Yoga and Vedic science have changed my life completely. Many see yoga only as postures on the mat, but I’m talking about yoga in a broader way of understanding: as a healthy lifestyle for body, mind and soul. 

A decade ago, I was an award-winning International Child Development Specialist after getting my masters at the university, and worked mainly in ‘poor’ developing countries. Then my eyes opened to a whole different way of thinking. My truth changed: who are we to say that ‘they’ are poor? I came to notice that ‘we’ are a lot poorer in our way of loving, living, being happy and live a conscious life.

My whole world changed by living and working abroad for several years. And coming back to my old world was tough, being a completely different person in my old surroundings in Holland. There was no place I could call ‘home’ anymore. I was searching for something, not knowing what it was. At that time I was working as a managing director in ‘developing world’, which was mainly about money and not about ‘them’ anymore: the brave children who are facing many challenges living in city slums and marginalised rural areas.

Then I started my own practice for life coaching, therapy and naturopathy, which was great, because I could help people again, but still it was not my dharma or life goal. I felt that the higher energy had something else in mind for me, but I had to walk the path of soul searching first, to find out what that was.

Every step on the way, I became more conscious about our real truth and I was learning deeply about myself, but also about humanity and that we are much more than just ‘our body and a bundle of thoughts’. There is a deep and mysterious reason why we are here. 

Then I found out about yoga and the scriptures which describe the path of moksha or self realisation and came to know more about our true self or atma, the soul. I’ve been studying thoroughly with an Indian teacher, experiencing, practicing, traveling several times to an ashram in India, and I’ve been searching inside. It felt good right away. It felt as ‘it’; the thing I was missing in life. Home. I started to live the yoga lifestyle very strictly to clean myself energetically, to be able to deeply experience this soul-energy.

Life is a pilgrimage. The wise man does not rest by the roadside inns. He marches direct to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss, his ultimate destination. Swami Sivananda

Daily meditation, pranayama, asanas and mantra chanting made me a different person: with inner peace and strength, much more content, happy, blissful, patient, and I might say a more loving and compassionate being than I already was before. I felt connected to my inner self, my real self, my soul. I was more fine tuned with the higher energy of love, the divine, because once we are connected, we feel that we are all one body of love. 

I found out that this cleansing process is actually the universal dharma or goal of our existence: with Jnana, Karma and Bhakti Yoga we clear up old patterns and thoughts (which are often negative and self destructive and remove us further from our truth), which will make place for the pure energy of our soul or atma: unconditional love. 

When we become pure love like this, eventually we are able to see love everywhere, we think with love, we speak lovingly, we act only out of love and we attract more love into our lives. When we become love, we merge with love because particles of the same attract. We dissolve into the divine. That is moksha the reason why we are here. Realising this we can see that love is all that is true: it is everything. Then we only want to serve love or the higher energy. 

In that stadium I am at the present moment: searching for a way in which I can serve best, with the deep knowledge and skills that I’ve built up the past years, considering ‘us’ as body, mind and soul. Right now it feels best, besides teaching and coaching children with my own developed methods for yoga, meditation, dance and games, and coaching adults with a ‘home made’ approach called Yoga Therapy, to write about the process and share my experience in a way that it can be supportive for others who are interested in walking the same path of moksha. 

The first book, written with my dear friend Dhroeh Nankoe, has been published and I am very grateful that it has been received very well: it is about teaching children a different way, with understanding of energy, emotions, the heart and love with energisers based on the science of yoga and meditation. When we start young, our children don’t have to walk this path, they keep on shining their inner lights continuously. 

Of course some other books will follow soon, but in the meanwhile you can read my blog in which I share more about this inner cleaning process and the healthy yoga lifestyle with sattvic food, which can lead us all to perfect physical, mental and spiritual health. It brings us to love and bliss inside, without searching it outside ourselves. It brings us to a deep feeling of happiness and oneness, it brings us home to our soul. 

Namasté.

While everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates…. For I can see in the midst of death, life persists, in the midst of untruth, truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Mahatma Gandhi