Out of not understanding it at first,

and out of the likelihood to be misunderstood as of recently.

But in a way, it is time to start coming out of the metaphorical “spiritual closet”.

I won’t yet go into detail about what I experienced but one night I felt everything I thought I was burn away.

I went into a state where Iet go of my mind, body and heart until there was nothing left of me (or anyone for that matter). 

I felt who I was surrendering to the source of creation, dying in the process and then choosing to come back.

But who came back was not the same one who had left.

For the next few weeks after this incident I literally did not know who I was..

Not in the sense that I had gone mad, but that I’d look in the mirror and not know who was looking back anymore. It felt like I had literally just been born, and was seeing myself for the very first time: free from any preconceived ideas and personality.

I wasn’t the “Nico” I thought I was.

I could no longer find within myself the mental structure where the personality I had carefully curated over so many years resided.

I felt like nobody – and that was both scary and liberating.

For there was no rigid identity so I no longer felt ruled or enslaved by fear, past limitations or compulsions..


At one point I was certain I had gone mad and had fully lost my mind since I could not hear it. At least not in the same way I was used to.

It had finally settled and gone silent. (A silence that has stuck with me to this day, where my mind feels profoundly still 90% of the time)

My body felt extremely light, almost as if I could have disposed of it at will if I slowed down my mind and breath just enough..

So half amused / half concerned – I reached out to the shaman I was working with to see if he understood what had happened to me.

He nodded and smiled – and I understood he had also been there – yet he did not have words to explain it.

“Chop wood and carry water” he (kind of) said..

So wood I chopped and water I carried.


I spent a few more weeks doing physically demanding labour in nature, one foot still in that space of oneness and one slowly finding its ground back again on this reality. And through sweat, cold waterfall showers and blisters in my hands my energies started to settle.


It took a while to readjust back and dull down the degree of sensitivity I felt – so that I could go into the city without feeling overwhelmed by what I saw:

I’d look at most people on the streets and see how the light had dimmed in their eyes.

I’d feel their whole past, pain and trauma in a way that’s hard to describe.

Almost like I could grasp hat they had been through, together with what they needed to step out of so much suffering and darkness..

I saw who I used to be reflected in a thousand faces: driven by desire, compulsions and aversions.

Entangled by things that now seemed so insignificant – but that back then seemed to be all the world revolved around.

I realized that, only because I had gone so deep within my self, I could now understand and see just as deep within others.


And if I stayed present long enough..

At the deep end of every pair of eyes..


I always saw myself.

Over and over again.

A single consciousness, looking back at itself, split into a million forms.

The same ocean of oneness I had gone through in ceremony, finding expression and play in the world outside of me.

I was dying to understand what was happening, so I started investigating and asking everywhere until I ran into an old video of Sadhguru where – to my shock – he described in perfect detail the space I went into, the process and challenges you go to get there, the impact on the mind and body and so much more.



It is impossible for someone who hasn’t gone all the way to speak about it, leave aside in so much detail and with such clarity.

So I understood that this man must have been there too, but more than that, he understood the space and had a clear map of getting there..

Long story short, these past years I’ve started studying yoga as he teaches it – which is not a fitness stretching class or getting yourself into a pretzel but instead – a process of practical union: becoming one with all of life.


Stabilizing one’s mind, body and energies so that both the divine and the physical can cohabit in perfect harmony within us, or in other words, learning to base all my action from a source deeper than my physicality, without bypassing nor suppressing it.


Continuing to burn and shed what’s left of me, so that in the void that’s created, life may continuously and abundantly pour in!

The only goal? to become a bridge:

An instrument of the creator/creation.

This is the reason I went to his ashram in India for the past 10 days.

I had to meet the ‘man’ myself and look him in the eye.

Go through one of his initiation processes and see, in my own experience, the truth of who he is and what he shares..

And all I can say is that when the moment came,

And our eyes locked..


There was nobody there.

An almost inhuman emptiness abided behind his eyes,

And an ocean of love, compassion, power and wisdom unmistakably spread around him.

But again, that’s only my personal experience.

All I know is that when the teachers arrive, class has just started.

So I look forward to including you and sharing with you what I learn on this spiritual journey, integrating the eastern Yogic / Tantric wisdom with the South American Shamanic practices.

Working with inner nature in cooperation with the forces of nature.

Grounding and demystifying the divine, so that we may toss our blind faith to the garbage and replace it with direct, embodied experience.

Turning knowledge into KNOWING.

And beliefs into TRUTH.