I’m a Belgian man with master degrees in psychology, family and sexuological sciences and a therapist. As a human being and a psychologist I consider it as my duty to help mankind.

I’m 53 years young and I practice zen meditation during 25 years. I consider myself as being a christian zen Buddhist or a buddhistic Christian. And I know, this sounds impossible for many readers. You may think: “Or you are this and not that, or you are that and not this.”
But can we really make a distinction where day starts and where night ends? And is it not possible that we are this AND that simultaneously? Don’t we possess all masculine and feminine peculiarities?
     
As a 5-6 years young child I suffered from tuberculosis and had to leave home and family for 2 years: one year in a Belgian hospital and one year in Switserland. My transfer to Switserland caused a shocking trauma and on the other hand created many opportunities to experience nature and pureness in it fullest glory.

In Switserland I had a few little spontaneous religious experiences where the distinction between myself and the world disappeared completely. Time stood still and infinity entered my body and mind for short times. Nature itself had a great influence on me and since then I love nature as the source of my and other lives.

The suffering, caused by the fact that I was not living at home with my other brothers and sister, made a deep impression on me. Since then I’m very sensitive to suffering and it still moves me, even to tears, when I see a suffering being on television or elsewhere. The mystery of suffering itself keeps me going on to help others.

The first great spiritual experience entered suddenly and unexpectedly when I kissed, for the first time, a girl in my life. I completely disappeared in the act of doing. Body and mind dropped away. There was no me anymore, no time, no world. And suddenly the whole world became me and I became the world. The girl was me and I was the girl.

A second great spiritual experience happened also suddenly and unexpectedly when we had a week of a kind of retreat with our class-mates. There I clearly saw that there is, paradoxically speaking, no beginning and no ending in existence. I clearly felt with an unshakable confidence and certainty that I will never die, nor was I ever born. A great joy entered me for several hours. I had seen the source of life and death and wasn’t afraid anymore for death.

Due to this experience I made a few years ago my death-haiku. Already writing your death-haiku before you die seems to be a little morbid. However it entered my mind spontaneously and since then I used it many times for people who lost their beloved ones. Feel free to write it down and to give it to those who need support.

As I said, I see it as my duty and life goal to help others and mankind. Suffering itself is the core of the problem of humankind. When I look at the world today overpopulation is one of the symptoms and great problems we have to conquer. Do you know that every day a new city is born with 250 000 inhabitants? This is, in long term vision, intolerable.

New scientific research uncovers the reality that, if we persist in fishing as we do now, within 20 years there will be almost no fish anymore in the seas.

The heaviest drug of all today is money. Almost every one is addicted to it. There is no problem with money if we use it to live appropriately. There is a huge problem if we live for the purpose of money and if we use the money inappropriately. More and more (I’m conscious of the fact that this might be an over-generalisation) the core business of life is money. We downsize companies for the sake of money, people are for instance working very hard in order to obtain 2 cars instead of one. Parents work simultaneously for the sake of more tangible comfort while the children are left alone. We even see children as a source to obtain money (child prostitution and sex tourism in many countries)! I can go on and on and on and …

It’s my strong feeling that values (certainly in Belgium) concerning helping other people, altruism, genuineness, honesty, … fade away and are replaced by an egocentric attitude. In those tendencies religion is pushed aside and values and norms are more and more neglected. The suffering raises and becomes more and more clear and visible.

We are standing on a point of no return concerning the pollution, exploitation and overpopulation of the earth. Nuclear power might be a danger (see Nord-Korea, Iran, …). We are standing on the threshold of extinction or on the threshold of re-orientation towards true human values.

The previous paragraphs are negative coloured. However, every knife cuts on two sides. The other side is that we are high potential beings gifted with intelligence, compassion and plain common sense. We have to give people the opportunity to obtain and gain a completely different point of departure in their lives.

It’s my strong unshakable conviction that people have to know their innermost secret: “you are the other”. As such every thing you do towards others, is a thing you do towards yourself. Loving others is loving yourself. Hurting others is hurting yourself.
The international spiritual-meditation center can give the opportunity to others to really obtain this innermost secret. Every one obtaining this truth will become a star shining brilliantly in the world and becoming a role-model for others.

Together we can make a difference. All religions, being united, can give a strong signal that we all have to redirect into other directions. As such an institution as an “international spiritual-meditation center”, can become a loud voice shouting out that “money is not the issue” but self-knowledge and compassion.

As a first conclusion I would like to mention the vow of Hisamatsu as my daily guidance.

I hope this page makes clear what I’m standing for and to a certain degree who I am.

I thank you for your attention and time to read this. Feel free to ask questions, make suggestions, suggest new ideas, …

Namaste.

Rogel dias
Antwerp, january 2007