Thomas van Kleef

Not demands, but gifts

However different the manifestation, the foundation of every proven spiritual discipline, from the East as much as from the West, revolves around the same recognition: sure, holiness dwells in our hearts, but between us and that heart is our ego. And unless we hand over the reins of that to outside “sacristies,” rituals or disciplines, that heart will be the dwelling place not only of our sacred, but also of our unholy. And thus a battleground.

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Inpansion

Enlarge: to change the existing not by adding something, but by analyzing it soberly and identifying in the outcome the possibilities for the new. For city, building and people: warmly recommended

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Coincidence can be made

Now that was unfortunate: the groups’ viewing dune turned out to create a “viewing” situation for the individual guests of the new retreat studio. What to do if you don’t want to put up a fence or hedge, but want a landscaping solution? The landscape architects at Landscape North Holland knew what to do.

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John XVII then and now

John XVII then and now. In Volzin, a conversation with Thomas about over fifteen years of Jan XVII. Features include Liber and the “Servant Hermit” vacancy.

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Allegri

miserere

Allegri’s Miserere brings you where linear reasoning cannot take you: to the realization that only inner surrender, brings peace. Inimitably good slogan, ever, from Heineken:

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From flat to sparkling

Our lives end in one great ‘disappointment’: our death. Which is more relevant now? Our opinion about that death, or the real fact of it?

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Welcome to Paradise

‘Welcome to paradise’. Imagine a world where the news starts every night with these words. After which we only start to relate to the other things of the day in a second instance, and then from that consciousness.

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Setback as a road to prosperity

‘It is precisely setbacks that can put a person on the track of inner renewal’. An intriguing thought, right now. Click and read what Thomas says about it in Klooster magazine.

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Easter contamination

Wash hands, stay home, keep your distance: apply these three rules internally, and you could end up with a great Easter contamination from the Corona virus! Read an Easter essay I wrote for Nieuw Wij here.

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Miserere

‘How did you get involved’, I am often asked, ‘that Liber do-it-yourself coaching method?’. ‘Psalm 51’, I say. ‘Psalm 51 and Allegri’. Click on the image to continue reading.

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Going to see the same thing differently

Scared, angry, lonely or sad? Of course you can. But that doesn’t mean you have to wear that feeling. Spread your anxiety pants, panic shirt or worry skirt on your bed and let them tell their story. Click to read more.

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Elke tells about Liber

‘…that I don’t coincide with what I think and feel: thanks to Liber I now understand.’ Click on the picture and read what Elke says about Liber.

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Sinterklaas in March?

Sinterklaas in March? No, the Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training is back in the house. Volume 2020, the first week in a series of three. Sat Nam!

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Inner renovation

Truly, a person is capable of much more inner renewal than we think. Take ZeeVELD as an example… (Click on the image and read on).

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me, who am i?

When we build a house, we start at the beginning. Against all the laws of gravity, we start with our house of life at the roof. Not with the question marks, but with the exclamation marks of our existence. Click on the image to read more

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Connecting: full speed ahead

Transitium ZeeVELD’s three speeds: Connecting. deepen. still. This time with a leading role for the Connection. Just wait for the bridal couple, the wedding official,

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The meaning of life…in you

Life has no meaning. Because life does not think in terms of ‘having’, but of giving. So life ‘has’ no meaning, but ‘creates’ meaning. In that life itself. Click on the image to continue reading.

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The fastest way is the detour

He struggled with depression for years. To the point of suicidal. Until Liber crossed his path. And after only three weeks he could exclaim: ‘why didn’t I discover this sooner? Away with complaints!’ How is that possible? Read more here.

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This is how you become happy

Thanks to Jan Versteegh, who also visited ZeeVELD for a candid conversation with Thomas for his book ‘Becoming happy in this way’. Click on the image and read on.

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Who’s at the wheel?

Who is actually at the controls of what you think and feel? And if you now say: ‘that is myself’, what or who is that, that ‘self’?

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Liber in a nutshell

“Libert does not help you realize your desires, but to learn to evaluate them detached. In the process you move from delusion to reality. You discover that life is not a must, but a lover who wants to love you.” Curious about what Liber is and does? Click here to read the summary…

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Look at the new man

Anyone who fears that man as we now think of himself will perish is right, for the simple reason that he has not been given that right to exist. It is not ‘designed’ that way. (Read more here)

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Cognitive Templates

‘Our lives must fit within the framework that we have in mind for this’ I wrote in an earlier blog. That framework turns out to have a beautiful name: cognitive template…

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From self-image to life expression

What can make learning Liber so difficult: it consciously breaks down your self-image. The Pietje or Marietje that you have built so hard on. Yet: whoever feels called to be more expression of life than self-image, allows himself to be brought down.

