
happen if an agreement is broken. This mind game of these young children is not
any different from the mind game we grown-ups experience as ‘the real world’.
Most adults have forgotten the ‘so-called’ play. They are convinced that things
are what they are in absolute sense. Just tell your neighbour that his car is
not really a car, but a no-thing that comes alive by giving it a name: ‘Car’.
Come to think of it: are you really
a woman? Or are you really a
man?
Do not make from male a man.
And do not make from female a woman. Instead make from male and female One, by
seeing with wisdom that both are mere ideas born from each other at the same
time. Everyone has it’s own ideas about what is male and what is female. It
doesn’t even necessarily have to do with gender. It can be seen as action and
reaction, or as talent and a provision to let this talent come alive. Male and
female are empty ideas that we fill with our own life’s experiences and
interpretations. Be aware that these ideas are becoming only experienced as an
absolute reality by your own thought creativity. By combining from the six
different spheres of consciousness ‘thing-dom’ comes into existence. And then
giving things a name they individually come alive. And waving your magic wand
and saying ‘This thing is…’ it is fixed in your memory
and starts a vicious circle of a wrong grasp of the existential world. To get
out of this vicious circle you have to get a right interpretation
of the existential world.
‘Own body’ is a wrong idea
of the physical body; we do not own it. The way we experience ‘own body’ is in no way different
from how we experience the rest of the existential world. Both are experienced
by sensory impingement. The division between those two is born from a wrong
idea: the idea that ‘I here’ lives separate from ‘the other there’ and the
identification of ‘I here’ with what we call ‘own body’. But the right view is
that the idea ‘I here’ is born from the idea ‘the other there’ and ‘the other
there’ from ‘I here’ both at the same time. The idea ‘I here’ cannot exist
without the idea ‘the other there’ and are One. However ‘own body’ comes alive
and moves, it reacts always as a result of what is spiritually built between
the ideas ‘I here’ and ‘the other there’ or ‘myself’ and ‘yourself’ or ‘me’ and
‘you’.
The ideas ‘I’,
‘myself’ and ‘own body’ are three different ideas. But from a wrong
interpretation and ill-based identification they can give birth to the
conviction that they are somehow one and the same. This is becoming a very
difficult problem when the idea ‘myself’ by its character is given the name
female, and by a wrong interpretation of this given the fixed conviction of
being a woman. And at the same time from ‘own body’ it is said to be male, and
by a wrong interpretation of this is said to be a man. This is the birth of a
gender identity disorder!
The Majjhima-nikaya gives
clear and step by step explanation how human being comes to full consciousness
and how a wrong interpretation of the existential world leads to imprisonment
in a vicious circle of experiencing unhappiness and disease in life. In the
same way it explains how a right interpretation frees one from this vicious
circle and enables one to experience long-lasting happiness and peace in life.
Freeing yourself from disease can only be done by freeing yourself from the
ignorance that caused it.
Let it be clear that
whatever you have to go through when you want to change the physical shape you
call ‘own body’, like hormone treatment and plastic surgery, you could avoid
all this muddling with the body if you were just able to see with wisdom how
you created this idea of your self and from that point of view could let go of
this idea.
Imagine how peaceful life
would be if all this tampering with the physical body were not necessary!
Imagine if you were just able to accept the body as it is and wouldn’t mind
it’s shape and it’s gender function in society. Take efforts to find the real
source of your gender identity in yourself, and with that, the real source of your problems.
Do not misinterpret the fact
that the help that is given by the gender-teams in hospitals is nowadays easily
obtained and therefore justifies your steps to have the physical body changed.
Because as you do so and do not search for the real source of your identity
problem in your self, you are not learning any life lessons that are pressed so
hard upon you. And not learning, the future will serve you your payment in own
kind even harder as no one is to escape one’s own life lessons.
Not even the departing from
earthly life will prevent you from being faced by the results of your thoughts,
speech, and actions. The Tibetan Book of the Dead gives an impression of what
can be experienced after death and the breaking up of the physical body. When
studying this book one must bare in mind that the experiences that are written
about stem from a life of contemplation and meditation in a Tibetan Buddhist
way. To compare this and shine another light on this matter one can study the
Revelation of Paul in the Nag Hammadi-scriptures (NHC V.2).
To understand
life, to get a right view on life and how human consciousness rises and how
life is being experienced from the interpretation of the existential world, is
a major key to dissolve your identity problem. To fully understand what is written
in these books you’ll have to study yourself as well and find what is meant
with these writings in yourself as an unshakeable Truth. Never ever just take
whatever is said or written as truth unless you have found it as Truth in
yourself!
The Physical body is a
mirroring set of organs, mirroring human being creating it’s own consciousness
by adapting Division and Word to the existential world. This consciousness
arises from human ignorance and the will to find inner peace and long-lasting
happiness, trying to push away what one does not please and trying to obtain
what one pleases in an effort to gain this peace. This way you create your own
stumbling blocks that you have to learn from and find out that you are having a
wrong view, a wrong interpretation of the existential world that gives birth to
this whole mass of troubles where you’ve got into.
The interpretation of the
existential world is done by human spirit and in doing so, human spirit
develops human identity being the result of the interpretation. It is through
this identity that life is being experienced, being happy, unhappy, or neutral.
From this state of being you can learn how this state of being has come alive,
learn to find the real source of your thoughts and feelings. Having found the
real source, you will live without attachments, without obsessions. The
physical body is to mirror human being on Earth.
The physical body has to be
seen as a collection of organs and sensory impingement is the only thing these
organs pass on to the brain. Researching the brain whatever is happening there,
this is something one can interpret as a bio-chemical
process which it ‘is’ than and only by being given the name:
‘Bio-chemical Process’. The pain one feels bumping one’s toes into something
unwilling to move, one neither feels in the toes nor in the brain. Of course
there is a bodily reaction as Mother Nature tries to heal whatever is broken.
But what we experience as ‘pain’ is from our own interpretation of the
existential world, depending on our consciousness; on what we are able to focus
our consciousness on.
Human being is mirrored in
physical shape. What we call ‘own body’ is something human being has been
creating from ‘In the beginning’ by the churning of thoughts. Thoughts carried
by greed and aversion and born from ignorance. It is therefore that the shape
of this ‘own body’ is the result of not only your parents’ genes, and from
their parents’ genes and their parents’ genes and so forth to ‘In the
beginning’, but from all human creativity from ‘In the beginning’.
Whether we call it ‘own
body’ or Mother Earth, it is all one material world, one and the same
substance: Matter (from Latin materia "physical substance",
from mater "mother") in physical shape. Whether we look at
this Matter from an ancient point of view, dividing Matter into the elements
Earth, Water, Wind and Fire, or dividing it into chemical elements with each
its own atomic number, Matter is liable to change and with all our efforts not
under control of human being. The life of the physical body is not different
from the life of the Earth it belongs to and the mutations it undergoes we have
no control over. It is the true Alchemist who meditates on this mutation,
understanding that Matter is to mirror this spiritual process.
