About Joris

I thought I was a musician, who would find life’s answers in the world around me.

I learned to persevere, live without money, drive battered old cars and deal with friendly rejections from record companies. Sometime later the taste of success and accompanying loneliness were added. My dream had always been to work in recording studios. I equally loved the creative dreamers, goal-oriented success seekers, and managers. I worked with a large number of artists and record companies in various countries and produced a huge amount of music. Some of these songs climbed the charts and golden records decorated my wall. I was living the dream of my 16-year-old self when I realized this was not the place where I would find what I was truly looking for.

So I became a spiritual seeker, looking for the answers within.

The next part of my journey made me seek passionately for God, spirituality, and enlightenment. I became a “devotee” and exchanged my worldly desires for an inner journey. My day started and ended with prayers and deep meditation. Chanting mantras was now my music. The recording studio turned into a mountain and my bedroom into a small tent. I found deep silence and the enlightenment I was looking for.

And then…

Then I was still alone, more lonely than ever. On this mountain, both the mountain outside myself and the one within, there was no real connection with life, with the people I met. Friends were only my friends as long as we prayed the same prayers and bowed to the same guru. But the guru turned out to be as plastic as the golden records and I fell into a deep depression.

I was alone, lost, with nowhere left to search. My journey had brought nothing but beautiful illusions. My life was over. I had lost everything and everyone. There were no more stones left to turn and even no more tears to cry.

So I stopped and sat down. Without meditation, without bliss, without running. I sat alone with myself and felt life. Not the polished version I’ve been seeking for so long, but pure and raw life. I knew who I was, what I was, not some perfect imagined version of myself, but ‘me’ as I was created. Without any answers, filled with the questions of this moment.

Words started to flow, in music and poems. For the first time, there was real friendship, both with the people I met and with myself. My pain had awakened compassion. No longer the need to help someone, just one traveler who meets another, a friend who meets another friend. Sometimes a brief encounter, sometimes a little longer.

For so long I had been seeking. Initially in the world, later within myself, only to discover that what I’d really been looking for had always been closer than my breath, the simplicity of this moment, the source of this longing. There is no key, the door had always been open. In fact, there is no door at all. There is nowhere I have to go because I am already there and without knowing, I always was.

I’m no longer plan life. Music, words, and people are still my passion, without a journey or purpose. And tomorrow? I have no idea what tomorrow will bring but know I’m in love with today.