🇺🇸Maarten Meijer

Hosts: You are a fascinating guy with many, many different adventures and travels, who's hopped around the world. Can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up, your spiritual background?

Maarten: I grew up in the Netherlands, or also known as Holland, in a small town kind of in the center of the country. My family was not very spiritual or religious. My mother had some kind of a spiritual sensitivity, I could say. My father was somewhat of a liberal Protestant background, but not really strongly practicing in any way. So I was never really churched. At some point my father encouraged me — maybe you can check out church — which I did for a little while, but it was never really active. So I was more or less left to my own devices to figure things out for myself, and did a lot of reading. There was definitely interest. I was always thinking deeply about things. Through my own thinking and reading, I had to come to my own conclusions.

Hosts: And what were those conclusions?

Maarten: They changed all the time. As mentioned in the bio, I was very interested by Albert Schweitzer and Leo Tolstoy, because both of them emphasized nonviolence and also a religious type of humanism. Oftentimes we're down on humanism because people think of secular humanism, but this is a more religious type. I felt a lot of warmth from them, concern for other people. That really attracted me.

Maarten: Then I had a strange experience when I was 15 or 16 — interesting age, mid-teenage years. For some odd reason, I started to feel really close to Jesus. Nobody witnessed to me. Nobody told me anything about Jesus. It came out of the blue, out of nowhere. I really felt a strong emotional connection and even love for Jesus. I still remember at some point I made a little wooden cross and I hung it about my neck, but I was a little embarrassed by it because at the same time I didn't really believe in God. So I put it usually underneath my shirt. I still remember my brother making fun of me and saying, "You're an agnostic, or some people say you're an atheist, but you're wearing a cross around your neck and you say you love Jesus. How is that all supposed to work out?" Intellectually, it didn't make a whole lot of sense, but that was where I was at when I was 16.

Maarten: Then I grew further into the teenage years and you start to listen to rock music and read all kinds of other interesting things. So I kind of lost that inspiration, that closeness to Jesus. I started reading a lot of philosophers, existentialists — primarily Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche, and also Hesse, Thomas Mann. German, French, and so forth. I read them all in the original languages, because in Holland you're supposed to study all these languages. So I had the advantage of being able to read them in German, English, French. But it really took me away from spiritual things. At the same time I kept some interest in spiritual things, bounced a little bit back and forth. I also studied Zen Buddhism, some of D.T. Suzuki's books, who was very popular at the time, and some other writers. It was a bit of a smorgasbord of spirituality and philosophy — confusing.

Hosts: Can I ask what drew you to be so interested in spirituality? What were the questions you were really pondering at that time? I don't think many teenagers are reading Camus and Nietzsche. Most people are looking for the next fun thing they can do. Were there certain life events that sparked this curiosity?

Maarten: Some of it good and some of it not so good. My parents divorced when I was seven years old. And somewhat unusually, I was raised by my father, not by my mother. Now all kinds of people are getting divorced, but in those days — what was it, mid-60s — divorce, especially in Europe, was relatively rare. In my entire high school class, there was only one other boy who came from a divorced family, out of a class of 20 or 25 kids. So it was just the two of us. Quite unusual. Obviously not a great situation. I was raised by my father, a good person, a caring person. My mother also in her own way. But still, it leaves an imprint on you, and not necessarily a positive one.

Maarten: Maybe because of that, I became more serious, reflective — thinking about what is the value of family, love, the purpose of life. I cannot say that I consciously or deliberately formulated these questions like we do when we present the Divine Principle. But all this stuff was going on in my head. I was always a deep thinker about these things. I was also really drawn to nature. I spent a lot of time in nature, and nature was some kind of an access point into spirituality. I would spend a lot of time with my brother going into the reedlands and watching the flocks of geese on their migration paths, coming from Norway, going to Africa, traveling around the West European coast. I was always fascinated by those kinds of things.

Hosts: It's interesting. I've spent some time in the Netherlands, and I also observed the birds there on my walks — you can see them for miles. It sounds like you were searching, you were preparing yourself for something, you didn't know yet why you had this interest. You were pretty open to wherever the answers would come from. So this was your teenage years — you're studying Nietzsche and Camus, which, if nobody knows, mid-century German and French literature is quite dark. I studied German post-World War II French literature, and I just remember being struck by the despair, the lack of spirituality — life is pointless, we all just die and nothing else happens. We're all going to be stuck in hell in our own heads. It's not a very positive philosophy. Where did that lead you? What were you doing when you met the Unification Church? Were you still in the Camus-Nietzsche camp, or had your philosophy evolved?

