Hans Laurentius (1964)
Keywords: Awareness, freedom, enlightenment, real human adulthood, liberating emotional energy and conditionings, advaita, non-duality, true thinking, honesty, clarity.
Trained in the 90’s as a teacher in spiritual therapy. The search stopped, among other ‘things’, mainly through the confrontation with Nisargadatta’s I am That, and Ramana Maharshi’s glare and words and the spontaneous recognition of Awareness (Consciousness) as reality. ‘After’ that awakening the ‘I Am/Consciousness’ was recognised to be the first identification. He also read and reads a lot on philosophy, psychology, sociology, the brain, evolution, biasing, and so on, and writes about these and other topics as well, sometimes in relation to awakening and spirituality and always in relation to true Human Adulthood or how to become a genuine individual in stead of a copy of a copy of a copy (mass-person with a herd brain).
Since ’98 Hans has led hundreds of satsangs, retreats and private sessions. He ran a spiritual centre for nine years (2000-2009) and published fourteen books since 1999 (in Dutch – two of them are available as free PDF-files in English), many articles and columns, and about 140 youtube satsang video’s and interviews (some articles and interviews are in English on this website).
He also created even homemade music albums (between 2010-2016) containing 7 1/2 hours of (mainly) his own music and lyrics (a wide variety of song-material as well as instrumental, electronic music. Some tracks were written and recorded with Erik, a friend who plays (effect-treated) trumpet and percussion, three songs were recorded written and sang by his youngest daughter). Making music reemerged in 2010 and disappeared again in 2017. Before that he used to write and play stuff in his later teens and throughout twenties, sang/performed in a few bands, and recorded several demo tapes. The first time music disappeared was mainly because spirituality/selfinquiry was taking over as well as becoming a dad. This time it phased out just because he felt he was done with it…
Hans is sometimes described as being confrontational or direct, or, more kindly, as very clear and unafraid. On the other hand people credit him for his creativity and patience. Funny, right?
Private sessions can be entertained in English, also via Skype.
In this section of the site you can find translations of some of Hans’ texts, as well as the two pdf-file books, all kindly translated by volunteers. But first some quotes and pointers, Enjoy!
- When spirituality is not (also) alarming, it’s not worth mentioning.
- Burn-out is never about work. It’s a spiritual crisis. Not feeling and listening leads to inauthenticity which at a certain point makes the ‘soul’ scream for change.
- Self-inquiry and teachings are for internal use primarily. Not for beating others down or manipulating them, nor to be used as an excuse for lousy behavior.
- Becoming aware isn’t necessarily pleasant. It will always bring more clarity and a progress of freedom and authenticity though.
- Reality is never a problem until we start to project our beliefs, fears, expectations and judgements onto it. Reality is also never wrong, but you might very well be.
- You are far too much interested in solutions (and your ‘self’), and in the meantime it is your mind (what you believe in) who is creating most trouble in the first place.
- Ego-mind has only two modes: trying to get something and trying to get rid of something. Sprituality based on this doesn’t deserve the name.
- Unresolved issues keep you from being truly present and real. Avoidance is one of the most weakening tributes of identification with the mind or ‘self’.
- A lot of (your) spirituality is insincere (and pretty narcissistic or self-obsessed). It’s mostly based on trying to get rid of something, avoiding authenticity, masking what is really there, taking on a new persona or ‘air’. It’s mostly some form of control and manipulation as well as a new mask.
- Not feeling things fully. Not facing facts. Trying to force an outcome. Overreacting and looking for approval. Not speaking the truth. Avoiding confrontation. Controlling and manipulating other peoples behavior out of fear of feeling(s). These are all sings of immaturity: sub-human attitudes.
- What you truly are has never been hurt or treated badly, it’s not lacking anything. It’s completely free, whole and shining. NOW. ALREADY. It’s fearless! It’s here! It’s already the case.
- It’s a great shame lot’s of spiritual people including their teachers know so little about modern knowledge and research on topics like cognition, creative and learning processes, stress theory, biasing, personality traits, attachment issues, evolution, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy and so on. Many tend to be quite dismissive and closed minded – although claiming the opposite. The fact is that many of them are in fact very out dated on several interesting, important and sometimes even crucial topics and knowledge or even completely ignorant on many of those. This is obviously clouding their thinking, intuition, and clarity (and teachings) allowing things like magical thinking, projection, self delusion, backward notions, biases, blind spots, inadequate explanations and approaches and unsound theories to perpetuate; thusly keeping themselves (and other people) more in the dark (ages) than they believe to be doing. This way people keep receiving and believing (or handing out) at best a mixture of sensible and unwholesome, unsound notions (and advice). This lack of interest is amazing to me, for it is quite unhealthy to be and stay locked in the comfortable bubble of the familiar too much – it is also implying the conviction (or projecting) one already has all the knowledge and insights that are possible or available, which is as arrogant as it is ignorant.
- If you learn nothing today you will be as dumb tomorrow as you were yesterday.
- You’re always dumber than you think and always know less than you imagine (this also applies to teachers and guru’s).
- READ BOOKS! Preferably good ones 🙂 and not just stuff you already ‘believe’. Your confirmation bias and other prejudices are playing more tricks on you than you know.
- Read all of the above several times… we learn for a large part through repetition…
To top it of: some music…
Go to my youtube channel to find the playlist with the 7 albums…