Register of certified TM teachers in the Netherlands

For a long time I had been aware that something was missing in my life. When I heard the term Transcendental Meditation, my heart said, loud and clear: this is it. And it still is.

I have been a TM teacher since 1993 and trained in Almerimar (Spain). In 2004-2005 I was recertified in Seelisberg (Switzerland). I teach in Lelystad, in Dutch.

Towards the end of my studies in research psychology in Utrecht, in the early seventies, I came into contact with TM. Keith Wallace's research, published in Scientific American, on the drop in metabolism during TM, resulting in a rest deeper than sleep, convinced me to learn TM. In 1974 I trained as a TM teacher as a postgraduate study.

Since then I have taught TM to 1,300 people, in the Netherlands and New Zealand. Along the way I also took part in various peace projects in Thailand, the United States, India and South Africa.

I also trained in Ayurveda, Vedic astrology and Sanskrit, fields in which I give consultations and courses as well. I live in Lelystad, where I follow a yogic lifestyle in the unique meditation neighbourhood. I teach in the beautiful TM centre at Maasstraat 38, built according to Vedic principles, in both Dutch and English.

Contact: pknibbeler@solcon.nl or +31 320 250 481.

Maria Lieve was studying at Rhodes University in South Africa in 1976 when her psychology professor organised a presentation on Transcendental Meditation. Out of curiosity she started. It was pleasant to do, and she noticed she got through her studies more easily.

Like many beginners, she went through a period of not meditating. After moving to England, during a difficult phase in her life, she started meditating very consistently again. The effect was immediate: she was more herself and took hold of life again with both hands. Soon afterwards she moved to the Sidhadorp in Lelystad, where within a year she learned the TM-Sidhi technique. In 1990 she became a TM teacher, after an intensive training of twice four months.

She has taught TM to hundreds of people, children and adults, in Dutch and in English. Her courses take place in the new TM centre at Maasstraat 38 in Lelystad, in the heart of the Sidhadorp, where after the course you can join the group meditations every day. Since 2022 she has been the teacher of the Advanced Techniques for the Netherlands and Flanders, and she now teaches only a limited number of basic courses a year.

Contact: maria@lieve-online.nl or +31 6 1415 7099 (also WhatsApp).

I learned Transcendental Meditation on 1 February 1974. I was searching for the meaning of life. Three years later, in 1977, I trained as a TM teacher in Vittel.

As a clinical and research psychologist I have worked in the Netherlands and in the United States. In 1987 I received my doctorate for research on Transcendental Meditation. My 25 scientific publications, including research on TM for addiction and high blood pressure, are listed on ORCID. In 1992 I founded the telecom company Scarlet. That background shapes how I teach: I stick to what has been measured and leave out the rest.

I have been teaching in Amsterdam for eight years, in a city where TM has been taught for sixty years. In total I have taught the TM technique to more than 5,000 people, in India, Russia, Thailand and the Netherlands. People come to me with stress, with poor sleep, or because they are looking for a meditation technique that really works. I teach the course in Dutch and in English. I also chair Stichting Maharishi Vedisch Instituut, the organisation behind TM in the Netherlands.

Contact: nationaal@transcendentemeditatie.com or +31 20 785 0048.

I started TM at the end of 1977. I was in the first year of my studies for the third time, and a friend told me it was good. The TM centre in Rotterdam turned out to be literally two streets from my house. After the introductory talk I was immediately enthusiastic. After my personal instruction I went home, sat down with my books, and suddenly it all went in. An incredible experience. My concentration was much better and my marks were straight away passes. A few years later I noticed that my health had also become much better.

After my bachelor's degree I became a TM teacher in 1984. I went on to work in telecoms, in internet and publishing, and in education, but almost every year I kept teaching people to meditate. About fourteen years ago I asked myself what I found most fulfilling in life. The answer came quickly: teaching people TM. I then wound down all my other activities.

Now I travel around the Netherlands and teach the course wherever there is currently no TM teacher: Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, the Kop van Overijssel, part of Gelderland, North Holland, South Holland, Zeeland, West Brabant and my home base, Flevoland. Since 1984 I have taught more than 1,700 people, in Dutch and in English. What I hear most often is how quickly it works. “That calm in my head, wow.” People have more patience with their children and at work, their day runs more smoothly, and they stay closer to themselves.

I have been a TM teacher since 2008 and trained in Gabrovo (Bulgaria). I teach in Amersfoort and Utrecht, in Dutch.

I have been a TM teacher since 1973 and trained in La Antilla (Spain). Together with my wife Elsa, I teach in Arnhem, Nijmegen and Roermond (Sint Odiliënberg), in Dutch and English.