Truth, with a capital T, is
the core of Religion, the core of every kind of religion and is only found from
a right interpretation from the existential world. Black and white cannot exist
without each other; in fact they are born at the same time out of each other.
Even when we see black and nothing white, the idea of black exists only from
the idea of white that lives in our sub-consciousness. So it is with male and
female. Both are ideas that are born at the same time and out of each other.
The Bible book Genesis tells
that God created woman from mans’ rib while man was asleep. The author of this
work is trying to tell us how human being comes to full consciousness.
First there was Chaos. No,
not like chaos after a road accident or an earthquake, but Chaos meaning
No-thing, in Buddhism called Suññata. The existential world is there and human
being is aware of that. But to order this Chaos is something that has to be
done to come to full consciousness. And so in this Chaos, this No-thing
existential world, we first make a division between Heaven and Earth: two
different states of awareness are born, at the same time and out of each other.
Each one gets a name; one is called Heaven, the other is called Earth. From
there more divisions are created and human consciousness crystallizes out to
what we experience now. Not only the Bible book Genesis gives an idea of how
human being is coming to existence and is experienced from the development of
consciousness and how consciousness is born from ignorance. In the Nag
Hammadi-scriptures you can find many more treatises that give a clue what
creation started, how it unfolded itself and why it had to be. All these
stories are written to mirror your self in. They are built on Truth being the
core of religion. And do not mix Truth with the idea that whatever these
stories tell truly happened in the way it is described.
Another Bible story that
played to my imagination was the Parable of the Lost Son (Luke 15:11-32). The
ignorant son (the father speaks of his son: ‘...he was dead…’ which is a
metaphor for ignorance) asked his father for his share of the property. The
father, wise, gave his son what he asked for, as he knew that his son had to
live his own life to come to full consciousness and become as wise as his father.
The son’s ignorance brought division, the wisdom he gained in his life learning
from his stumbling-blocks brought him back to his father. The way back to his
father is religion, from Latin re-ligare, which in this case means
re-connect what one once in ignorance had separated. These Biblical stories are
not to be taken literal but metaphorical and, to be well understood, be found
as a Truth in oneself.
Here you can see how human
being first crystallizes out and experiences a solid being on Earth, bumping
into payments of one’s own kind, stumbling over one’s own legs and experiencing
pain that inevitably comes with birth, illness, old age and death. It may be
clear now why this father in this story was called the Holy Father, as with his
generous gift, he gave his son the possibility to come to full consciousness.
His generous gift was to help his son to come to fully understand what life is
all about, fully understand why life evolves as it does and heal from his ignorance.
Our life is to discover the
answers on our deepest questions that rise in us all when we experience deep
suffering, and in finding the answers, finding our way out of this suffering.
Healing from ignorance is the base for healing from dis-ease.
The Parable of the Lost Son
I also found in a Buddhist scripture and it is reflected from the many Buddha
statues I’ve seen during my visits to Thailand. This is why the Buddha statue
in my house is sacred to me.
The Parable of
the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37); the metaphors explained.
As I have often heard the
Parable of the Good Samaritan explained wrong by Roman Catholic pastors I would
like to explain this Bible story from my point of view, according with
religion, the way it helped me to let go of my identity and its disorder.
The way it was explained to
me by pastors, from childhood up to the last time I read it in a church
magazine, it always ends with the conclusion that the Samaritan was good and
the Priest and the Levite were the bad guys.
Let it be
absolutely clear that Jesus Christ preached concord, understanding, oneness,
unconditional love and all embracing compassion and not discord, passing
judgement, discrimination and detestation.
That is why the explanation
that the Samaritan was good and the Priest and the Levite were bad is a very
wrong interpretation of this parable and those who explain it this way lead
their flog into division instead of into religion.
This wrong explanation can
cause harsh and merciless judgement and punishment in stead of understanding,
love and forgiveness.
Emphasizing that
ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ have an absolute definition, is the cause of
materialistic as well as ‘religious’ fundamentalism that leads to war and
terrorism, which nowadays so many people are suffering from.
If Jesus Christ was only
meaning to explain good and bad behaviour, instead of the Priest and the Levite
he could have put on stage just one ordinary person in this parable.
In this parable, the Priest
is a metaphor for the insight in creation: the knowledge of how and why and
what consciousness rises from, and how it forms the physical matter in which
this consciousness is mirrored.
The Levite, who is an
assistant of the Priest, can be seen as a metaphor for Mother Nature. He is the
provider of the material substance to feed the fire in the temple. From that
point of view he can also been seen as a metaphor for willpower. To compare: in
my study of Alchemy I once found ‘an assistant that is taking care of the fire
in the oven, to keep it at the right temperature for the alchemical process,
while the Alchemist is on travel’. From this I understand that ‘the assistant’
was taking care of the physical body by feeding the physiological system in
order to sustain the spiritual process, while ‘the Alchemist’ was meditating and
contemplating on transmutation, in order to spiritually mature and discover the
Philosopher’s Stone, meaning the Truth and insight in creation.
The Samaritan is a metaphor
for love and passionate feelings.
The Samaritan, love, is to
guide the Priest’s knowledge by emotional feelings. The Priest’s knowledge, in
its turn, will keep the Samaritan from reacting by strong selfish emotions and
blind passion. The two of them, if well balanced, form the base of virtue, and
with the Levite, form the foundation for a virtuous life.
The Priest, the Levite, the
Samaritan, all three of them participate in the spiritual maturing of your
self. Together they form a unity: the One that helped the man who was robbed
and beaten half dead, 'going down from the Holy City of Jerusalem to Jericho'
which is a metaphor for life’s path of division.
'Going up from Jericho to
the Holy City of Jerusalem' is a metaphor for life’s path of religion.
The Priest and the Levite cannot
but pass by at the other side of the road, as they are the metaphors for
knowledge about creation and Mother Nature or willpower that all three lack the
possibility of experiencing love.
The characters that are put
on stage in this parable are all mirroring a part of your self. They must be
seen as aspects of life you can experience. This is important to understand, as
it is the key to shine a different light on the people you meet in life. They
now cannot only be seen as persons, but also as reflections of aspects of your
self. This is the first step to come to understanding that whatever occurs in
your life mirrors something of your self.
This is why you
should love your neighbour (Old
English neahgebur, from neah
"near" + gebur "dweller"), and that can be any being
dwelling into your consciousness, like you love your self.
Living good, according to
the Law, is the foundation to live relatively happy and in relative
peace. By transcending this Law and its ideas of good and bad, by stopping your
judgement by the insight that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are ideas that are born from
each other, only live in relation to each other and have no absolute
foundation, you can experience absolute inner peace and
happiness.
The Law that is spoken of in
this parable can be Moses’ Law, but it can also be the constitutional law of
your country, or that of a clan spirit of an aboriginal clan in Australia.
Transcending
this Law does not mean you must ignore, deny or destroy whatever is created
according to this Law, but see that it has no solid foundation. In its turn,
this view, this understanding, is the foundation to become detached from the
absolute definition of this Law. And so transcending this Law, experience
unconditional love and supreme inner peace and happiness.