Maarten: The whole existentialist angle is that there is no absolute truth. You're the arbiter of your own reality. You create your own reality — whatever you perceive subjectively, that is the truth. At that stage, especially towards the end of my teenage years going into 20, I was quite convinced that there are no absolutes. But there was always this kind of other pole, somewhat of a divided self, that I wasn't really 100% sure of that. When I was growing up I had my moments of frustration and despair, maybe partly because of the family background — I really got down, depressed, angry. I still remember at one point there was a park in front of our house. I was maybe 13, 14, 15. I was looking up in the sky at the big cumulus clouds, and I raised my fist to the sky and said, "I don't know if you're really there, but don't think that you're ever going to get me down on my knees." So I was angry with the God I didn't believe in. Makes no sense.

Maarten: My experience is that all these guys — these existentialists, Nietzsche, even the totalitarian people like Stalin and Hitler — very often they are lapsed and disappointed religious believers. There's always some kind of spiritual trauma there. It's fascinating and sad at the same time. I can relate to that, because I was kind of in that space myself.

Maarten: Then I started traveling around Europe. I went to college for two years, studied biology. I loved nature, and I hated biology study because it was very clinical and cold — dissect this mouse and so forth. I said, this is not the way I do biology. In the Divine Principle we talk about external form and internal character. The biology department was all about external form. There was nothing about internal character. That's not my cup of tea. So after two years, I deeply disappointed my father. I said, sorry, but I'm dropping out.

Maarten: Then I started traveling around Europe all over the place. I was in pretty much every country in Europe that at that time during the communist era was more or less easily accessible. I worked in different places. I did several archaeological digs in Germany, digging out a Neolithic pole village in the Bodensee, this big lake between Switzerland and Germany. When you travel around — now you have the digital nomads, but in those days you had the analog nomads, and I was one of those guys. There's a sort of a clique, and they all know each other and tell each other, "Oh, if you go here you can get this. If you go there you can get free bread. If you go here you can pick grapes during the wine-picking season in southern France." You kind of get handed down like a baton through this whole channel. That's how I sustained myself. I went back and forth. I wasn't gone all the time, I came back to Holland also. But that's how I lived for at least a year, maybe a couple of years.

Maarten: On the road I would also run into spiritual people. I still remember talking to some Mormons in Switzerland, and they were telling me about Joseph Smith. I was always open to people. Even at home, the Jehovah's Witnesses would come to our door and I would invite them into our house. Most people closed the door on these people, but I said, all right, please come in. My father told me, "Why did you do that? They're not going to be coming back forever."

Hosts: I grew up with a mother who would do the same. She'd always invite the Mormons, because it was South Carolina, 100 degrees in the summer, and they're riding their little bikes up and down hills, sweating. She'd always feed them, give them some water, and then proselytize right back. They didn't know what to do with her. At that time as you were traveling around, was there a particular spiritual practice that appealed to you? My own sister right now is traversing Asia, through Thailand and Indonesia, doing all of these meditation workshops. What did you feel most close to? Did you have any spiritual practices you were experimenting with?

Maarten: I didn't really do any kind of meditation practice. I mostly read, because I wasn't really ready for it. I was very much into my head. Of course, I'm a Northwest European, white guy. We're always in our heads — that's part of the problem with Europeans in particular. So I reflected on these things more intellectually. Although there was always an undercurrent of more intuitive reflection, I never made it over the threshold into actual practice. The closest I came was mostly communing with nature. If I would really get down or frustrated, I would go for these long, long walks in nature. It was almost like I could feel the confusion or dirt or darkness almost physically run out of my mind and my body. I would feel purer and cleaner as I walked, hour after hour. Afterwards I would be much better than before. That was probably the closest I came to any kind of spiritual exercise or practice.

Hosts: I would absolutely class that as a spiritual practice. The trending terminology for that these days is forest bathing.

Maarten: I never knew. Okay — I was forest bathing.

Hosts: That is actually classified these days as a spiritual practice. Many people do commune with God in nature, and I think many of our listeners would identify with that — that there is something of the experience of the divine in nature somehow, whether we understand it cognitively or not.

