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Online course ‘Awaken yourself’

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Awaken yourself

Enrich your life

Most people are starting mindfulness practices because they want to get rid of certain problems and I can only encourage you to practice mindfulness as a great tool to do that. The tools and techniques that I offer you certainly have the power to overcome your problems. But I want to share another important advantage of mindfulness.

Practicing mindfulness will also open doors in your life that would otherwise remain closed forever.

Questions like:

  • ” Who am I? “,
  • ” What am I doing here in this world? “,
  • ” What is the meaning of life? “,
  • ” What do I want in life and what is meant for me? “

These are questions we have all had at some point. Unfortunately, such questions also disappear for most people. Most of the time these existential questions come back from time to time in different phases of your life. Looking closely at such questions makes us look at locked doors that can be opened. A door that leads to more self-examination and self-realization. It’s an opportunity to understand life better and to know how we can live our lives more easily. Unfortunately, most people leave this door closed and don’t even try to turn the door handle.

There can be several reasons for not taking this opportunity. We do not find out the answer and in turn these questions will disappear naturally over time. Another reason could be that we settle with an answer that is based on our own assumption, knowledge or preference without real contemplation or self-examination. You may also not want to look at these kinds of questions at all.

When I was younger and asked adults those questions, I often got replied with: ‘Pfff, you are asking me too complicated questions right now.’ And they didn’t give me any answer, which implied that they had never dwelled on what I think is one of the most important questions in our lives.

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Niels de Stürler Boekwijt (34) is the founder of the Inner Mind Institute. While currently living as a monk, Master Niels guides retreats in the Thai temple of Piyapodok Dhammastan, organized by the Inner Mind Institute.

Since 2010 Master Niels traveled multiple times to Thailand to expand his knowledge about mindfulness, eventually becoming a monk for the first time in 2015. This year, in 2020, Master Niels will live as a monk for one full year. His ultimate goal is to find enlightenment and to spread his knowledge to his students.

In the Netherlands Niels works as an osteopath, treating people in the Inner Mind Center in Oegstgeest and he organizes mindfulness courses and retreats in The Netherlands and Thailand.

You can learn more about Master Niels in the documentary The White Monk. The documentary is to be released later this year. Subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates about the documentary and it’s release date.

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