This state of being is what
you have to love with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
strength and with all your mind.
This state of being is the
Lord your God you have to be loyal to, to find refuge from all your obsessions.
But as long as god shows its face, you are being mirrored with your own
creation.
Now you can mirror your self
in this parable. Experiencing being robbed and beaten on life’s road of
division to Jericho. Enriched by life’s experiences, being able to understand how
and why and what caused consciousness.
Experiencing the fruits of
wisdom, with the right effort, fully aware of the value of Mother Nature, with
a heart that is not lead by selfish emotions but by wisdom and so giving birth
to compassion, you can make the right choices in life’s destiny.
Now you can make a choice:
either going down the road of division towards Jericho and stay trapped in the
vicious circle of wrong view and its results, or going up to the road of
religion towards the Holy city of Jerusalem, freed from the wrong view and its
results, experiencing freedom of spirit.
Now you can even see that
the man who was robbed and beaten half dead and the Priest and
the Levite and the Samaritan form a unity you can mirror your self in.
More over, seeing with
wisdom that ‘I here’ and ‘the other there’ are ideas that are born from each
other, and can only live with each other, being the cause of each other, and
are in fact One; you can see that your self and the man who was
robbed and beaten and the Priest and
the Levite and the Samaritan are One.
Being
able to see that all creation has no solid foundation, you can sacrifice your
self. After all, why try to hold on to your self when it cannot give you a
solid and save heaven to guarantee you long lasting peace and happiness and on
top of that, letting go of this self does
guarantee you long lasting peace and happiness.
It is by the sacrificing of
your self that you convert from living in division to a religious way of life.
It is by the sacrificing of
your self that altruism is born. Altruism is the key to live the right way.
Living the right way gives faith that, whatever happens, you do not have to
worry; eventually all will be all right. This
is the message of this parable!
Free your self from all
obsessions. Understand they are rooted in your wrong interpretation of the
existential world, stem from your barricades that grow from that root, and
shown in the blossoming of your identity that grows from these barricades.
By taking away the root, you
sacrifice your self: your identity and its disorder.
The inner peace that is
found when your identity is completely and unconditionally sacrificed, is the requiem
sempiternam (Latin), the eternal rest, that is sung about in Mozart’s
Requiem. You better not depart this earthly life before you understand how to
attain this peace. Studying this work of Mozart can help you there. It is the
Christian counterpart of the Tibetan Buddhist Book of the Dead (Bardo Thödol).
You simply cannot heal
yourself from a gender identity disorder by focussing only on the gender part
of the self, leaving all other wrong ideas and interpretations of the
existential world that live in yourself as they are. Focussing on all the
different parts of the self helps to gain the all-compassing view on your self.
However, working on one individual part can certainly help healing other parts.
Life showed me all the different parts I had to work on while I stumbled over
them. And so I was not to be choosy but eat and digest whatever life served me.
Not being attached to the
bodily shape and not being attached to the idea of self, gives to my experience
much more peace and happiness than being given a body that pleases the self.
Plastic surgery and hormone treatment may alter the outside appearance of the
physical body in an attempt to give an idea to the outside world that you are
of a certain gender. But strictly seen the results miss the functions they were
originally created for: the penis to ejaculate sperm into a womb, or the vagina
to receive a penis and let through a new body from the womb.
At first I experienced my
gender change operation as a relief; finally I was freed from my prison-cell and
could be myself. But at that time I still had a wrong view on the matter, and
was not aware of an even greater experience of freedom that lay ahead of me.
Moreover I was still searching for self-confidence and inner peace.
The freedom I experienced after
being able to live according to my gender identity was like freedom one can
experience coming out of a prison cell into the courtyard, where one can meet
the other prisoners. But when I got rid of my gender identity I was totally
freed from prison.
Now it doesn’t matter anymore what the physical body
looks like. It doesn’t matter anymore whether people call me sir or madam, as I
see with wisdom that neither man nor woman exist in an absolute way. The need to be either of them has died.
Often we intuitively feel
from our sub-consciousness that we’re going to face something we don’t like and
that makes us seek a save heaven by creating an identity that we assume will be
given shelter (‘Female’) or an identity that that fights to defend (‘Male’).
Actually what is knocking at
the door that frightens us and what we feel ashamed of is nothing else but a
part of our self that comes to show our conscience. Shame and dread cause us to
create and find a way out of the mess we have in our sub-consciousness in an
attempt to avoid or ignore whatever weighs on our conscience.
First we have to be brave
and face the truth and accept our identity. From there on we can change this
identity by seeing with wisdom how and why we created this. By taking away the
foundations that were built on a wrong view, have the identity collapse. The
apocalypse that one experiences then is one of great relief and happiness.
Gender Identity
Disorder in childhood and adolescence:
When you are young you
cannot find out what the source of this gender identity problem is. One needs
time to experience life and to educate oneself to come to a point and age where
one is mentally able and spiritually matured to heal oneself. At that time the
right help will be provided if one asks for it. From my own experience I can
guarantee you: when you knock there will be opened, when you ask there will be
answered. If you think it takes all to long before you get your help or answers
you’re just stumbling over your own blindness and impatience. ‘I want it all, I
want it now’ is a disease built on wrong view.
In addition to help and get
a picture what is forcing this identity into life in young children,
psychiatrists can study the parents as they also bare the hidden source within
them. If the parents study themselves and see how their identity comes alive
they will be able to help and guide their child to develop the right way out of
trouble.
Ask yourself: ‘What am I
hiding from behind the barricade of my gender identity’. ‘Why am I standing so
proudly on the barricade of my gender identity’. ‘What is behind this façade,
and how was it born’. ‘What is the real source of this obsession’. You are given the opportunity to work
yourself out of the mess you created yourself.
Chapter 5. Anapanasati, a meditation practice
Mindfulness-when-breathing-in-and-out.
The Majjhima-nikaya gives a clear and full explanation of the entire
meditation-practice in many different ways. I will stick to the first and basic
step in this practice. If you are eager to find out more about the many other
steps and states of consciousness you can experience in this practice you
should study the Majjhima-nikaya.
First of all you need a
quiet place, wear clothing that fits loose and a relaxed attitude: have no
expectations. Take of your wristwatch and shoes and wear no make-up, jewellery
and perfume. If you are unable to sit in a lotus position you can also sit on a
high chair with no armrests e.g. a kitchen chair. The most important thing then
is to have your back strait in a natural and relaxed way and not leaning against the backrest. Have
your legs next to each other and your feet firmly on the floor.
Put your right hand into
your left on your lap, the thumbs touching each other light. The thumbs are
your indicators whether your concentration is too strong or whether you’re at
the point of falling asleep. If the thumbs are pressing each other this
indicates you should relax some more, if they lose touch you’d better wake up
quickly before you tumble from your chair.