Maarten: Absolutely. It was interesting when I heard the Divine Principle later on, there's an explanation about how less developed man in the old days related through creation or nature to God. So Abraham and other people of that time, they made offerings symbolizing the purity of creation. Man in his fallen state, or lower spiritually developed state, would relate through nature to God. Something clicked in my mind. I said, that's how I related to God. And then I also understood my attraction to biology. I felt something really divine or sacred or holy in nature, and that was why I was so appalled by my actual biology study, because it was the very opposite. It was all clinical and cold and analytical. When I heard the Principle, I said, yes, that's exactly what I felt when I was relating to nature.

Hosts: So who introduced you to the Divine Principle, our core teachings?

Maarten: That is an interesting story, because some people just meet somebody in their own neighborhood. But I usually don't do things the easy way. After my travels in Europe, I felt that Europe was getting a little bit small. I had to get out of this continent. For some reason, I had the idea in my head that I should go to Peru. I still don't know today why exactly.

Maarten: I still remember one sunny afternoon in September of 1980. I was standing in the city of Utrecht, and I said bye to my father because I was getting ready to leave. He asked me, "When will you be back?" I said, "Well, maybe in six months, maybe in two years, maybe never." He did not really like that answer. In some ways, actually, it became the last one — I've been gone from my own country now for 43 years and counting. So it turned out to be a little longer than two years.

Maarten: As usual, I didn't have a lot of money. I always hitchhiked. So I hitchhiked to southern Spain. I went to a city called Cadiz, and from there I took a ferry to the Canary Islands, because one of these analog nomads had told me, "If you go to the Canary Islands right around October, there's usually a lot of yachts there because they're all waiting to make the Atlantic crossing after the hurricane season is over." The tropical storms come in August and September, and then it becomes less. Nobody wants to sail across the ocean during a hurricane.

Maarten: I went to the Canary Islands and went around the island. As promised, it was correct information — all the marinas were chock-a-block full of these yachts: American, Brazilian, Argentinian, Canadian, French, German. I went from yacht to yacht and said, "Do you need an extra crew member?" Most said they had enough people, but I had quite a lot of yachting experience because my father — he was wealthier than I am today — had a nice yacht, so I learned how to sail from a young age. I'm quite experienced when it comes to yachting and sailing. So I told them I know how to do the sailing and the navigation. Finally I found a Belgian two-mast yacht and they said, "Yeah, we can use an extra hand." They got me on board, and then we sailed across the ocean for 23 days from the Canary Islands to one of the Caribbean islands, Martinique.

Maarten: In the middle of the ocean — I'll try to make the story a little bit short.

Hosts: Oh no, I'm completely riveted. Please go on.

Maarten: It was a Belgian couple, and she spoke good English, so with her I spoke English. The skipper didn't speak English, so with him I spoke French. I had another member on board who was German, so I spoke German with him. I told the captain, "My father always told me that the crew is as strong as the second man. You never explained to us how to start the engine. In case you fall overboard, somebody needs to be able to do it." We were sailing in the trade winds, due west, with the wind coming from the back. It's very easy to spread your sails wide and let them pull you along. I said, "Just imagine you fall overboard. We have to lower all the sails, go back 180 degrees, and we have to go straight back against the waves to find you. We cannot sail because we have to go against the wind." He said, "Okay, that's a good idea." So he explained — it was a really old ship, so you had to flip a switch, push a button, put some spray in a filter, do four, five, six, seven things.

Maarten: Guess what — five days later, we were lowering one of the sails in the evening, to move a little bit more steadily at night so we could sleep better. He wraps one of the ropes — you call it a sheet — around his arm, which is 101 in sailing. You never do that. A big gust of wind comes and he, boom, gets pulled overboard like a matchbox. He holds on to the rope, but this boat is moving at like 15 kilometers per hour. You cannot hold on at that speed. So he had to let go, and boom, he's gone.

Maarten: The German guy was smart enough — there was a lifebuoy on the side, called a man-overboard light. He throws it overboard. It hangs usually with a piece of lead on the sea railing, and when you throw it overboard, the lead goes down, the battery falls down, and it starts flashing with a light. We lowered all the sails. We turned around. I still remember sitting next to this engine. Oh my God, what did he say? Don't flip this switch? Your brain freezes. But I managed to remember, started up the engine, we turned around, and then we sailed with the compass exactly 180 degrees opposite, to go exactly along the same line back where we came from. After two hours, we found him. The light was flashing. His name was Jacques. We said, "Jacques, are you there?" He said, "Oui." And later on he said, "Merci pour gagner ma vie" — thank you for saving my life. We put him back on board.

