Coming home to TSK: A brief account of my first taste of TSK

My first encounter with anything related to TSK took place after accidentally stumbling upon a copy of “Love of knowledge” in a bookstore in The Hague. Immediately upon looking into it I became immensely intrigued by the subject matter, as well as the many pictures and diagrams that seemed to jump from the pages. The decision to buy the book was made instantly and intuitively, as was not uncommon for me. The date was June the 23-th, 1988, about a year after its first appearance.

This was the kind of book that fascinated me from the outset, not because the message it radiated was so profound and clear, but because this seemed to be a book entirely devoted to the Riddle of Reality. In those days I was blessed with having a large and lusciously green garden at my disposal. One of my favorite pastimes became hiding in the back of this garden with my copy of Love of Knowledge. I still have clear memories of sitting there, enveloped by the fragrance of flowers and blooming shrubs, the singing of birds and the buzzing of insects. I did not read the book in a conventional, linear way. I rather smelled the pages, reading some lines now and then, as if they were a kind of poetry. In the spaces between reading one passage and the next, I rested, observing nature as well as my own thoughts. The effect upon me was a strange one: Although I did not rationally understand what the text was about, I nevertheless received inklings and intuitions about what the text might refer to. There was a slight alteration in my usual perception of reality, a subtle but pleasant confusion that lingered even after I stopped reading. It was as if I received a premonition of a strange and unknown vision of reality, as if I could smell it, without understanding anything about it. Sometimes after reading, I would go for a walk at dusk, still somewhat infected by a quiet sense of wonderment. A strange and peaceful sensation filled me. I remember once the sudden and silent appearance of an owl gliding overhead, as silent and unexpected as Knowledge itself…

It would be several years later that I really came into contact with the activities of the Nyingma Center in Amsterdam (see the picture below). In the meantime I had become very interested in Kum Nye (a kind of Tibetan yoga) as a means of relaxation. This was mainly because my job had become very stressful and I had, in an unpleasant way, been confronted with the necessity of doing something about it, in a structural way. I did some Kum Nye weekends, which was very pleasurable and interesting. I decided to enroll for a five-day Kum Nye retreat in the summer, but then I found out that I had juggled the dates. Because I had made several appointments at my job, which could not be changed, I decided to do the TSK retreat instead. So my first real life contact with TSK happened quite accidentally. To my great amazement it was exactly  what I had been looking for, for a very long time. That needs some explanation:

For more than ten years I had been engaged in the "Gurdjieff-work". But there had been a growing dissatisfaction with it for many years until I finally "left the group". It had been a very hard decision, especially since my wife was of a totally different opinion and carried on with it. I found myself in a very lonely position: no group, no teacher, people close to me feeling I had made "the wrong decision" etc. The only consolation that I had was that Krishnamurti, whose approach I had been studying simultaneously, strongly recommended this kind of "standing on one's own", not being dependent on any kind of teacher or doctrine at all. It was a scarce consolation however, since Krish­namurti was dead and I had no idea of how to continue.

At this time I did continue my regular morning meditation sessions and my efforts at mindfulness during the day. I have been meditating formally since I was sixteen, beginning with Zen-meditation from a book, later trying TM, dropping it and moving on to vipassana, also from books. From the very beginning meditation seemed natural for me and an extremely powerful and important tool for transformation. As a child I had often been alone in nature. I just sat under a tree or somewhere near the water and observed everything. Later I realized that this was meditation already since in that way I also became aware of my own thoughts, observing them and usually feeling very quiet and peaceful afterwards. My whole critique at the Gurdjieff-work concerned what one could call the "frozenness" of the system and the ideas that it entailed. For a long time I felt intoxicated by so many ideas, so many re­strictions, so many subtle fears and it made me heavy and depressed. Krishnamurti's approach, in time, offered an effective antidote. It made me ponder a lot about what pure awareness and real meditation imply and I put much time in trying to find out. Also I tried to put some of my conclusions on paper. It meant for me to be not bound by any idea, any approach, any teacher, to just be aware with total awareness. And then, totally unexpected, I found out that this is exactly (as far as I can see) what TSK is all about.

The five days that the TSK retreat lasted were remarkable and impressive. I was eager to join this strange group of people, some of whom had been involved in TSK for many years. The atmosphere was a bit giddy and excitable, very much unlike the peaceful and relaxed atmosphere of the Kum Nye retreats. I catched an inconvenient cold, mainly because  it rained almost constantly and I insisted on sleeping in my little tent. But despite my cold I persisted in attending the program schedule. What impressed my most of all was the chanting of the mantra’s. We sung the Vajra Guru mantra for about an hour and a half, because it happened to be full moon. And we also sang the “TSK mantra” ah HA SHA SA MA  HA for several long stretches of time. In chanting in this way I tasted a quality of consolation and sweetness. It was as if I had entered a realm where I felt at peace in a strange, unexpected and inexplicable way. It was as if, after an immense journey, I had finally come home.  

Above: The Nyingma Center in Amsterdam