Before you start your
practice you can say an affirmation or a wish that will be for your guidance
out of trouble. I give you mine for an example: ‘I wish that the wisdom,
compassion and loving kindness of Buddha pervades me in all my thinking,
speaking and acting, to enable me to help all other living beings out of
suffering. May this wish be for the support and inspiration of my teacher’.
Instead of Buddha you can also mention Christ. It forms a sort of beacon at
which your consciousness aims during the meditation practice.
When you sit comfortable,
the body in the right position, relax and close your eyes. Take a deep breath
and fill your lungs completely. Feel it deep down into the belly, feel your
belly, chest and shoulders rise. And then breathe everything out emptying the
lungs as much as you can with a big sigh. Repeat this two more time and then
start following the natural breathing in from about a few inches before the
nose, through the nose, the throat, into the lungs, and breathing out from the
lungs through the throat, the nose, and out at a few inches from the nose. Do
not force the breathing. Simply follow the natural breathing in, and breathing
out, and breathing in, and so forth.
After doing this for a while
and feeling relaxed, while breathing in-and-out you think: ‘experiencing the
whole body’. The next breathing in-and-out think: ‘tranquilizing the whole
body’, the next breathing in-and-out ‘experiencing the whole body’ and so
forth. Do not change anything in these sentences. Thinking ‘I am experiencing my whole body’ is wrong because ‘I am’ and ‘my’ feed your
consciousness with a wrong view, as I explained in chapter 4.
Various spontaneous thoughts
and feelings will occur. Just watch them as you would watch the clouds in the
sky, and let go of them. In the beginning it will probably be difficult to
concentrate as more and more thoughts rise into your consciousness. Don’t let
it get you down, you just have to get through this like thousands of other
people did this before you. When it gets to difficult for you, take a brake.
You can leave a notebook and a pencil next to you to write down the most
worrying thoughts.
The best is to exercise
daily at the same time. Start with practising for about ten or fifteen minutes
and over a period of some months extend this to about half an hour, or longer
if it feels good. It is better to practice a shorter period with the right
concentration than trying to practice as long as possible.
Longer practising does not
always mean better practising, and practising twice a day with a right
concentration for twenty minutes may be easier to sustain than once for half an
hour.
In time you will notice that
the thoughts that occur become less vivid and move to the background giving more
and more thoughtless periods and inner peace. If you find it difficult to keep
up practising see if you can find people to join you.
The trick is to take the
attitude you develop this way into your everyday life. Whatever situation
you’re in, whatever thoughts or feelings arise, see them as clouds in the sky.
They come, they change, they go. Anapanasati is a practice to develop right
meditation. Right meditation is not meant for practicing an hour a day and then
go back to business as usual. Right meditation is a way of life.
In chapter 3 I’ve already
written that breathing is not something that is done in the lungs only. The
whole physiological system of the body is one of breathing-in-and-out. The way
one breathes also directly influences the spiritual well-being. Breathing
relaxed, becoming completely relaxed, one creates also a relaxed atmosphere
other people can pick up and enjoy. Without pointing at a particular sense
organ we can all experience a certain atmosphere in our house, in a pub or restaurant,
or in a temple, at our work or at a football match. This exercise will help you
create a relaxed atmosphere for others as well and keep you from being
influenced by unhealthy atmospheres.
Another meditation practice
that I learnt from Peter that I experienced to be very helpful is called
Vipassana Kammatthana. This practice however cannot be explained here, but has
to be learnt from an initiated teacher. I can recommend this kind of practise
because it helps to gain insight and brings peace in the realms of your
sub-consciousness.
To find someone to guide you
in this exercise you can check in Buddhist magazines. Vipassana Kammatthana is
an exercise from Theravada Buddhism.
There are, no doubt, many
other forms of meditation or yoga that can help you in your development. It
took me some years before I found the proper exercises and the right teacher
that fitted mine. But whatever road you choose, self-analysis and meditation
practice are the two legs you need to support your development.
If you have difficulty
detaching yourself from the clock and the time schedules that rule your life,
let this not influence your exercise and contemplate on the following:
‘Instead of
putting your self on an imaginary time-bar, between ideas of past and future by
focussing your consciousness on ideas of past, present and future, you can
detach your self from living in time, by focussing your consciousness in any
situation on religion and division (right view and wrong view on the
existential world) and experience there is only here and now.
! More information on
Anapanasati and other meditation practices from Theravada Buddhism:
Addresses
for Vipassana Kammatthana meditation courses in The Netherlands:
Chapter 6. The churning in the Milk Sea by greed and aversion.
From now on, in my explanations
I will use ‘dis-ease’ instead of ‘disease’ (illness), where I want to emphasize
that I mean ‘the opposite or absence of ease’ in its widest context, equivalent
to the Pali word ‘dukkha’. In Gotama Buddha’s teachings ‘dukkha’ stands for an
experience ranging from the smallest inconvenience or discomfort, to illness,
severe disease and the deepest suffering, and stems from inner unrest:
not-peace, which is born from ignorance.
In a book about East Asian
art I found a picture of a bas-relief in Angkor Wat in Cambodia, representing
‘The churning in the Milk Sea by devas (gods) and asuras (demons)’. The picture
shows the sovereign snake Vasuki, being used as a churn-rope, alternately being
pulled by its head by asuras and by its tail by devas. The story comes from the
Mahabharata: The preparing of the amrta (Mah. I 17-18).
In the past in India, for
churning, people used a rope wound around the churn-stick. By the alternate
pulling of either ends of the rope, the churn-stick was rolled to and fro in
the churn, agitating the milk and so creating butter. It is not so much the
story of the making of amrta that took my interest, but it was the idea of
‘churning in the Milk Sea’ that I found so imaginative.
Ignorance causes greed and
aversion. And like the need for the physical body, for sustaining its life, to
get oxygen and to get rid of carbon dioxide, which causes breathing-in-and-out,
greed and aversion creates similar tensions, which cause movement.
This spiritual movement in
the Milk Sea causes the ‘churning’, forming and dissolving elements,
atoms, bodies, the entire physiological system we call the Milky Way and all
the other galaxies; all together the entire physical universe.
This ‘churning’ also gives a
clue about the forming of physical organs and their connection with chakras
which are from ethereal and more spiritual nature. It is in this connection
that we can see the relation between a certain physical disease and a spiritual
tendency of the self, in any form of greed or aversion. All physical disease is
to mirror a wrong spiritual tendency of your self that is either being
suppressed, ignored or has become a habit. To let go of this spiritual tendency
is taking away the source of the building of the physical emanation in which it
is mirrored.
At first sight, physical
bodies may give the impression being solid and separate. But enlarging the
picture to sub-atomic level we can see that in fact they are very thin and have
a very spacious structure with a lot of movement and creativity, exchanging
elements and breathing-in-and-out with what we consider not being part of these
bodies.
Physical bodies
are neither solid nor do they live separate from the rest of the universe.