Maarten: The interesting experience was that from that I learned the value of a human life. I didn't really have a good relationship with him. But all of that was gone at that moment. The only thought in my mind was, I have to save this guy's life.

Maarten: You asked me earlier about Camus. Even while in that state, I was still reading Camus. The last book before I met the Unification Church was a Camus book called La Chute, which means The Fall. So that was very interesting — not only was I reading this book, but this guy fell overboard. And then the lecture that moved me most when I heard the Divine Principle was the Fall of Man. A whole interesting series of experiences.

Maarten: Anyway, we sailed into the harbor and I got off and stayed in Martinique. I traveled around the Caribbean from island to island for a little while, then finally flew from Curaçao, one of the Dutch Caribbean islands, to California. The next day after I arrived in San Francisco, somebody witnessed to me on the street — Market Street, the big street over there. So I was less than 24 hours in the United States before I met Unification Church members, and they invited me to a workshop. And here I am still today, after all that time.

Hosts: Wow, what an incredible journey. You mentioned that the section of the Divine Principle, the Fall of Man, struck you the most. Do you remember what exactly left such a huge impact on you? Please bear in mind some of our listeners aren't familiar with the teachings of the Divine Principle.

Maarten: This is the strange thing — for me there's always the rational, intellectual component, and a more intuitive spiritual component. I constantly experience that. When I heard the Principle, what appealed to me intellectually most was the Principle of Creation — the idea that there is a God, that God has dual qualities. So not only heavenly Father, but heavenly Mother, like a heavenly Parent. And that that's manifested in the polarity of man and woman, male and female, stamen and pistil in flowers, and so forth. That made perfect sense to me because I was also familiar with Oriental thought — the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching, the whole idea of yang and yin. That made a lot of sense to me, rationally and intellectually. I was very strongly drawn. Some people may join our church for different reasons, but I was definitely attracted by the Principle itself.

Maarten: When I heard the Fall of Man, for me it was a little strange because there was an explanation about man and an angel, angels interacting with human beings. I said, this is quite far out. Rationally, intellectually, I couldn't really relate to it. But at some point — this was, I think, the second time I heard this lecture — all of a sudden I started weeping, crying really intensely. And there was no reason for that. It was completely irrational. The Principle explains that the Fall of Man caused tremendous pain and grief to God's heart, because it was a profound disappointment for what God had in mind, this whole beautiful ideal of creation. I cannot prove this in any intellectual, rational manner, but I felt that somehow intuitively I was connecting to God's spirit or God's heart, so that I felt a very, very small part of that pain that God experienced. It was minor, but really intense. It was not irrational in a negative sense, but purely intuitive, emotional. It was an unforgettable experience. It made a deep impact on me. I said, something is going on over here. I have to look into this. Over time I realized this is something I have to take seriously, and I want to dedicate my life to practicing it.

Hosts: That's a very powerful experience to have, especially for someone who identifies as agnostic or even atheist. Would it be accurate to say that at that time you identified more as agnostic? How do you reconcile an experience like that? For a lot of people who are struggling to believe in or understand the concept of God, an experience like that must be quite jarring.

Maarten: It's quite a jump, right? It was very difficult. Actually, I struggled for months. I decided to stick around because I realized something really pulled me into this whole realm, this whole idea of the Principle — and that's something we shouldn't only study, but have to do something about. But my intellectual mind and my heart were engaged in battle with each other. We had a workshop training center outside of the city. I would go there from time to time, then come back to the city, do volunteer activities, going back and forth. But I never made up my mind to really be part of the community on a continued basis.

Maarten: I remember I had a discussion with one of the lecturers, a lady who I really respected and liked, and she was a little exasperated. She said, "Maarten, when are you going to make up your mind? You cannot sit on the teeter-totter." She was a little frustrated, but I can understand that, because it didn't make a lot of sense. On the one hand I had this strong pull in that spiritual direction; for my rational mind to humble itself to that spiritual call was not an easy thing.