I have been a TM teacher since 1973 and trained in La Antilla (Spain). Together with my husband Charles, I teach in Arnhem, Nijmegen and Roermond (Sint Odiliënberg), in Dutch and English.

I learned Transcendental Meditation when I was looking for a deeper understanding of life and of myself. Over the years, TM became an important part of my own life, and eventually inspired me to become a TM teacher.

My background is in engineering and technology, where I learned to appreciate clarity, practical thinking and evidence-based approaches. At the same time, I have always been deeply interested in consciousness, personal development and the connection between mind and body. This combination influences the way I teach: I like to explain things clearly and connect the meditation experience with everyday life.

Today I teach Transcendental Meditation in The Hague, a city where people from many different cultures and backgrounds come together. I meet people who are looking for more balance and calm, who experience stress or difficulties with sleep, or who simply want to discover a natural way to develop their full potential.

For me, teaching TM is about sharing a simple, practical technique that can become a valuable part of everyday life.

My name is Almar and I have practised Transcendental Meditation regularly for 20 years. When I was 20, I came into contact with a group of meditators. They were calm, pleasant and human, and that made a deep impression on me. I also greatly appreciated their healthy dose of compassion. It gave me the feeling that this was a special technique.

When I heard that scientific research had been done on Transcendental Meditation, I dived straight into it. I went through some 10 to 20 studies and was amazed that one single meditation technique could have such a wide range of positive results. I thought: wow, this is even better than I expected. I discussed my search with a meditating friend, who encouraged me to start meditating twice a day.

I decided to try it as a test. Within the first months I noticed that I was less bothered by distracting thoughts (noise), stress and negativity. At the same time my ability to concentrate improved and I experienced more rest, inner peace and happiness.

Two years later, in 2008, I took the five-month training to become a Transcendental Meditation teacher. My aim was to share this with others, so that more people can enjoy a life with less stress. That is now 18 years ago — time flies. In the years that followed I have personally guided people in several countries, and led various projects with groups of meditators. I also studied business administration for 3 years at MIU in the United States.

The most beautiful part of my work as a teacher is when people learn Transcendental Meditation and I see and hear the positive growth and improvements in their lives. Being able to contribute to that regularly warms my heart.

I was very fortunate that a teacher of classical languages at my secondary school in Amsterdam taught our whole class Transcendental Meditation (TM). He had just returned from a TM teacher training course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India. It is the most precious thing I have ever learned.

An Amsterdam psychologist, Dr André Tjoa, tested our class psychologically at the time. The results showed that after one year we scored higher on IQ tests and lower on neuroticism scales, compared with a parallel class that had not learned TM.

During my medical studies in Amsterdam I became a TM teacher myself. Since then I have had the privilege of teaching the technique to almost three hundred people. From 1988 to 2019 I worked full-time as a dermatologist. Since then I still work part-time in a clinic in Oldenzaal. This has given me more time again for my first profession and calling: teaching Transcendental Meditation.

Our consciousness is the greatest wonder there is. It is our true self, but we almost always overlook it and lose ourselves in the world around us. And yet that silent, peaceful consciousness, deep within ourselves, is always present. During Transcendental Meditation the attention is drawn there by itself, and you come quite naturally to deep rest and to yourself.

Transcendental Meditation means twice a day, for 20 minutes, completely letting go of the world around us, which takes up more and more of our attention. Today that is needed even more, because we are also absorbed for many hours a day by the virtual world. That is why everyone would ideally learn TM in their youth.

The people I have taught tell me, among other things, that they experience less stress, sleep better, have more energy and can be more themselves instead of being lived by life. I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone.

Jacques Huyghe learned TM in 1978, as a student. He lived in a house where students shared their lives with people with a physical or mental disability. One of them started meditating and visibly grew calmer. That was enough.

An engineer from Ghent University, he received a Rotary Club scholarship for a year of study at Maharishi International University. He earned his doctorate and then spent 43 years in biomedical research and teaching, at Eindhoven University of Technology and the University of Limerick in Ireland, and as a researcher for the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Part of that research concerned the effects of TM on brain waves.

He completed TM teacher training in 1988 in Seelisberg, Switzerland. Since then he has taught more than a thousand people to meditate. His centre in Vosselaar, near Turnhout, won the KBC award 'Het Gat in de Markt' in 2013 and is recognised by Sport Vlaanderen as a yoga school. He also teaches in Eindhoven and Antwerp, in Dutch, French and English.

My name is Jos Verhoeven and I have been an enthusiastic and successful teacher of Transcendental Meditation for more than 30 years. I enjoy teaching TM courses because the technique is effective and participants see results within two or three days.

I am a certified TM teacher, trained at MERU, and I also followed an intensive five-year residential TM course.

After the first day of the course people already experience a new, deep rest. After two or three days they notice positive changes in daily life. Come to a free introductory talk, with no obligation.