This is clearly mirrored in
the functioning of the physical human body, whose life is depending on the life
of planet Earth, the sun and the rest of the universe in which it has its
proper place. From the bio-chemical point of view, from the physiological model
we nowadays have made, all so called organs function in a way that can be seen
as breathing-in-and-out. In this breathing-in-and-out they are forming a
relative small unit we call human body. But all the breathing-in-and-out in
this body is connected with and influenced by all the breathing-in-and-out of
the entire universe.
All kind of spiritual
tendencies have an effect on this breathing-in-and-out.
All the movement and
creativity we are mirrored in the physical body, is all caused by spiritual
tendencies from different hierarchies in creation, from the beginning of
creation. From a Christian point of view, this can be seen as a hierarchy from
heaven. From a Buddhist point of view, this can be seen as the creation of
karma formations. It is mirrored in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and is the cause of
the adventures of the many characters that are put on stage in his work.
Breathing-in-and-out can be
seen as the motor of all creation that is fuelled by greed and aversion, which,
in their turn, are born from ignorance.
All the efforts we humans
take to try and rule these tendencies will not result in the extinguishing of
these tendencies. In fact it will only result in more creativity. The only way
to find inner peace is not to get attached to thoughts and feelings. The right
view in the existential world, which shows that actually there is nothing we
humans can hold on is the major key to this.
Mindfulness when
breathing-in-and-out, the practising of Anapanasati, therefore is not only to
experience and tranquilize the activity of the physical body. But together with
a right understanding of the nature of creation, learning to become not
attached to sense-pleasures, not attached to a view, not attached to rules and
customs and not attached to an idea of self, it helps to develop a relaxed and
healthy attitude towards life and the disease that inevitably comes with it.
Human conscience, its
sub-consciousness or heavenly consciousness as the counterpart of earthly
consciousness; their existence cannot be scientifically proved. Science is
unable to create instruments to tune in to these realms of human consciousness.
Claiming that, ‘because
their existence cannot be scientifically proved they do not really exist and
therefore are of no or lesser value than whatever can be scientifically
proved’, is closing the eyes for human experiences that all participate in the
development of an identity and its problems.
After studying your self
with this work, it should be clear that all of creation, including the
faculty of science, has no solid foundation. Scientist should reflect on this formula:
√-1
and place this as a warning
sign at the beginning and at the end of their works, to give their scientific
works a proper frame.
Many medical doctors built
their practice on scientific proof. But Science has its foundation in earthly consciousness,
not in the Truth that transcends this consciousness. Science is not rooted in
wisdom but in cleverness, trying to outsmart the dis-ease in creation.
Science can give help in
healing in the realm of the physical body. From there it has its short-term
effect on the soul, experiencing relief from dis-ease. But it cannot stop the
work of the spiritual source and its architects and destroy root and branch of
dis-ease.
Science is not to be
underestimated, as it facilitates much on which modern hospitals can provide
help to patients that desperately need it. But neither should it be
overestimated, and fully depended on by Medicine. The faculty of Science is
limited. It can be of help to Medicine but it cannot help the patient escape
from dis-ease.
To escape from dis-ease, one
has to discover its source in one self. Religion can give a key to discover
this source and give help to take away this source, making way for real
healing.
Therefore Medicine must take
with one hand the faculty of Science, to help take away the physical problems,
and take with the other hand the faculty of Religion to help the patient come
to understanding what caused the dis-ease.
Chapter 7. About creation, Theology and Religion.
From all the stories that
I’ve read or heard about creation, not one is to be taken literal. They all
stem from the same naked Truth, but are dressed by the culture they were born
in. And although they all try to explain how human consciousness comes alive,
it is best understood by the culture they originate from.
Most of them show a kind of
hierarchy in which the self is reflected. I give you a Christian and a Buddhist
story of creation in brief, to reflect on.
The Nag Hammadi-scriptures,
which contain early Christian Gnostic treatises, picture a hierarchy of archons
and angels as forces that influence your soul during its life through the
different heavenly realms of consciousness. After your decease from life on
earth, you are being mirrored your conscience before you fall back into earthly
consciousness again, to start a new life on earth. The Gatekeeper you’ll meet
is nothing else but a mirage of your own conscience. And the Angel that drives
you back to earth is nothing but a power you create yourself by shame and
dread, being faced with the results of your own previous misconduct, trying to
escape and find refuge behind new veils and barricades, and so creating a new
identity.
If, however, after dying and
the braking up of the physical body, you know your way through the lower
heavenly realms that are governed by Jaldabaoth, the arrogant creator god and
his hierarchy of archons and angels, having united the Love of Christ with the
Wisdom of Sophia, your self being the temple of the Holy Matrimony, you’ll find
the everlasting peace and happiness in the Kingdom of my Father that transcends
this unity.
The Kingdom of my Father is
the most superior heavenly realm in which one experiences unconditional love,
everlasting peace and happiness, and which is a metaphor for a state of being
that is devoid of craving for becoming and non-becoming.
Wisdom, Sophia, used to be
part of this realm. But one day she was so possessed by the glory of her
Father, that she wanted to give him a son in His own likeness. So one day, by
uttering a sound she gave birth to his son. But when she saw her child she
became dreaded by its appearance as it had a lion’s head and the body of a
snake. And as she had given birth to this child without the knowledge of her
partner, she felled ashamed.
To avoid that her Father and
her partner would become aware of this child, she put it on a throne in a
corner of the universe and hid it behind veils of mist. There, her son saw the
mirage of his mother in the waters of the universe and with her image, the
hierarchy in the heavenly realm of the Father. One day he decided to create his
own hierarchy and took lots of energy from his mother to clay an army of
archons and angels. He, being the head of this hierarchy, exclaimed very
arrogant that he was the only god and that there was no god above him.
And so there were created
three heavenly realms. First The Kingdom of my Father. Second and beneath that,
the realm of Sophia, who after having given birth to her son could not stay any
longer in the Kingdom of my Father. And third, underneath the realm of Sophia,
the realm of the creator god.
This third heavenly realm
can be subdivided in for instance the twelve spheres of Astrology, or in the
arcane of the Tarot. But it can also be replaced by the clan spirit from an
aboriginal clan, or replaced by the Roman pantheon of gods from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses.
Living in this lower
heavenly realm and on earth can be relatively peaceful if one knows how to live
the right way according to the law of good and bad of this creator. But one
will be caught in a perpetual mobile in which one always will be faced with
birth, dis-ease, old age, death, heavenly experience, birth, dis-ease, and so
forth.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
pictures something similar, with Buddha-emanations in stead of archons and angels:
If, after departing earthly
life and the braking up of the physical body, in the heavenly realms you fail,
from dread and shame, to face the bright light of Buddha, and are drawn to the shimmering
light in an attempt to find security from this bright light, you will fall back
to earthly consciousness to start a new life on earth.
Whatever happens in these
heavenly realms: you are being mirrored your self. From the reaction that is
born from whatever you are faced with, and the wisdom and love you either lack
or have to cope with this situation, you are either pushed back into life on
earth, or, being able to transcend this experience, find the peace and
happiness of nibbana.