Maarten: My own spirituality also developed at that time. I had been around for about a month or a month and a half, and the person who introduced me to the church, who had originally witnessed to me — I still remember, Wayne B. — he said, "Maarten, why don't you try to pray?" I said, oh my gosh, this is such a crazy idea. I'm going to sit there and talk into the blue sky to somebody.

Maarten: This was at a place called Macama Hill in California, where they had a workshop center, and this was in December. December in Northern California is not very nice. It's very rainy, a lot of rain coming down by the bucket. I thought, maybe I should give it a try. So one day rain was coming down in buckets, and I walked outside. By the way, when I met the church, I looked a little funny — I had really short trim hair, a beard, and I was wearing blood-red pants and an orange shirt. I still don't know why exactly. I looked pretty unusual. I decided, if I'm going to pray, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go all the way. I knelt in the muddy streams of water that came down the hill, in my red pants.

Maarten: First I stood up. I did it three times. Standing, I said, "Oh God, if you really exist, give me a sign" — typical unbeliever's prayer, right? Then I said, maybe I should kneel down to really show how sincere I am. So I knelt down and said for the second time, "God, if you really exist, please give me a sign." Nothing happened. Then I said, well, my native language is Dutch — I should probably speak in my native language. Nowadays I think in English, but in those days I was still up to speed with my native language. So I said in Dutch, "God, if you really exist, give me a sign," which basically means the same thing.

Maarten: And then this huge explosion happened. I literally thought that somehow a thunderbolt had hit right near me. It was so loud that the people in the lecture hall came out of the door. They ran out, a bunch of people, and they looked at what had happened across the river. This huge oak tree — that thing must have been like 300 years old, gigantic — had fallen over and had literally flattened a whole patch of the forest. It destroyed another dozen trees in its fall. That had made this incredible sound. And I said, whoa.

Maarten: Of course, I don't really think I made that tree fall. But that is a pretty interesting coincidence — that I just decided to have that prayer and then this pretty spectacular thing happened. Since that time, I have graduated from making trees fall in the forest to somewhat more sophisticated types of prayers. Over time, really my most important thing is my own relationship with God, because I feel a deeply intimate connection with God. When I pray, it's very easy to feel God and to have tearful prayers. Not instantaneously, but when I pray it's very easy to feel God's presence.

Maarten: One thing I've learned about God over the years — in the beginning I was familiar like everybody else with the God of the Bible, the God who judges, who condemns, who's angry with the Jewish people, the people who are not following his directions and commandments. I remember praying to God and saying, "God, why is it that when I pray, all I feel is love, love, love, and still more love? Why don't you correct me sometimes? Why don't you discipline me?" But all I feel is love. Over time I realized, this is who God is. The Bible says God is love. That's not a metaphor. That is reality, and that is my personal experience. God is not going to correct me. God, through his love, is awakening me to say, "Look, I love you. I believe in you. Now you do your best." And then I have my own conscience and the Principle to help me do my own correcting. It's not God's job. That's my experience of God, and that's really what has sustained me in my spiritual life since that time.

Hosts: That's so profound. So many people have such an opposite experience of God — they experience the stern person who's like, "Why, God, why are you making all of these terrible things happen in my life?" Not feeling the love, but feeling a loss of control, that despair. I feel envious of your ability to just tap into that love, although I feel that now in my spiritual journey. You touched on something really deep — the essence of spirituality really is this faith that these things happen for a reason, for our benefit. Even the self-help gurus of today — Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, Deepak Chopra — are trying to guide us to the understanding that your most powerful suffering is actually a gift for your awakening, for coming into your true self. I'm in awe that you were able to tap into that so deeply so early on.

Maarten: I think that's the beauty of the Principle, because the Principle explains these things. Without the understanding of the Principle, I think I would never have been able to develop that kind of spirituality. The whole idea of restoration through indemnity and human responsibility — these are profound ideas. They're profoundly powerful, because they show that the suffering and the misery we're going through is not God's will. It's the result of a series of unfortunate circumstances and bad choices that we have made collectively as humanity. Now we have to go through a path of redemption in order to restore that, so we have a role to play. It's our responsibility. It's not all within God's control — we ourselves have to exercise that responsibility in order to be part of our own redemption. That understanding is profoundly powerful, because it protects the goodness of God. It shows that God is not behind all this suffering and misery.