I learned the TM technique on 1 March 1980. I was looking for a way to improve the quality of my life. I was surprised by the effect of TM and began to study the philosophy behind the technique: the science of consciousness.

Peace, harmony and meaning are very important to me in life, so I love teaching people the TM technique. Through this technique these qualities come alive in yourself and you gain insight into the meaning of life.

After secondary school I worked for fifteen years at several municipalities, and during that time I trained as a Middelbaar Bestuursambtenaar (municipal administrator). I have been a Transcendental Meditation teacher since 2008. I have taught several hundred people the TM technique and organised many TM information evenings and weekend retreats.

I prefer to work with small groups of one to five people, which leaves plenty of room for personal attention. I teach in Waalwijk, Tilburg and 's-Hertogenbosch, in Dutch.

TM came my way entirely by chance. In 1980 our family was staying for a while in a holiday home that belonged to a TM teacher. Our house had been sold, and at that moment there was nothing available nearby where we could live as a family.

My parents wanted to give “it” a try, Transcendental Meditation, and asked whether we children, my brother, my sister and I, would like to join. I thought: well, why not. So all five of us started TM back then. I liked it. I became calmer, more myself and also somewhat more self-confident. Over the years those qualities have kept deepening.

I trained in Seelisberg (Switzerland) in 1999 and have been a TM teacher since 2000. I teach in the Maastricht-Valkenburg region, in Dutch, English and now and then in German. I also regularly teach courses at the MERU Academy in Vlodrop, and every year I am course coordinator for advanced meditation courses in the Netherlands and abroad. I have worked for SABO in Valkenburg and for several years for Maharishi Ayurveda.

It is inspiring to be a TM teacher and to see people become more themselves again, freer of worries and tension. It is a technique I can stand behind completely, partly because so much scientific research has been done on it. The nice thing is that you don't even have to believe in it.

And my heart belongs to my home town of Maastricht, a good cappuccino and chocolates from Friandise.

I started TM in 1980, as a student. My mother, my father, my brother and my sister had already learned it and were enthusiastic, about the effects and about the practice itself. After my first meditation I thought: “This is it.” I came home to myself.

In my working life I have been active in several fields. After drama school in Maastricht I worked in theatre for a number of years. I then studied and worked in Ayurveda. I have a bachelor's degree in education and a master's in Learning and Innovation (Marnix Academie, Utrecht), worked for fourteen years at a primary school, and taught theatre students at De Trap in Amsterdam for a few years. For the last ten years I was project leader and fundraiser for a building project and did the PR for MERU in Vlodrop. I serve on two boards, trained as a family constellations facilitator at the Hellinger Institute in Germany, and write newsletters and blogs for Maharishi Ayurveda Products Europe.

Teaching TM runs like a thread through my life. I have taught since 1989, at MERU in Vlodrop and at my home in Herkenbosch, in Dutch and English, and in German if needed. What I hear most often from students: that they wish they had learned it sooner, and that it is so simple.

Contact: postelc@outlook.com or 06 5333 6946.

I learned TM as a student, because a friend who meditated told me he saw colours better since he had started. That seemed a great reason to me. The introductory talk didn't say much to me, because back then it didn't seem spiritual enough. Alongside my practical degree in spatial planning, you could find me at guest lectures in theology, on the Kabbalah, the Upanishads and the like. The colours did it!

I started, and meditated very irregularly. Then I tried something else and discovered the difference: with TM everything happened by itself and without effort, while that other technique kept making me doubt myself, was difficult and very theoretical. And I did see the results of TM in other people. After this insight, and after my studies, I became a TM teacher in 1978.

Until 2004 I worked mainly in administration at national and international level. I still work part-time for the international organisation (MERU, Vlodrop). As a TM teacher I work for Rotterdam: I teach the course at my home in Schiedam and have taught hundreds of people TM. My students get a lot of personal attention. Courses are small (four students at most, but we don't wait for a full group) and I am very flexible about times and days of the week. We simply get the diary out. So if there is no course date on the website, that doesn't mean a course can't be arranged.

And what do my students tell me? It surprises me every time, because experiences both during and outside meditation can be so different. One of the loveliest, to me: "I now simply look forward to my day in the morning (and I didn't before)." It can be that simple.

Besides TM, I paint a lot, make collages and am a qualified Vedic Art teacher. During the exam season I work for the Dutch State Examinations.

TM has brought me closer to myself and taught me to sense better what I want. After so many years I find it quite hard to say anything about it, because you get used to it. I think I can sum it up best in the words of my mother, who said to me: "At least you're always happy."

I have been a TM teacher since 2023 and trained in Chanthaburi (Thailand). I teach in Utrecht, in Dutch and English.