(Nibbana is from Pali, a
language spoken by Gotama Buddha, and it means in this case the extinguishing
of the source of all dis-ease: ignorance.)
Whatever the story of
creation, all the heavenly realms that are written or talked about can be seen
as states of awareness to mirror your self. The trick is to transcend the lower
realms of your consciousness, by seeing with wisdom that whatever occurs is
part of your own creation. It is in this earthly life that you can skill
yourself by self-analysis and practising meditation, to free yourself from the
bonds that keep you from transcending these lower realms of creation.
Life is to come to
understanding that all you become aware of has no solid foundation, so why try
to hold on or escape from it. Whatever your obsession; when you see it is no
more than a castle in the air, a misconception, you can let go of it.
Studying these heavenly
hierarchies is called Theology, which gives a basic information about life. The
next step is to use this information and mirror these hierarchies to your self.
To adopt this mirroring in your way of life, understanding that your self is
born from this mirroring and has no solid foundation and from that point become
able to sacrifice your self, giving birth to altruism, is called Religion.
An academic study,
collecting lots of information about life, may give you plenty of possibilities
to advance a thesis and philosophize about life. But this has nothing to do
with wisdom. Intelligence will not get you out of trouble. A wrong use of
intelligence will even get you into trouble! Many people today may have the
impression that they are wise because they know a lot of information and they
know how to win a debate, but in fact this only shows they are clever. Being
clever is something different than being wise.
Therefore this work has no
value for those who only read it and take whatever is written for granted,
spreading the word without understanding its meaning, not able to adopt its
message in their own life.
Chapter 8. Major keys in the books that I studied on which my therapy
developed.
In 1994, in an attempt to
find self-confidence and inner peace, I started my therapy by studying a book
about meditation by Professor Karlfried von Dürckheim, who, in my view, made
absolutely clear that meditation had everything to do with everyday life. His
work also made me realize that the common Western way of life I tried to lead
was missing a real goal.
In my life I was regularly
confronted with the fact that I could not see my reason for living, as in my
world I saw nothing but people producing and consuming. And, however this way
of life gave me little satisfaction in view of the efforts I took to experience
at least some short-time happiness, I could not see another goal in life other
than to join in.
Von Dürckheim, in his book,
showed me the purpose of my life.
Another book I found
valuable was ‘Man and his Symbols’ by Carl Gustav Jung.
I wanted to analyse my
dreams, as I saw that my dream world was a reality I had to value as much as
any other state of consciousness. In my local bookshop I found some books with
interpretations of dreams and symbols, but I felt suspicious about the rather
strict interpretation they gave. I was looking for a key how to
interpret, not the interpretation itself. ‘Man and his Symbols’ gave me that
key. And with this key also the view that all that happened in
ordinary life could have a deeper meaning.
Studying these books I
started to analyse my self and my behaviour. I kept a diary to mirror myself,
and to write down my own analysis. Everything I stumbled over in my daily life
became part of my study.
An important lesson that I
got from Iris was: ‘When you accuse, and point your finger towards someone
else, take a good look at your hand; there are three fingers pointing at your
self!’
In the beginning,
discovering the source of my problem in my self was quite painful. I often
noticed when I was faced with my self that, because of my harsh judgement, I
tended to deny my own faults and tried to justify whatever I had done wrong. I
just couldn’t bare the fact I sometimes made mistakes. But at the same time I
was very well aware of the fact that by denying my own faults, I closed the
door to discover the source of my misery and walked away from my problems,
leaving them unsolved. This way I was calling a halt to my development and my
healing. So, in order to heal, I had to take a deep breath, be honest and
acknowledge whatever I had done wrong.
Taking these steps I
experienced I was doing the right thing and I felt very relieved when the first
problems got solved this way.
Another way of mirroring my
self was brought to my attention by Iris. She had two books about Native
American culture that each came with a deck of cards.
During my visits at her place,
to have my facial hair depilated, we usually took a brake to drink some coffee
or have lunch together. ‘Pick a card’, she once said. And so I did. After I
showed her the card I had picked from the deck, Iris read from the book how I
could interpret this card and how I could adopt its lesson in my way of life.
I found this Native American
view on the world very interesting, and the way that the wisdom of this culture
was presented very playful. I felt had to buy these books too and so I did.
The book ‘Medicine Cards’,
by Jamie Sams and David Carson, mirrors parts of the self by different animals
and their teachings. It enables you to reflect on your self by the character of
a certain animal, and use its quality to change your way of life for the better.
Being showed parts of your self that you usually are not aware of, or being
given a critical view on those that you have accepted as ‘normal’, you can
leave the wrong way of life that is the foundation of your problems.
The book ‘Sacred Path
Cards’, by Jamie Sams, mirrors your spiritual development by Native American
cultural happenings. It gives you the chance to reflect on the purpose of life
and gives keys to start certain developments to spiritually mature. This way
you can detach your self from a lower and rather selfish life attitude that
gives birth to much trouble in society and become a more noble person with an
eye for the welfare of all living beings.
Both works I found very
inspiring and very helpful. The playfulness and love with which the teachings
are presented, pictures the richness of Native American culture and gives an
idea of the way of life these people used to live before the Europeans invaded
their country.
I can very well imagine that
the spiritual poverty of the ‘asphalt road and shopping mall society’ they
nowadays have to live in brings little satisfaction to these people. And I feel
ashamed for the fact that their way of life is misunderstood and killed to
provide room for the ignorant way of life of producing and consuming of modern
Western society and the sheer arrogance with which this is being pushed upon
them.
Every now and then I picked
two cards, one of each deck, to mirror my development and myself and to find
help to make the right decisions when I felt lost or stranded in life.
Lama Anagarika Govinda
explains in ‘Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism’ that there is a power working
underneath the superficial creativity of giving names to thing-dom as I have
explained in chapter 4. His bookwork explains Tibetan Buddhist mysticism from
the mantra ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’. To me, this work was of great value to
understand the creative power of sound.
The power of sound and of
the reciting of mantras cannot be explained, but it can be experienced. Without
being able to explain how and why, we al know that the different sounds of
instruments evoke different feelings. The sound of a lyre or a harp is usually
tranquilizing, that of a trumpet is frequently associated with the hunt or with
war and victory.
The power that rises from the
reciting of mantras is beyond any explanation and imagination. But to give you
an example of the power of speech, you can for instance study some of the work
of art from William Blake and explain his rhymes in your own common everyday
language. If you compare your explanation with the original work of art from
William Blake, you cannot but admit that his work of art is much more powerful
and has more depth. And at the same time there is no explanation for this power
and this depth. It is an experience beyond the faculty of reason.
The wholeheartedly uttering
of a wish, an affirmation, or a prayer, has much power and great influence on
life. For the same reason it is better to abstain from harsh words and cursing
as it affects your own peace and happiness more than you can imagine. Uttering
a wholehearted wish, to never ever become angry anymore, started a development
in my life in which I was put to the test. I failed. But it also gave me the
opportunity to study myself and take away the source of my anger: my harsh judgement and narrow-mindedness.