Maarten: Sometimes the Mormons or some other groups emphasize that God sent us challenges to make us suffer. I think even that is not really correct. I've learned this actually from raising my own children. I raised my youngest child quite differently from my oldest. With the oldest it was much more strict and rigid in the beginning. But with my youngest one, I basically threw discipline out of the window completely. I just talk with him.

Hosts: Poor older children.

Maarten: Yes, my older children, they're upset with me. My youngest son picked up on it. He said, "Yeah, I was raised differently." I said, who told you that? But he caught on to that. I realized that just by talking with him, listening to him, reasoning with him, he can correct himself. I don't need to discipline him. If I am patient with him, love him, show a good example, then I will be that mirror that he can reflect. We don't need to spank kids. We don't need to put them in timeout. Maybe in extreme cases, but especially these harsh disciplines are almost always counterproductive. They're traumatizing. And that is the same with God. God is that kind of person.

Maarten: When I lecture in Principle seminars, and I give internal guidance or blessed family workshops — we were missionaries in Russia, so sometimes we go back to Russia and I give workshops for the Blessed community over there — when I give a lecture on prayer guidance, I usually say that the twin engines of prayer are gratitude and repentance. They're like two sides of the same coin. But the most important of the two is gratitude. If you can bring your mind first into a state of gratitude, just thanking God for all the good things that you have, that naturally will put all the things that are not so good into a completely different perspective. It will make them smaller, more manageable. You realize it's not necessarily God's doing. There are other reasons for that.

Maarten: Then naturally I am moved to repentance. People say oftentimes you have to repent, and then you can be grateful. I turn that around. First you're grateful. And then when you really feel this connection to God, the love surrounds you, then it's so easy to repent, because you say, "Papa, I'm so sorry. So sorry to hurt you." Even when I talk to you like this, I get emotional, because that's my feeling. I talk to God and I don't have a whole list of all my sins, but it's simply a feeling in my heart. I know I'm in some way disappointing you or saddening you, and I really don't want to do that. I'm so sorry to cause you that extra kind of grief. It's like turning repentance completely inside out. It's not beating up on yourself with a judging God asking, "Why did you do this? Why did you do that?" It's totally the other way around.

Hosts: You touched on a very critical point. I do a lot of reading of Brené Brown, who's a sociologist. She studies shame and trauma and addiction behaviors. Grounding it in gratitude first is, firstly, more accurate to the experience of God's love. But oftentimes with repentance, I find it can tap into your deepest shame. It almost becomes — I don't want to say performative — but a place where you easily succumb to self-pity or wallowing, or some kind of protective behaviors because of that deeply rooted shame. Grounding it in gratitude first almost protects you from going to that place of really putting yourself down, which I think is the antithesis of the purpose of prayer. It's to build that relationship with God, to feel closer to God, rather than to feel so distant that God is so far away and I am this lowly sinner.

Maarten: Absolutely. You're blocking yourself from the get-go. You're putting yourself completely in the wrong space. I've read some of Brené Brown's books — Daring Greatly and so forth. Wonderful author. This whole idea of being vulnerable. In order to be vulnerable, you have to be able to trust somebody. You're not going to be vulnerable to a person who is going to hit you over the head with a stick and say, "Okay, now you told me all your sins, now you're really gonna get it." That absolutely doesn't work. In order to be vulnerable, there needs to be some relationship of trust, of intimacy between two people. And that applies the same way between us and God. Unfortunately, we have made God much more mysterious than he would really like to be. In many ways, God is much more human than we really think.

Hosts: That's definitely my personal experience with God. What you were saying about coming to God with gratitude first is something that's been hitting me a little bit more lately. I tended to go to the repentance first and then needed a little bit of time to feel the grace. In the darkest times of my life, I really resonated with this point that God is a heavenly Mother. It's a quiet embrace. God doesn't talk much in those circumstances. God just hugs you, embraces you — kind of like what you're saying with your last child, more of a gentle approach. That's actually more healing than being lectured at or feeling like, "Oh, I'm just terrible. You must be so disappointed in me." Even if you can feel your parents' disappointment, you still want their love. That's ultimately what you're seeking. What you're talking about is this spiritual healing — feeling this love and this embrace from God, allowing yourself to feel it.

Hosts: That's a profound part of our teachings — that if you allow the wholeness of God, there is also the judgment, the strong fatherly side. There's the correctness of life, the right way to do things. But then there's also the motherly aspect — in all men and women — to just embrace the child and let them feel what they're feeling, tell them it's okay. You will, it's all a process. There's this trust in return as well. You trust God, God then trusts you. You can handle this.

