Yesterday morning I went by car to pick up our eldest son and his computer equipment from a friend’s house, where he had spent the night. They wanted to do online games, but the line was broken. He just had upgraded to a new version of his favorite game Guild Wars, and he is bent on diving into the new dimensions of this virtual world, where a great number of people are participating. When he is gaming, it is just his body sitting in front of the computer, his mind is far away.
He is absorbed for hours, and getting him out for meals or for other things is quite difficult. Where is an individual in such a state? It seems that the mind is linked off from the physical, forgetting its needs. I myself am working very much with the computer, though not gaming, but following my lines of professional or spiritual work. I also experience this state of absorption in a way, and I often ponder on what is happening through the virtual spheres intermingling with the outer physical worlds. There are so many strata of human consciousness and interests reflected in the ocean of bits and bytes. It is like a concretisation of the emotional and the mental plane, being made visible on the screen, showing a spectrum of the mental focus, often circling around the famous triangle of money, sex and crime.
The transitions between the gross outer and the more subtle world of the virtual sphere are floating. Yesterday evening we ha a visit by a couple from a South-East European country, who had come into contact with us via our good-will website. We had a fascinating exchange. The exchange will continue via the digital channels. Where does the outer, where the digital start and end? It is the same with the subtle states of consciousness you experience in meditation. It also acts upon the grosser spheres, when you regularly attune to it. this principle of interchanging the spheres allows you to live in a higher state of consciousness and at the same time be active in an outer activity.

Yesterday evening I finally finished reading the book “Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Life” by Marshall B. Rosenberg. I was fascinated by the very human and compassionate approach towards solving conflicts and towards understanding one’s own real needs and that of others. The method had helped me in handling conflicts with my sons (15/13 yrs), especially with my younger one. (Last week in Berlin, my friends had a mug with a picture of one of the Simpsons saying “The I haven’t done it boy”, reminding me of the many little conflicts about computer sharing or “littering” at home…)

It had taken over 10 years from the first contact with Nonviolent Communication until now: I remember having heart about it when doing the German translation of the book “Spiritual Politics – Changing the World from the Inside Out“, by Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson in 1996 (for which I hadn’t found a publisher however, in spite of intense search). Then I got some insights in 97/98 at a conflict resolution training course of the Swiss Red Cross, where I was at that time head of a psychosocial couseling centre for migrants and refugees.

The book even came to me in 99, when at an international conference in Geneva a participant from Los Angeles gave it to me. My wife later started reading it and was enthusiastic about it, applying the concepts in her dealing with our chidren and neighborhood help. 6 months ago she went to a training of the Centre for Nonviolent Communication in Basel and even organised a course with a CNVC-trainer in a neighbor village. She tried to do it again the last weeks, but two days ago they had to cancel it because of too few registrations.

We had quite some discussions at home about the nonviolent way of dealing with conflicts, and I had to realise that very often I took me quite some time to understand my behaviour in the little daily conflicts with the children and finding a more intelligent attitude in seeing what are the hidden needs behind a situation. I hope my eyes have been sharpened by reading the book, which for me is a very practical approach of applying spiritual principles in everyday life.

Every morning on my way to work I come across the Aare, a river flowing through Berne. At the moment the river is rapidly running with turquoise-blue waters coming from the melting masses of snow in the Alps. Crossing the bridge is just a matter of a few seconds, without remembering how difficult it would be without such a bridge, just standing there like something ordinary. But you wouldn’t be able to pass over, if people hadn’t constructed it.
I have come across people who were for me like a bridge to new realms of understanding. Without their help it would have been difficult to pass over. I think in all fields of knowledge and culture there is the need for such bridge builders, even if you don’t acknowledge their contribution. I experienced that this is especially so on the spiritual path where there are gaps in my understanding. Sometimes it were thoughts condensed in a book, but more helpful were exchanges with people, and for my experience especially the contacts with my spiritual teachers. Building the bridge to higher realms of consciousness is nearly impossible without such a help. And it is a work of inner bridging which you are doing with a continuous and systematic meditative work. In the Lunar Messenger on “Building the Bridge” there are some further thoughts on this. The effects of having built the bridge are seemingly natural, but it is a long way until the inner bridge is built.

At the moment I am working in my free time at the annual report for the Western groups of the World Teacher Trust, a socio-spiritual movement, with which we have been associated over the last 9 years. It is fascinating to get a little insight into the work done by various groups in Europe, North and South America, who, inspired by the wisdom teachings, are trying to integrate regular meditation and study with some volunteer service activity, besides the activities for one’s own economic indepency.
Balancing all these aspects is quite a challenge in modern life, which has quite other priorities. Our spiritual teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar, is an outstanding example of this intelligent integration – as a business man working actively in the economic, social and cultural fields, with spirituality as the basis.
Each group has quite another approach and a quality of its own. The intergroup networking to gain an insight into these service activities is only possible due to the use of our electronic equipments via computer, web-telephone, or the “classical” phones. This kind of co-operation would’t have been possible only a few years ago. It creates a new quality of interlinking in a free good-will work on the basis of a spiritual impulse, which the general commercial world with its economic power has already adopted in a highly sophisticated manner.

Yesterday a parcel with wisdom-books from India arrived, after a 3 month sea journey. Another parcel posted on the same day had arrived already a month ago. The parcel, sewn into a linnen wrapping and sealed with sealing wax, smelled orient. I had bought the books during my stay in India in January. It now arrived as a messenger from afar.

Three years ago I had started presenting the books of the WTT on the good-will website and distributing some of them for free to interested seekers, since it is nearly impossible to get these excellent books somewhere in the West. Some friends are supporting us financially in this work, and some of the recipients give a contribution.