It is important to
understand how sound and language creates life and become aware of the
importance to master this art. Understanding how a prayer, reciting a mantra or
uttering a wish works changes one’s hope for a good outcome into trust and
assurance of a good outcome: faith.
This knowledge was the
foundation of making the reciting of Paritta suttas, before or after my
meditation practice, part of my therapy. Paritta suttas are verses from Gotama
Buddha that, when understood and recited wholeheartedly, give protection
because they are rooted in Truth, virtue, and unconditional love.
From 1994, in addition to my
self-analysis, I practised Vipassana Kammatthana, a meditation practice I
learnt from a Theravada Buddhist teacher. This practice helps to digest the
burden of life, which we are all saddled with, into insight. Practising this
meditation and self-analysis are the two legs on which my therapy runs.
In the period I was fighting
bureaucracy with the institute that provided my occupational disability
benefit, I read some stories from Miguel de Servantes Saavedra’s ‘Don Quichot de la Mancha’, to help me
see the problems that occurred in a right perspective and help extinguish my
rage.
I also had to solve
conflicts with my family, and my employer. I had to dig deep into my self to
come to understanding what caused their and my behaviour. From understanding
the cause of conflicts I could forgive them as well as my self, and experience
love and inner peace and happiness.
When my health permitted me,
I sometimes attended lectures about spirituality and religion that were given
by authors with their presentation of their new books.
In March 1998 I started
analysing my self with an English translation of the Majjhima-nikaya, which was
very difficult because of my incessant mental exhaustion. Later that year I
started practising Anapanasati, a meditation practice that I frequently read
about in this work. I found out that this helped to quiet down the chattering
in my mind, and helped me relax mentally, so I could focus better on my study.
Studying this work I
discovered I could take away the source of my gender identity disorder by
giving up my entire identity. It slowly became clear to me that my identity was
rooted in a misconception of the existential world. (I.B. Horner, O.B.E., M.A.,
‘Majjhima-nikaya,
the Collection of the Middle Length Sayings’, The Pali Text Society c/o
Gazelle, White Cross Mills, Hightown, Lancaster LA1 4XS, U.K., http://www.palitext.com)
In this study it also became
very clear to me that breathing is much more than taking in fresh air.
Breathing is the motor of all creation that is fuelled by greed and aversion,
which, in their turn, are born from ignorance.
From 1999 I made paintings
to keep my insights alive, as they were too big and too detailed to write them
down. Together with my domestic altar with a Buddha statue, they built my
temple in which I daily worked on my development.
In June 2000 I bought myself
an integral Dutch translation of the Nag Hammadi-scriptures, a Dutch
translation of the Tao Tê Tjing, a Dutch translation of some Upanishads and a
book with stories and legends from Hinduism and Buddhism. The last bookwork
especially because it contained 'The story of the making of amrta.', a chapter
from the Mahabharata that tells about the churning of greed and aversion in the
Milk Sea. It helped me to understand how spiritual tendencies cause matter to
crystallize and form bodies to mirror the spiritual creativity.
With the studying of these
works, my self-analysis, and my meditation practises, my insight how and why my
identity was born came to completion.
Another year of digesting, mourning,
and learning to adopt this insight into life made me let go of my identity and
its disorder. I was cured from my mental disease.
During my spiritual
development I often had to lay down and rest as it had a strong impact on the
physiological process in the liver, pancreas, adrenal glands and intestines.
During these periods of two to three hours, when the physiological process
worked at full power, my heartbeat and respiration frequency went up. I usually
got a headache and a very painful liver. These periods occurred three to five
times in twenty-four hours, in which I was completely exhausted.
The only strategy I had was,
whenever my health permitted me, to take the opportunity to analyse my self and
practice meditation and do whatever was needed to support my development. By
learning from my own stumbling blocks, adopting the insights I gained into my
life and so letting go of my identity and its disorder, change my life for the
better.
Most people interpret self
and physical body in such a way that they identify with what they experience:
‘self’ and ‘own body’ are experienced as something personal. But it may be
clear now that this identification is born from a wrong interpretation of the
existential world. This wrong interpretation leads to the misconception and
fixed idea of our selves and the absolute conviction we can possess a self,
bodies and properties. This in its turn is the source of all the misery we
experience in life when we are saddled with whatever we do not want and crave
for whatever we do not get. The dis-ease we experience this way makes us search
for a way out, and still imprisoned in the wrong conception, we create
novelties in an attempt to ease and please our life again.
It should be clear now that
it is our mutual ignorance and lack of understanding the right view on the
existential world, that keeps human being in a perpetual mobile of creation and
experiencing short lived happiness exchanged by unhappiness, restlessness,
disease, worry and pain in an attempt to push and pull and manipulate life in a
way it pleases us again.
This churning of greed and
aversion, born from ignorance, is the motor of creation from the beginning,
which only brings ease in connection with dis-ease ([ ). This ease is a very
personal and relative ease and depending on what one likes or dislikes; it is
the ease found in being pleased.
There is a significant
difference between experiencing being pleased this way and experiencing inner
peace. The first is born from getting what one wants and being able to be
someone one feels comfortable with, the second from not needing to have or own
something or be someone.
We all have to experience
life to be able to experience the difference between these states of
consciousness and at a certain point in life, make a switch over from wrong
view to right view on the existential world; here is where the real spiritual
conversion from division to religion takes place.
All the 'wrong' we do from
our ignorance is necessary to build our conscience, from which we are pushed
into life to learn and live the right way to get out of our self created mess.
Our conscience is the treasurer of our wisdom, and a large part of our
conscience lays hidden in our sub-consciousness that forms our identity.
The veils that cover this
part of our selves are lifted when we experience dis-ease. But we have to see
and not be blind for the fact we are faced with our own creation. The veils may
be lifted but it still needs a right interpretation of what we are faced with
to come to understanding what steps in life we have to take to heal and get
better.
We all carry our
self-created burden in life that makes us stumble and fall and bump into each
other from time to time. By understanding that all human beings have to go
through this in order to become wiser and detach from this way of life, to find
inner peace and happiness, we can help each other back on our feet again and
forgive whatever wrong has been done.
Religion is not something
exclusive for in churches or in temples. Religion is for everyday life, for
every moment we live. Religion (re + ligare; "to bind", from
Latin) is the key to help you understand when you see ‘this’, there exists also
‘that’ ([ ).
‘This’ being:
‘that’ becomes; from the cessation of ‘this’: ‘that’ ceases.
It is a key to come to
understanding that whatever comes alive in our consciousness has no other base
than its relative opponent and has in fact no solid foundation to live as an
absolute being.
In connection with Theology,
Religion is the key to show whatever we experience as God as meant in the Bible
book Genesis or in the Upanishads, or as different gods in the pantheon of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses or in the Mahabharata, they must be seen as a mirror image
of our selves which we are united with.