Maarten: That is also the whole idea, coming back to human responsibility, because ultimately we are responsible for our own spiritual growth. I don't know exactly when he started to emphasize it so much, but at some point Reverend Moon started to really emphasize the importance of the conscience — or, as we sometimes say, the original mind. It's a little different in the theology, but they're essentially speaking about the same thing: that there's this inner compass needle that points you in the right direction. Sometimes you don't see or feel or sense it, because there's so much stuff going on — you're worrying, frustrated, preoccupied. But when you connect to God, things become very clear. Then you can connect in this deep way to your conscience, your original mind, this deep inner self that you have. Then you can come up with your own solutions.

Maarten: Some of my dear friends or brothers say, "Oh, I have to pray about this, ask this question to God." But in my own prayer life, I rarely ask concrete questions to God. I simply connect to God. Then the answers to the questions come by themselves, from my own original mind. Or I even realize that I've been asking the wrong question. God comes, "How about this question instead?" And then I think, oh wow, yeah, that's a much better question. And I have the answer at the same time. So we have so much autonomy over our own spiritual lives, our whole lives, because that's what God wants us to be and do.

Hosts: Maarten, that takes a lot of responsibility, like self-confidence. You've been in this movement for about 40, 50 years now. Right now in your life, your children are grown, you're living in Korea, surrounded by maybe a different mindset. What keeps you inspired and spiritually nourished these days?

Maarten: It continues to be God, very much. That's a central component. What is also very important — as you know from your own reading and self-help books — is community. In that respect, our situation in Korea is a little more difficult, because I have to confess, speaking about shame, that I'm still very miserable with the Korean language. When people ask how long we've been in Korea, we're almost afraid to give them the answer, because they immediately say, "Oh, you must be perfect in Korean by now." Not really. Sorry to disappoint.

Maarten: That sometimes hinders our interactions with some members in our Korean church community, which is a little unfortunate. I have been fortunate that I teach at our school here at Chungshim International Academy. I teach mostly high school — I teach essay writing — and this is a busy time for us. We just went through a whole cycle of college entrance exams. I have very good experiences teaching the children. We always sit in a circle, and I teach essay writing in a dialectic manner, in a dialogue manner. People always want you to make lesson plans. I never make a lesson plan. I'm absolutely anti-lesson-plan, because I have no clue what's going to happen in the class.

Hosts: Very progressive.

Maarten: They write essays on certain topics. One of my favorite topics comes from the German theologian Paul Tillich, who defines God as "my ultimate concern." He kind of turns it around. Instead of saying God is this, he says my ultimate concern is God. So I always ask my students — my 11th graders usually — what is your ultimate concern? That throws them for a real loop, because then they have to really start thinking: what are my values? What do I really believe in? They have to write about it in an essay, and then we sit in the circle. I photocopy everyone's essays, and everybody gets copies, and then they have to read and discuss. This is every week a new revision, so it goes on for a whole term. They have to discuss their essays in class every time. Sometimes they're quite soul-bearing essays — quite serious, self-reflective.

Maarten: One term, the students came up with these interesting terms. One season they called it "Mr. Meijer's therapy class," and another season one of my more jaded students called it "Mr. Meijer's public humiliation class." I said, "Really, is it that bad?" That was tongue-in-cheek; she didn't really mean that. Most teenagers are not used to digging deep, baring their souls in school. But these classes are very rewarding for me.

Maarten: Interestingly enough, these are not Unification Church members. Sometimes there is a second generation, or even a third-generation church member — in this class I have a third-gen, a really sweet girl — but oftentimes most of them are not Unification Church members. The interesting thing is that in this kind of dynamic, when we deeply interact with each other as people, something comes into our midst. A lot of young Koreans are very secular — 60, 70 percent are agnostic or atheistic. Sometimes I teach them a little bit. I say, "You know what you're feeling right now in our midst? That's what Christians call the Holy Spirit." They look at me and say, "Mr. Meijer, you must be kidding." But I really feel it is. I've had experiences where literally some of the students come to tears, because they are dealing with some kind of personal trauma, family trauma, and somehow in a good way it comes out in the class, and they're able to speak about it and reflect on it in their essay.