I like very much this opportunity to come into contact with spiritual seekers, and fruitful contacts have thus developed. The requests come from all continents, thought sometimes there are immodest request, which I answer politely, but clearly.
Wisdom books cannot be eaten with spoons, and a speedy reading only causes indigestion. But used in the right way, with the right inner attitude, they open up vistas into the inner worlds.

The morning air is smelling the spring rain, which has soaked the soil and brought fresh life to the plants. The leaves are mirroring the lights. Water is not just H²O, as scientist want to make us believe, it is a wonder of nature with many qualities.
Yesterday a friend from Canada sent me a link to a website “Microwaved Water and Plants”, demonstrating impressively how through microwave treatment the subtle structures of water lose their life-giving qualities. The beautiful website about the World of Water gives deeper insights into the fascinating work of the reknown scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto on water crystals, showing the multitude of structural information expressing through water.
Some years ago we had published a number of Good Will in Action about Food and Drink, explaining the importance of the use of pure water for purifying also our subtle bodies. Not to forget the tremendous need for drinking water in many areas of our planet.
May a more intelligent and caring behaviour towards this precious source of life slowly develop.

During the one week we had been away, the scenery has greatly changed: Intense colour spots of white, yellow, green and pink are seen in the gardens and along the roads. The leaves are back to the trees and are shining in a light green. The sky yesterday was giving a radiant azure background. We are in the month of Taurus, ruled by Venus. Nature is expressing in all her beauty. We sense beauty through the forms of the flowers, the freshness of the green, the warmer winds on the skin.
The meditative experience shows, that beauty is experienced more in the subtler realms of consciousness, in an inner equilibrium. When we are drowsy or busily engaged in some work, the outside beauty doesn’t seem to exist. I have to be receptive. Beauty reflects in the inside, and can be contemplated there even without the outer forms. The inspiration of beauty gives a strength to overcome even obstacles. So the refreshing energies of spring bring us the revitalizing energies for the annual cycle ahead.

On our way back from Berlin, on a highway rest stop somewhere in Germany: We were making a pause in a restaurant. In the corner there was a man sitting in front of a gambling machine. The lights were running in circles, the man was staring at the numbers, waiting for a little luck. He stood up to get some more coins, then continued his game. He was like an icon of the pursuit of happiness – waiting for an easy fortune, but losing in the end.
Many are looking at the twinkling wheels of life, waiting for some good luck, hypnotized by the desire for wealth. A stale taste remains in the end, for the outer little joys keep on fleeting ways. The source of joy is in the inner, the treasure of silence. With the years of regular meditation this has become a growing experience.
The wisdom teachings tell us that it is o.k. to have the money for a good living but that the search for joy in the outer will remain an unsatisfying craving. The inner light is stable and fulfilling, the outer lights keep on circling round like those of the gambling machine.

Our last excursion in Berlin brought us to the Brandenburger Gate and the Reichstag building, the old and new seat of the German government. Both places next to each other reflect more than any other place the dramatic history of Germany and of the meeting point of hemispheres. In a side part of the Branderburger Gate there is now a Room of Silence, like the silent core in the inner of our being, where you find the inner peace of the Eternal. We sat down there for a short meditation.
At the Reichstag we went up with the elevator to the great glass dome located directly over the plenary hall of the Bundestag. There you have a very impressive sight over Berlin. Since olden times a cupola represents the head and the cosmos. A government is the head centre of a country. Here the head is not of stone, but of glass, and in the middle of i t there is a vortex-like structure with mirrors directly in the middle. This lightful structure full of transparency expresses very well the trend of time into the Aquarian age, where matter becomes lighter and more light-infused. The mirror-vortex reminded me of the sahasrara, the human head-centre of subtle energies, which in an enlightened being is open to the energies from above and distributing them to the surrounding life. It is the apex of the vertical line starting from the base of the spine.
May the work being done here at the bottom of the vortex, in the plenary hall, be inspired from the cosmic law and energies. So when descending the spirallic pathway from the top of the dome, we sang in a low voice the sacred word OM.

Yesterday we went to a little airport in the north-west of Berlin. The son of our friends is an enthusiastic glider pilot and spends his entire free time there at the glider club. The bumpy road to the airport once served as a runway for Russian warplanes. On both sides of the road there were grass-covered shelters where at communist times the aircrafts were stationed. Three glider clubs had bought the huge site in the 90ies and now do their starts on a long grass runway.
At the morning meeting of the club members we were presented as the guests from abroad and listened for the instructions for the day. Then we went over to the new hangar, where about two dozens of gliders and a few small motor aircrafts were standing closely side by side. We rolled our two-seater out of the hall and pushed it over to the runway. It took some time until all the gliders were out and the old truck with the hoist was placed at the other end of the runway.
The starts began: Within 1, 2 seconds the gliders were in the air, and after a few seconds they reached already the hight of about 500 meters, from where the cable dropped down and the glider started its way through the air.
After the starts of my sons it was my turn. With a parachute on the back and some instructions how ot get out in case of an emergency we took off. I was pressed into my seat while we shooted up like a rocket, only to shift over into the horizontal after a few more seconds. I still had frayed nerves, when we got into a thermal lift and circled upwards.
It was fascinating to experience how through the use of the upward currents we were climbing up instead of falling down. It is like the energies of the kundalini ascending the vertical tube subtle inner side of the spinal column, lifting the consciousness up into the spaces of higher realms, when you get, through spiritual disciplines, into a “thermal lift” after due preparations.