It is in everyday life that
we should be aware of religion and division as two ways of interpretation of
the existential world; it is in everyday life that we are faced with problems
we have to solve.
Studying different cultures showed
to be very helpful in expanding my narrow-mindedness in which my previous
identity was caught. It gave the opportunity to question myself and it helped
me to change my view on life.
Especially my study on the
life of the aborigines in Australia and America had a great influence on my
coming to understanding the importance of learning my life lessons and being
grateful for the opportunity to play a part in human development. They also
helped me to understand the richness of Mother Nature, be thankful for what she
provides and take from her no more than is really necessary for my development.
Not only religious works
like the Bible or the Majjhima-nikaya, but also many folk stories conceal deep
wisdom and can tell you about creation and at the same time broaden your view
on life as they come from different cultures.
To come to understanding
that there are cultures that do not live on an economic drive of producing and
consuming, degrading human beings to economic figures, but live easily and with
great respect on whatever Mother Nature provides, is necessary to understand
that today’s Western way of life is not to be mistaken for the right way of
life!
Bio-chemical science has
brought us many novelties that human being can benefit from. But with these
novelties we have also created a threat to humanity with our knowledge to
produce toxins for chemical warfare and an assault on human and environmental
health by chemical waste and pollution. These are aspects of life we’d rather
not think of, but are never the less all-responsible for.
Nowadays bio-chemical
science has found a new thing in an attempt to avoid illness and disease called
genetic manipulation. Let me give a fair warning: Whatever human being creates
this way to avoid illness, nature will always take advantage of this creation
by showing illness and disease in another way built on this creation. Whatever
we create to bring ease in our life from a wrong interpretation of the
existential world, it will also bring us dis-ease.
When disease is not cured
but symptoms are suppressed, disease will find new ways to show itself based on
our creations born from a wrong interpretation of the existential world.
The task for Medicine
therefore is to provide treatment for actual healing and not only give the
patient whatever he or she pleases in an attempt to avoid the pain that
inevitably comes with life. As long as medicine has not found a real cure for a
disease, or as long as patients are incapable to cure, one may of course do its
best to suppress this pain.
As I have cured myself from
my gender identity disorder, it is now for Medicine to make effort to
understand the view on life that initiated my healing and however difficult, do
its best to provide a therapy to people who suffer from this disease and are
mentally capable to undergo this healing process.
In many Western countries
changing the appearance of the physical body in an attempt to relief the
suffering from Gender Identity Disorder is nowadays more or less accepted. But
let it be clear that this is no healing, no actual cure, but ‘the best’ modern
Western medicine can offer given the fact that until recently the real source
of the disease was unknown.
Medicine should obligate
itself to come to understanding what Religion really means. This will help to
learn find actual healing and let go from treatments that are born from
ignorance. In this work the way to discover the source of an identity is
clearly marked. If well studied and well understood, it can also be helpful for
understanding the origin and development of other identity disorders.
Of course I realize it is
all easier said than done. It took me quite a few years to come to
understanding what really caused my problem studying myself and practising
meditation. Before a psychiatrist can set up a therapy he will have to find the
right view on the matter in himself, as a truth based on Religion.
A therapy based on
hypothesis is bound to fail. A therapist who lacks the experience found in the
practice of meditation cannot help simply because this therapist never
experienced the different states of awareness. From a therapist who is buried
up to his neck in the morass of wrong interpretations of man and disease, one
simply cannot expect to help a patient who suffers from the same sort of self
conceit.
Only an academic
study of the matter is insufficient to be able to help cure a patient with an
identity disorder.
Not knowing the real source
of an identity disorder is one reason why in Western Psychiatry many patients
cannot be cured but only be given some help to accept their disease.
Most Western psychiatrists
work only on the part of the spiritual building of a patient that gives misery.
They lack the vision that they have to help the patient realize that its inner
architect has to let go of and break down the entire spiritual
fortress. The whole identity must become solvable and workable in order to
actually heal from an identity disorder. Western Medicine will have to take new
steps to develop new insight. This cannot start soon enough, as the number of
people in Western society suffering from psychical illness is growing fast and
one can seriously doubt the state of health of our Western economies with so
many people getting ill and no longer able to join today’s rat race that we mistake
for a normal and a good way of living.
Today in Western society we
teach our children many skills to make a living, but comparative we take little
effort to pass over wisdom to help our children spiritually mature, enabling
them to shoulder responsibility for their own thoughts, speech, and actions.
For a great deal we have
forgotten the rites of passage to mark the stages in life in which they can
focus on the importance of taking responsibility in life. We somehow have
forgotten the use of metaphors to pass on deep knowledge about creation, and
the reason why we are living on Earth as a base for taking this responsibility.
We should make more effort
to give our children a key to help solve their problems they inevitably have to
deal with in life.
Understanding life and
understanding one another and taking own responsibility for one’s thoughts,
speech, and actions is the base for peaceful coexistence and a guide out of the
problems that we all inevitably will be faced with in life.
We all have to experience
life through our identities by stumbling and falling and learning from our own
stumbling blocks. As long as we stay ignorant of the real source of our misery
that lays within each of us we’ll be imprisoned in a perpetual mobile, a
vicious circle of wrong grasp of the existential world and the results from our
wrong thoughts, speech and actions. As a result of this wrong interpretation we
form the building and create the spiritual birth of new misery. It is in
learning to understand how one's identity comes alive one can take away the
source of one’s own problems that rise from this identity. It is also in
learning to understand how one's identity comes alive one can understand all
other human being.
It is in this
understanding one another that we can forgive one another, and compassion and
unconditional love rises. Then, when we stumble over one another we can help
each other stand up again and continue to live in peace and harmony.
I hereby
wish to express my gratitude to all those
who have helped me in my development, whether by letting me stumble and fall
and giving me valuable life lessons, or by helping me back on my feet again and
giving me the opportunity to analyse myself and change my life for the better.
May this work inspire those
who are trapped in the vicious circle of craving for being pleased and being
saddled with dis-ease, to discover their way out and experience happiness and
inner peace.
May this work and all my
work to come, be for the spiritual welfare and peace and happiness of all
living beings.
June 2002, Beverwijk, the
Netherlands
Author:
Hans Stam, van Riemsdijklaan
186, 1945XS Beverwijk, the Netherlands
Copyright: copy right! Everyone is free to make a copy of the
complete report.
When you use excerpts from
this report for other publications, please let your readers know where to find
the full report to enable them to read the excerpts in their original context.
I am willing to give
lectures about how to obtain the right view on the world that initiated my
healing process.
For more information, please
contact me: CONTACT INFORMATION
Postscript, 1 December 2008:
‘Suññataphalasamadhi’
is a project that has developed from my healing. There you will find
information in depth about meditation and introspection. The explanations and
exercises are in English, French and Dutch language.
Anyone can benefit from the meditation
practices and explanations that this project provides. They can help you to put
things in perspective and develop a more relaxed and joyful life.
On the website of the Suññataphalasamadhi
project you can find many useful keys to a free, compassionate and altruistic
way of life.