My name is Ruurd Pieter, I’m Dutch, born in 1960 in Hertogenbosch.
For many years I’d worked as a nurse in psychiatric settings. During that time I’d followed a yoga teacher training abroad which was based on the principles of the New Yoga Will as developed by spiritual teacher Heinz Grill. Being an artist, I’d studied drawing and painting at the art academy in the city of The Hague. In some projects abroad I’d created interior design.
In 2002 I moved to Italy, and I now live in Trentino. I teach Yoga to Italians and tourists who visit the beautiful region of Lake Garda. My girlfriend also teaches Yoga, so we share common ideals. I’m fascinated by the picturesque nature surrounding me; its lakes, forests, mountains and its ever changing flora and fauna. Nature always attracts me; to go for a walk with friends, to practise sports or Yoga, to sit and just admire or paint her. I like to get to know other people, Italians and tourists alike, simply to share friendship and good culture.
A main motive in my life is to give other people the possibilities to get to know spiritual and universal ideas, and that these ideals could become one’s inspiration and motivation for a more harmonious, social and creative way of living. What I like most about the Yoga I teach is the artistic approach, the creative process based on an idea. According to me every art form should originate from a sublime content, a truthful idea and not merely exist as an expression of a personal, subjective impulse. How else could art become “eternal beauty?”
The truthful idea should become, through artistic feelings and social engagement, a motivation for a realisation in daily life. This realisation of an ideal can express itself in spoken word, writing, education, healing, music, visual arts, architecture, and so on. The ideal that first was an abstraction becomes a living experience. In this way a universal idea, through the creative individual, attains its expression in the world.
The current chaotic times in which we live require of each of us to engage in this creative process. The individual who lives without a content, without an ideal which he or she passionately wants to realize for the world, hasn’t yet developed a true soul potential and lives with an inner void. In this emptiness negative thoughts, feelings and impulses may enter very easily. Our elevated contents and ideals are in fact the real nutrition for our soul, and without them the soul suffers. As a consequence, mental and physical illnesses can occur.
To live a life with joy, with self-esteem, with much social contact and in good health, every one of us should become an artist in life. By living in this way, we can participate in the creation of a better culture, and all life will be “Yoga”, in the sense of a synthesis of our ideals and our social lives.