Nina Verkoeyen: Meta Spirituality

Nina Verkoeyen, called “the modern female Buddha” by LA Weekly, is the founder of Meta Spirituality – an emerging spiritual tradition taking America by storm. A former psychologist and spiritual teacher with 20 years of experience, in 2016, Nina went through a spontaneous spiritual transformation (enlightenment) and acquired spiritual knowledge that profoundly changed her life and work. Since then, her mission has been to spread the message of Meta Spirituality and share it with millions of people. Nina believes that we have outgrown mainstream spirituality with its focus on intermediaries – spiritual tools popularized by mainstream spirituality that are rather detrimental to our personal growth than helpful.

An Interview with Nina Verkoeyen: The Rise of Meta Spirituality

Interview by Victor Fuhrman

To listen to the full interview of Nina Verkoeyen by Victor Fuhrman on his radio show, Destination Unlimited on OMTimes Radio, click the player below.

In 1987, the group U2 released their “the Joshua Tree” album with the Grammy Award-winning Song of the Year: ” I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” How many spiritual seekers echo this refrain as they search for a path of awakening and understanding?

Nina Verkoeyen was an incredibly successful spiritual teacher in Eastern Europe on the cover of Yoga Journal, twice and in demand with growing influence. But that was on the outside. On the inside, she was bereft. Something was missing, and she was desperately searching for it everywhere. Had practiced and taught all spiritual practices known to man or almost, but nothing was it until one evening. Something profound happened as she contemplated what love was and asked this question of the universe. She became one with the creator and experienced everything and herself as love. She received the answer to what love is. She became the answer. This led to the Foundation of Meta Spirituality. Her website is meta-spirituality.org, and she joined me this week to share this path. Please join me in welcoming Nina Verkoeyen.

Nina Verkoeyen: Thank you so much, Victor. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.

Victor Fuhrman: And so wonderful for you to join us and share your story. So please share your early path and how your spiritual understanding unfolded.

Nina Verkoeyen: You know, it’s actually a very long story because I have been on a spiritual path, consciously, I would say, from the age of 11. This was when I started being interested in meditation and all sorts of spiritual things. And since then, I have been trying, testing, and studying various spiritual teachings and traditions for decades. But I always felt that something is missing. I got to a point where I started to feel disappointed in myself and my spiritual practices because, despite my inner work, I still felt anxious. I still felt dissatisfied with my personal relationships. I still had financial struggles. So, I spent and dedicated all my life to spiritual practices. And my assumption was that it would change my life. It will change my outer reality, but it actually didn’t.

After a couple of decades of all these spiritual practices, I got so disappointed in myself and my spiritual past. I just quit. And at that point, I was already teaching meditation, awareness, and yoga, and I quit teaching. I quit searching and retreated to an island for two years. I stopped practicing yoga. I stopped meditating. I got to this point, and nothing was working for me. So it’s either me incapable of implementing spiritual wisdom into my daily reality, or something was wrong with the practices. I don’t know what is not working, but I always felt something was missing.

Victor Fuhrman: My dear late friend Debbie Ford wrote a book called The Dark Side of the Light Chasers. She talked about the shadow within us: we’re never satisfied no matter what we seek and find.

Nina Verkoeyen: Right? Yeah. And many people told me this is how the ego mind works. So, you will never find the satisfaction that you’re looking for. But you know what’s interesting? When I stopped searching, gave up inside me, and became disappointed in all the external practices, things, methods, rituals, visualizations, and affirmations, I realized they don’t actually work. I mean, they work partially. They give us an illusion of some changes within. But why do we practice if we don’t see radical changes outside? Right? So, the whole point, in my opinion, of past spiritual practice and a whole self-development idea is that we will be able to make the world better, make our life better, and make our relationships less difficult, with less conflict.

So, back to the story. I became disappointed in all of this. And I quit teaching. I retreated to this island for two years to live an ordinary life of a non-seeker, so to speak. However, my inner desire to know the truth and find the missing piece continued to grow despite my decreasing belief in spiritual practices. And one evening in March 2016, out of the blue, absolutely spontaneously, I didn’t take any substances. I didn’t meditate. I didn’t do any spiritual practice. I simply asked myself the question, “What is love? And I posed this question within myself with such, I think at that point, like desperation, what is life? What is love? What is the truth? And I received the answer. I received it, not in words, but in a state of being, because I was suddenly transported into a state of unity with God, the universe, and everyone.

