‘In recent years I have spent a lot of time in bed due to all kinds of ailments. Then I would look back at my life and think, I can put together a pretty impressive resume that would suggest that I’ve made one decision after another in my life. But as I got deeper into what I had done, I came to the conviction: I’ve never made one decision. Really never.’
Jaap Voigt says it with the persuasiveness that is his own – he is ‘a warrior’, someone who knows how to draw attention to himself in groups: ‘I am present, yes, when I am somewhere, I am really there.’ A selection from his CV: hockey player in the Dutch national team, geologist, naval officer, Philips years, organizational consultant, founder of a school for personal development, supervisor of chaplains on defense missions to Afghanistan and Iraq; researcher in Gaza and Israel on the processing of war trauma; translator of the Taoist wisdom book Dao De Jing; a monk’s life in an ashram in India.
After that last adventure, at the age of 81, he now works in Amsterdam as a ‘life coach’ with ‘about ten or fifteen people every week. Usually they leave here relieved, so I’m still playing my part.’ At the same time, he has been facing death since his first, severe illness in 2015. It has inspired him to the ‘die well’ project, in which his houseboat in Vinkeveen plays an important role. There he is closer to nature than in his hometown of Amsterdam. ‘Daisies grow in the garden by our boat. I’m sitting on a couch in between – well, you can’t get more fussy, can you? But I’m perfectly happy. I watch them for two, three hours. That makes me whole.’ For him, the place is not without symbolism: ‘During the war, as a child I was hiding a hundred meters away between the peat heaps’. Emotionally: ‘The circle is complete.’
What was formative in your youth?
“I am a war child. My first memory is a raid, here in Amsterdam. Then we had to go into hiding. I didn’t talk until I was 4, until the liberation. Like many war children, I have been left with a permanently high stress level, I am always vigilant. It has made me empathetic, because I pay close attention to what happens to others. But it has also led to unrest, in my life I have been in too much of a hurry.
‘From the age of 14 I asked myself: what is normal? My father was in the resistance and never recovered from the war. When I was 8 he got sick. He was given pills and admitted. I never actually knew him, never touched him. He passed away when I was 22. But that theme of ‘what is normal?’ has ruled my life. I’ve often had the fear of becoming a mess too.’
That was especially the case around your 30th birthday, when you seemed settled: a family with three young children, a job at Philips.
‘For the outside world I had it done, for me something was not quite right. I had made up my mind that I wanted to belong to the establishment, to power. But I didn’t know then of the evil to which you must be prepared. I found out that I didn’t fit in at all. I started having terrible nightmares. More and more often I suddenly burst into tears. I was very lonely. It led me to leave my wife and children. I mourned that for ten years.’
The divorce was your decision?
‘No, I don’t see it that way. I experienced that if I stayed, I would become a mess, just like my father. I stood with my back against the wall. The way I see it: I didn’t turn away from what actually happened. I have sanctioned that decision to divorce – it is the difference between leading and following. With our personality, our ego, we think we are leading in our lives. That is the concept of manufacturability. When I say I didn’t make that decision, I mean I’m not the maker of my life. I followed something. There is a lifestream that has taken me somewhere and I have been able to participate in it. In the years before my divorce, I experienced that I had fallen out of that stream. Despite my conditioning, I eventually managed to tune into it, which led to the divorce and a different life.”
What exactly does that lifestream entail?
‘That’s a mystery. He comes from somewhere, but what the source is, is not understood. In Chinese it is called the Dao, the all-encompassing or the unnamable; Christians talk about God. I belong to the origin of those currents, not to the later institutions. You will also find it with Plato who is in Symposium speaks of love and receptivity to it, that is how he sees the lifestream. I understand that immediately. They are currents that say: there is a mystery that expresses itself in energy, thoughts and forms, you can call that a creation. I am part of that. In it you have a horizontal plane, then you talk about your fellow man and nature, but you also have a vertical line to the higher. The input for that is: silence, delay relative to the horizontal line. Fortunately, I have also managed to slow down in my life, despite my unrest. You need time to see what’s going on.’
How does a person tune in to that lifestream?
‘The art is not to turn away from what is actually happening, but to face the suffering. Asking someone ‘what are you suffering from?’ I think it’s a normal question. I have recognized suffering for as long as I have lived, I am drawn to it. But people deny it, they turn away from it. They have panic attacks at night, for months, and then claim, “I’m fine.” I get people like that here at my house. I am not so interested in what is wrong, but try to find access to that lifestream: what is still whole, besides everything that is broken? What do you still enjoy? Then something can flow again. Turning away, not wanting to face the suffering of yourself and others, I think that’s the greatest disease of our time.’
Is that because of our society?
Erich Fromm stated in his book Sane Society the question of whether a society can also be insane. The answer: yes, you can. We live in that now. But here it comes: it has always been so, for three thousand years! There have always been people who have recognized that. I belong to those people. One who has put that into words is Patanjali (Indian philosopher, when he lived is unknown, some sources state in 4th century B.C., ed.). In his yoga sutras he says that man, rule 1, at birth forgets where he came from, namely the unity to which you return after death. Man ends up in a dual, split world and develops, rule 2, his own self in it. Rules 3 and 4: When you and I are apart, we both deal with hate and desire. Hate is repulsion, something you want out of your system; desire is about what you want in it. The last line, number 5: fear of death. These five truths govern the life of every human being. They are always there, never not, this is our destiny. Just look around, all selves, hatred and desire, fear of death, you see it everywhere. And that was also the case in Plato’s time, when the largest basin with the most slaves were in charge. They were not happy with Socrates and Plato.’
Given this human condition, what is a person to do?
‘When I hear those five truths from Patanjali, it reassures me and I become silent. They help me tune into the flow of life. Participating and moving along, that’s what a person has to do. I also look for that attunement in a conversation. That is not: letting two billiard balls bounce on each other and see what funny comes out of it. No, I’m talking about what I call resonance, something that comes between us that causes something to happen and we come into a different reality. In Christian terms this is called the blessing. It’s a vibration that makes you feel that it’s right and that the other person also notices that something has been added.’
Does that offer comfort to Patanjali’s human condition?
‘Absolutely! That is comfort. Loneliness is always part of the human condition. The commonplace is: you are born alone and die alone. That is true, but more importantly, when it comes to the deepest meaning of your life, your deepest motivation, you are alone in the face of a mystery. That is archetypically a desert trip, you just have to endure it. Albert Schweizer (physician and philosopher, ed.) was with his wife for a long time and finally concluded that he did not know her. That’s how I experience it too. But you can solve loneliness through experiences of resonance.’
What is your message to future generations?
‘Follow your heart. That’s the only thing. I now teach at the Bildung Academy, where the students are searching boys and girls in their 20s. I tell them: you think you have to become what the outside world expects you to be. Do you want to stop doing that? Look what the outside world has made of it: you don’t want to participate in that, do you? So follow your heart. Make it sweet and beautiful. I tell them that, as a warrior.’
What is a man to do when he feels the end approaching?
“It is useless to say: Cease hatred and lust. They always accompany us. You cannot get rid of it just before you die if you have not practiced it before. Many elderly people have become hardened. They pretend to have seen everything, know everything. Most die angry, according to a study of hospices. Your question puts me facing that field. (silence) I would say: calm down, become quiet. Practice enjoying something, even just a blade of grass. And ask yourself: to whom can I give my heart in the face of death? Continue to marvel, until the very end, there are so many beautiful things in this existence. Once you are amazed, try to express it in connection with someone else. Then you stutter, always, if you stutter you are doing a good job. We cannot understand the mystery.’