Holzkamp

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Chitbodhi remembers events during his days at Uni in Berlin – from his memoir, One Life

Prof Holzkamp teaching
Prof. Klaus Holzkamp during a lecture at Freie Universität in 1982, cr Jan Ketil Arnulf

Frustration came to a culmination point… a few times I even considered changing my subject of study. I still passed every test okay, and from the outside everything looked fine. I had my new friends from my class. Sometimes I went to parties, talked like the others, but questions inside me increased more and more.

What was I supposed to do with a pursuit like these studies? Help people? Understand people? I felt I had become more inadequate and incompetent than the day I had started with Psychology as a subject.

August ‘77, end of my second year in Psychology, and a showdown with Prof. Holzkamp. In his classes I had always felt the dumbest. He had given us a paper to write. I don’t really remember the exact title, but it was clear that to write it, I first had to read and understand all major titles by [my professors] Holzkamp and Osterkamp.

Since I’d already studied for two years at their Institute, this should have been a given. In my head though, was an intellectual mumble jumble, a few thousand unfamiliar words, freely suspended in my mind, too freely, too loosely. But what did it all mean in the reality of life?

The time given to us to write a minimum of 30 pages was six weeks.

I read Prof. Holzkamp’s book and started writing. That’s a start, my first six pages! The next day I read them over – it looked like nonsense. I destroyed my six pages. Start again, and start again. The thing was dragging on and on, and now there was even time pressure added.

Four weeks have passed and I don’t even have one written page. Then, one Friday night I decide, Now I have to do it and the best way is I start from scratch! Maybe I don’t really understand all these strange words. Maybe I just thought I knew what they meant.

On Saturday morning I wasn’t going to go to the Institute. I went to work. I took Holzkamp’s book with me, read the first page and highlighted all the words which I didn’t understand. I looked up every word in the dictionary and wrote down their meaning. And after finishing three of his pages, I wrote the whole thing down in my own words.

My translation into ‘normal’ German didn’t make any sense!

There must be a mistake in it, maybe I got some words wrong, or chose the wrong meaning?

I started again. Page one. I noticed that the whole first page consisted of only two sentences. Wow! I hadn’t noticed that – in two years of studying. Who can write a whole page in only two sentences?

Started again and thought: Okay. The first sentence; just one sentence, right? Okay, there are many commas and it’s very long, but I have to understand this one sentence!

I had started the day at eight in the morning and by ten at night I had nothing written down. I had gotten exactly as far as when I had started in the morning. I took the book and in rage threw it at the wall. It bumped off and broke apart.

Sandy, my cat, looked shocked.

That’s it! I give up! What nonsense I am studying!

I stopped and waited for Monday.

Monday morning we had two hours with Holzkamp, and this time I had the courage to speak up. I wanted to understand. If I didn’t understand his book, then he had to explain it to me.

As soon as he entered the room, I immediately stood up with his book in hand. I explained that for the paper I was meant to write, I hadn’t been able to write one word. That I had tried to read his book and, “Sorry, I don’t understand a thing. Maybe I am stupid… but I want to understand.

“It already starts with your first page and the first sentence. Can you please say it to me in simple words? Maybe you can split up your one sentence into four or five sentences so that it’s easier for me to understand?”

I saw that he was touched – and he started to speak.

I am unable to recollect the whole conversation word for word. But I stood there for two hours. We talked about this first sentence for two hours. Whatever he said, I didn’t understand. I really didn’t get it.

He talked the same way he had written it in his book, highly intellectual. Very long sentences, spiked with scientific words. I tried to make him understand that I was from a coal miner’s family and, although I did understand each single word, I didn’t get the whole meaning.

He started again. And then again. He really tried to speak in simple words, but what came out of his mouth was always just these same, very long complicated sentences.

At some point, after a while in our little discussion, I noticed around me that my classmates started to support me. First, just by nodding when I said something, and then with supportive comments. They more and more supported me openly by admitting that they also had the same problem.

Inside I wondered… just small thoughts: So I am not the only one? Actually, it’s the whole class!

Now Holzkamp somehow became desperate. His eyes started to move fast, right and left. He was talking to me but not even once did he look into my eyes, I noticed. His eyes moved fast all over the place, but never looked at me.

Others from my class now also got up in support. Obviously we all had already had classes for two years with him, done our papers, passed all tests, but nobody had really understood him. At some point I interrupted him.

“I can see that you are really trying to make me and all of us understand, but I still don’t get it, and when you speak to me you never look at me. Not once in this last hour have I seen you talk directly to me and look into my eyes. Why?”

At that moment I felt like a dragon spitting fire.

Funnily enough, there are sometimes moments which can be so intense that you notice everything around you, all at the same time, with equal intensity. Standing and talking with him and being 100% there. And at the same time knowing what is going on with the rest of the class – and still following your own thoughts about the whole situation with 100% focus.

Suddenly this thought came: “Wow, for the first time in two years, I am here. Now, after two years, I have finally arrived at University! Now I am here. I have arrived.”

It was the bell that saved him. Not even five seconds after the bell, he was gone with his books. Two hours had passed. I looked around; almost half the class was standing with me. Two years – and I was the one who was never really seen. Always there, but never really seen.

Thinking back today, I am still surprised that two hours could change a life so much as those two hours did mine.

I felt like an eagle, still in his nest, finally with the courage to fly. Finally overcoming all his fears, just taking the jump. His heart pumping with excitement, and fear too. But then the flying is happening and the flying is so beautiful… The fear is gone. Just the pleasure of feeling the body, feeling all the feathers stretch, feeling the wind lifting him up into the sky, into the sunlight, into joy. I felt one with the wind, with the clouds and the sky. One with existence.

Edited excerpt from chapter 7 of Chitbodhi’s book, One Life – featured image credit Prof. Jan Ketil Arnulf

Related article

One LifeOne Life: A True Account
by Chitbodhi (Karl Ludwig Malczok)
ASIN: ‎ B00T1LKX6A
Kindle eBook: Amazon*

The eBook is also available in a German version:
Ein Leben: Eine Wahre Erzählung
ASIN: ‎ B01F7YK6U2
Kindle eBook: Amazon.de

Chitbodhi

Before coming to Osho in 1978, Chitbodhi studied Psychology at the Free University Berlin. He is the author of a memoir and lives in Bali.

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