And I realized my true identity. I realized what love is. I realized what I was. And this is one and the same. This experience changed everything. It just opened my eyes to a new way of seeing everything. It absolutely stopped my inner urge to seek. I felt that I had come to where I was going, and it’s been almost seven years, and this feeling never went away. So I can, from my personal experience, affirm that there is an end to this spiritual search. It’s not just our ego that is always unsatisfied. Still, until we actually know the truth within us, we will feel unhappy and strive to find that connection to our true selves.

Victor Fuhrman: So, you found that connection. I remember the group U2 Bono singing. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, but you found it. You found it. What was the sense, like, when you found it?

Nina Verkoeyen: It was a feeling of being a different being. It was a shift in identity, in self-perception. Didn’t feel like a separate human being anymore. I felt that I was God, regardless of how it sounded, I felt that I was God, but it doesn’t mean that somebody else was not. I felt that this is what we are collective, that we have one’s soul, for lack of a better word, that is, inhabiting all the billions of bodies that exist on earth. And this is who we truly are. We are the creators. The creator is just using our bodies to express itself to experience. And this is what I felt. And this was also the understanding of love because love got the creator. These are just synonyms.

Victor Fuhrman: And did it feel like you were home?

Nina Verkoeyen: Yes. It felt like I had reached where I was going, what I had been looking for all my life.

Victor Fuhrman: That awakening was the foundational moment of meta-spirituality. What process did it start within you, and how did it unfold?

Nina Verkoeyen: So, it didn’t last for a minute when I was transported into that state of unity with everything and myself. It lasted for almost a week, gradually bringing me back into my mind and body. So, with each day, I would feel a little bit less of that and more of who I was before, but it didn’t disappear, so it wasn’t a momentarily, like a flash, you know, that just was gone the next moment. So, during that week, I wrote down all the epiphanies and realizations that became visible to me and known to me. When I could see the world, myself, and everybody else through the new eyes of this new identity, the eyes of non-separateness, the eyes of unity and love and God, whatever we call it, I didn’t have questions. I had clarity, and all the answers were contained within me. I would see the truth of whatever I turned my gaze towards. And yeah, I was writing down all of it during that week. Wrote down all the realizations about different aspects of life, relationships, money, and every aspect of life. And that later became the foundation or turned into the lectures that I called the Last truth. So, this is the main course of lectures in meta spirituality, like the landmark work for meta spirituality. And it became a matter of spirituality, teaching in general.

Victor Fuhrman: Are these realizations that we knew as children but forgot?

Nina Verkoeyen: I don’t think that we knew that while we were children, but I think this is something within every human being. And this is our mission, our true purpose. The true purpose of every human being is to remember who we truly are. I don’t think that kids necessarily remember that. Actually, I don’t think that’s the case. But it doesn’t matter how old we are at some point in our life. Somebody may remember that when they’re 10, and somebody can remember when they’re 90. It doesn’t matter how old we are, but this truth lives within us and is available. The only thing missing is our conscious choice and pure need to know the truth. To remember that.

Victor Fuhrman: Please explain what Meta spirituality is and the relationship between Meta spirituality and other spiritual teachings.

Nina Verkoeyen: The difference between meta spirituality and other spiritual teachings is the same as between half-truths and truths. Meta spirituality is a spiritual tradition that aims to change your identity rather than give spiritual tools and practices to your old identity in the hope that it’ll change your reality for the better, without knowing who you are and how to express yourself it in your daily life. Any spiritual teaching will only provide incomplete guidance, like a temporary relief or a small shift in one’s perspective. But in contrast, Meta spirituality provides a comprehensive understanding of the nature of reality and who you are. It aims to shift one’s identity. This is the main difference because we must change our self-perception and see and perceive ourselves as the creator and God. Because the way we perceive anything is the way we create it.

We are the creators, whether we know it or not. We are “the” creator itself. And this means that the way we perceive anything is the way we create it. Like, the one who observes is observable. So, too, there is no separation between the two. This is the main law of the matter.

Spirituality, the way we perceive anything, is how we are created as the creator. So, when we make an inner choice to know ourselves as God, as our true Self when we choose it, when we have this intention, everything starts changing. The difference between meta spirituality and other spiritual traditions is that they don’t tell you directly who you are. They don’t have this main goal to shift your identity or self-perception in this bold and direct way. They use different spiritual tools and practices like meditation, visualization, fasting, whatever it is, that can give you some glimpses of this understanding of who you truly are. But there’s no direct path. So the main difference is that meta spirituality is a direct path for tired people, from constant spiritual practices and visualizations, meditations, and everything. They had had enough of that. They have played enough of this game and want a direct relationship with the creator. So that is who they are.

Victor Furhman: Would you call this a form of spiritual rebirth?