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For what the silence produces

To become silent is to become a woman. And mother. All willingness to love and receive every word; then to wait motionless and finally to give birth: the life-giving word. And again. And again.

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Amarillo by Morning

To keep moving, whatever happens, that is the art. Not: to be a single chord, but to dare to embody all verses of the song that lives inside you…

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Liber, exercise 3

This is the extended version of Exercise 2. The exercise takes just over an hour, which will allow you to create an additional word cloud and have more time and space to relate to…

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Easter, Liber: exercise 2

If you stand with your nose on the ‘Night Watch’, you see a blob, a smudge, a stroke. Certainly not a painting to write home about. It only becomes that if you distance yourself from it…

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Liber, exercise 1

Liber teaches you to live on two motors: the motor of your thinking, doing and letting go, striving, finding, feeling, wanting to know and expecting, AND those of your completely silent awareness of this…

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‘Look Mickey’

The sacred wall in the chapel of ZeeVELD has been joined by Roy Lichtenstein. An image of his painting showing Donald Duck…

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Peaceful in ZeeVELD

We still have a while to go for peace on earth, it is certainly peaceful in ZeeVELD. And fur. Click here for more photos.

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Dying before we die

“All spirituality is about dying before we die and being reborn as our True Selves in Love,” writes Richard Rohr. Read more here.

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Introducing: Liber

Transitium ZeeVELD facilitates transition processes. The specialty of the house: the Liber detachment method. Lake…

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detachment

Monk’s work described in one word: detachment. Dying to self is at the heart of the spiritual journey. Read here what the Franciscan friar Richard Rohr has to say about it.

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So quiet and so cared for

Sun, tranquility, all doors open, the cat sleeping in the middle of the driveway, the smell of freshly cut grass, not a sound to be found. Read more here…

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flight spot

The management of this company feels at home here and the reunion is warm. ‘You can set up a branch here,’ I joke. “That would be a good idea,” says the director, “a refuge”. Read more here.

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The demagogue in me

Every time President Trump says, ‘I am the solution’, I know again: yes indeed, in me the problem. Waking. There’s work to be done. Read more here…

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Each day is a holy place

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, Transforming our broken fragments Into an eternal continuity

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Drying the laundry

Without a clothesline, hanging the laundry contemplatively becomes a bit difficult. So it’s great that Aaron recently put down some poles with lines in a

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Are we saying no now?

More than seventy million dead and 55 years later, Hitler’s last secretary looks back with incomprehension on the fact that she did not say ‘no’

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Who digs a pit

One day I want to write a book about tile truths. Or maybe organize a series of retreats based on that. Today’s turn: ‘whoever digs

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Living without why

Hillary Clinton knows what caused her to lose the election: ‘the FBI broke the momentum’. That could well be true. But the way of thinking

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The last was the first

The very, very last guest in the Bloeiplaats Transitium, was also the first, without it having been organized or conceived: Tamarah Benima, rabbi of the

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Transitium Phase 1 over

Bloomplaats Transitium was given the time to reinvent itself for eighteen months. Like this one in Malve Dau and Marieke Hildenbrant also had two mothers.

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Start in yourself

To a disciple who was forever complaining about others, the master said, “If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people.

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Forty years Jan XVII

Forty years ago today, on August 12, 1976, the deed of incorporation of Jan XVII passed. Many can be thankful to the founders for the

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soft powers

Never out of date: ‘The soft forces will certainly win’ * The soft powers will surely win in the end — this I hear like

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let god take care

In another beautiful addition to the site ‘All of Bach’ Dorien Schouten plays the chorale ‘Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten’. The text goes

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Runner or snail?

A snail may not have legs, but a snail’s pace does take place step by step. First, the snail secretes an adhesive with its lower

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Rob Schipper

Today would have been Rob Schipper’s birthday. Together with Ton de Nooy he founded Jan XVII. For years, Rob kept watch faithfully, also literally, in

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Desire meets answer

The mouth that is constantly chatting can hardly fall open in surprise. Which is exactly the reason why a person cannot practice silence enough. For

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New poverty

‘You can’t arrange something like that with a referendum’, ‘the stayers campaigned poorly’, or ‘politics made it their own’ – reasons for the result of

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Sharing fairer

And then the British referendum turned out to be a battle between haves and have nots. With the underlying existential question: do you expect to

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Inn or stable

The greatest danger of excesses of excessive irrationality – Orlando, the murder of Jo Cox, a possible Brexit, presidential candidate Trump – is that they

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