Maarten: Recently, in last year's class, some people asked to read — I wrote a book about our movement, the Unification Church, which deals with the Blessing, our marriage Blessing. They asked me for copies of my book. I never pushed that on them, but they realized, oh, this guy has written this book, and they started reading it. I published it both in Korean and English — one read it in English, the other one read it in Korean. Then they wanted me to explain the Principle, so I organized a little workshop for them at my home, in my living room. They asked me for the book, then asked, "Can you organize a little seminar for us?" That's how it happened. Which only goes to show that if you talk about these ideas and principles and you create vulnerability, connection, community, then somehow, mysteriously, God's spirit can manifest itself in that, even though you didn't even start to talk about God in the first place. Somehow he squirms his way in there one way or another.

Maarten: So maybe not a direct response to your question — the church community here is a little tenuous. We have to create our own situation to find our own nourishment. I've been gone from my country now for 43 years, and we've been talking about it. I told my dad I would be gone forever, but maybe 45 years is long enough. So we're thinking about going back to the Netherlands. For my wife it would be the first time — she's American — but we're considering it, partly to have a closer community with our church members, where we can speak more freely in the languages we are familiar with. So that's kind of on the books right now.

Hosts: That's great, Maarten. This emphasis on community and relationships — a big part is that God needs to be in relationship with us, and God needs us to be in relationship with each other, to create those spaces of vulnerability and trust. You can't have a world of peace without trust and strong ties. I think that's exactly the core of our community, and what we're trying to bring to the world. The strongest ties are blood — our families. So if you relate to each other with that kind of trust you have in family, that's what you're creating in your classrooms. It's a kind of vulnerability they don't experience in their day-to-day life. That's a real gift you're giving through your profession, and it's informed by the Principle, informed by the principles in our church. Thank you for sharing that. We hope many more students, and people listening to today's episode, are inspired by what you've shared.

Hosts: When you talked about trust — that is an act of faith, isn't it? To have faith is to trust in something that you can't know concretely, and that is a relationship. You described that in your relationship with God, in the relationships you've had with other people, on your journey with the boat crew, with your students. Thank you so much. You've definitely led us on a very interesting journey of your life.

Maarten: Just a small comment about the students and what my purpose really is. One thing I learned: there's no such thing in the world as a confident teenager — it's an oxymoron. So I say, all of you struggle with similar things, so why can we not talk about that openly? At the same time, you actually have much deeper recesses within yourself than you are aware of, but you have never really looked at yourself in a sufficiently deep manner to access those things. You're in this school and you know everything about the periodic table of the elements, and English irregular verbs, and the Pythagorean theorem, and all this kind of stuff that probably you never will be looking at again in your life. But you've never studied the most interesting thing in your life, and that is yourself.

Maarten: For me, the Principle again — with its focus on the original mind of man, of woman — is so valuable, because it has given me tremendous confidence in tapping into the power and love of God, into my own power and spirituality and ingenuity and creativity, and stimulating that in my students and other people I interact with. What did Dr. Spock say? "Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do." That's the theme. This is profoundly important to the kids, because they realize, dang, actually I do have all this stuff inside of myself. That's probably the most valuable thing I can share with people — that kind of faith in themselves. And then indirectly they begin to think, "Oh, if this guy is teaching me this and he is religious, maybe there is something to this God thing, and spirituality, and religion."

Hosts: You're offering them more — deeper than just "this is my belief system." You're offering them real tools for their life. That is why I stay in this community. I came to the conclusion that this is offering more than just a belief system; it's a way of life that I think makes me a better person. It reminds me of valuable ways to relate with people and the world that ultimately drive me closer to people, building that kind of trust, and that relationship with God without needing to be beaten over the head with a book. Through reminders from people like you, Maarten, this has ultimate value for any person seeking — or even not seeking — a different perspective of life and spirituality. It's valuable in your life not just to say you believe in God, but to practice it, in the secular world as well, not just in a religious community.

Maarten: Yes, agreed.

Hosts: Well, thank you, Maarten, for being with us today, and for all your wisdom and your incredible stories. I'm sure you have 100 hours worth of incredible stories throughout your life.

Maarten: Yes, I have a lot more.

Hosts: We look forward one day to reading your autobiography, your memoir.

Maarten: Yes, please do.

Hosts: Our audience and us are incredibly grateful to you. We're happy we could talk to you from across the oceans and different continents. You've taken us on a journey.

Maarten: My pleasure.