Nina Verkoeyen: Yes, absolutely. It is actually what it is because when we realize who we truly are and that we are God, some new identity is born. Would you agree that when we realize something that radical? We accept it, not with just our mind, but with our whole being, heart, mind, and heart joined together when we accept the truth of who we are. We start perceiving ourselves as that and creating ourselves as that. Will we never be the same person who was there yesterday? It’s a different being that was just born, that didn’t exist before this truth came.

Victor Furhman: And what did it feel like when you had this meta rebirth, this meta spirituality?

Nina Verkoeyen: It felt like expansion and relief… expansion and relief. These are two words. Relief from suddenly expanding into my true size, into who I am, like connecting with what I have always been, but didn’t know, didn’t realize I was.

Victor Furhman: How does Meta Spirituality provide a unique perspective on common spiritual questions and answers?

Nina Verkoeyen: The first main difference is something we already just touched on. It is the idea that we don’t actually need spiritual practices. Because once your identity is shifted, you don’t need them. The creator doesn’t need spiritual practices. It expresses who it is. So, a person who knows himself as God stops using spiritual practices, or what I call spiritual intermediaries, and develops this direct access to what he is and creates directly without spiritual intermediaries such as rituals, prayers, visualizations, and all of that. So, this is the main change. This is the main difference. It’s a unique approach to spirituality because if you look at any other spiritual tradition, the main emphasis of each spiritual tradition is on spiritual practices. Now, from this new identity and this new”separateness” perception, you start seeing that mainstream spirituality’s concepts are no longer needed, for example, a belief in separate souls or karma or past life.

Meta spirituality doesn’t support those concepts because, in the light of truth, these ideas are heavily promoted in the west or in the east. Everywhere, they start losing any meaning. Let me explain, for example, when you realize yourself as the creator when you contain within your perception everything there is. Everyone there is you also realize that you and everybody else have one soul, One Self. And yes, we have different bodies, but we have just one soul, so to speak.

Let me explain, for example, when you realize yourself as the creator when you contain within your perception everything there is. Everyone there is, you also realize that you and everybody else have one soul, one Self. And yes, we have different bodies, but we have just one soul, so to speak. So this idea that we all have separate souls on the so-called higher level is not the truth. There’s no separation on the higher level of existence. Separation exists only here in this visible material reality. And when you rise in your consciousness, into this unity that you are, you see that no separate souls are hanging out there and talking to each other and creating some soul contracts for us to live through.

Victor Furhman: So essentially, the teacher, the guru, the creator, is within each and every one of us, no need to look outside?

Nina Verkoeyen: You will at the beginning of your past, most people will, but it’s like a cane. I always give this example of a cane we need when we absolutely don’t know how to walk. We needed to learn to walk, but at some point, we need to get rid of this cane, which is all the spiritual intermediaries, to actually start learning to walk on our own. But now, humanity is just completely holding onto the cane and doesn’t want to let it go.

Victor Furhman: Nina, does meta spirituality help individuals connect with a sense of meaning and purpose?

Nina Verkoeyen: Yes, absolutely, but probably not in a way that we would think about it. Meta spirituality makes you realize that there is just one true purpose in life: To know who you are.

This is a foundation to know who we are and how to live and express this truth through everything we do. Because according to meta spirituality, there is no meaning apart from the meaning we, as the creator, consciously or not assigned to things, including life purpose.

So, your purpose doesn’t lie somewhere under some bush that you need to find. No, you can’t find your purpose. You can create it. Whatever purpose you choose will be the one. So, it is all about your conscious choice as a creator. What do you choose to make your life purpose? And if your choice is pure, which means it doesn’t have some impurities in its motivation, for example, you’re not choosing to do something in this life because you fear, because you think this is more lucrative. After all, this is what your parents told you to do, or any other reasons, you can make anything your life purpose.

And I think we have, as a collective, we have this idea that there’s only one life purpose. So we need to find it. And then this is the purpose till the end of our days. And I think this puts a lot of pressure on us, which is why many people don’t choose things they love in this life, or they don’t choose their life purpose because they’re afraid to make a mistake. They’re afraid that, “Oh my God, this is one huge life purpose.”

I need to choose for a whole lifetime of mine. What if it’s not the right one? And they prefer not to choose anything. They prefer to play the game. Oh, I don’t know what my life purpose is, because they are just afraid to make this decision, to make this choice, to take responsibility. when we realize that our life purpose, or the main life purpose of every human being, is actually to know who we are and then to express it through any chosen medium, doesn’t matter what it is. So, the main purpose is to know who we are, and then the sub-purpose is how and through what you express it. And it could be whatever you choose to be.

Continue to Page 2 of the Interview with Nina Verkoeyen

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