This morning while doing some shoppings in the city of Berne I discovered some nice shop window scenes. I love these “kitsch as kitsch can”-sceneries. The Indian Gods on tour in Swiss shop window decorations – what a colourful meeting.

Reflections of reflections – passers-by and display dummies

Non-attachment in the shop display: The Buddha meditating

The child Krishna playing, accompanied with some Sarasvathis, and Durga listening in the back, on a tiger

Hanuman between some vases – ready to serve

Shiva and Parvathi with Ganesha between the storage racks

Shiva sitting on a lotus, with his drum and kamandulu (bowl), surrounded by serpents (symbols of time), blessing the photographer.

Krishna playing flute, with Nandi at his feet.

Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman in a boat, surrounded by white horses

Sarasvathi, the Goddess of the Word and of Wisdom, sitting on the white swan (symbol of respiration), playing veena (instrument with 7 strings, symbolising the 7 planes, the music of creation).

Another statue of Hanuman, in deep devotion

Enchanting Krishna, playing the music of the soul

Riding through the ocean of shopping illusions

Melancholic angel: When shall I be redeemed from this boring shop existence?

Harlekin pondering on the mysteries of commercialism

I just read the latest issue of the Swiss “NZZ-folio” magazine the topic of which is “For Free – Business Model of the Future?“. Some articles show how people get blinded when they hear that they can get something for free – they forget that normally there is a catch in it. Free newspapers, free phones, free drinks,  – there are many ways of seducing and of capturing the attention.

Of course little value is often attached to things which are given for free or for half the price, and on the web it is nearly taken for granted that you get content or a lot of software for free. The motives of doing so vary – personal satisfaction, making a name for oneself, getting people attracted to some other offer… There are enterprises engaged in philanthropic activities, where there is no financial “return on investment”, but a gain in reputation. But the self-related motives remain, though they might not be visible at the first sight.

There are people doing service activities with a selfless motive, or even without a motive at all. This way of acting is not catchy. But the thing is that by receiving benefits you remain in a receptive mood and get into passivity. You have to give something so that the flow of energy doesn’t get stuck with you.  You might like to read more about the power of giving in the issue on Giving and Taking of the Good Will in Action. And you might be interested in our free distribution of wisdom books or our free newsletter -  this kind of “hooking” isn’t dangerous

Wisdom is flowing for free, for those who are really seeking it from the right sources and use it for the right purposes.

When you just receive without giving in one way or the other you create attachment and remain a beggar. Photo by a friend, India 07.

Three days ago I got an e-mail from the webmaster of the site “Wicca & Esoteric Library“. He had seen the publications of the Circle of Good Will and asked if we would like to publish articles in his library: It is a “totally free resource and will stay so for as long as I can keep it online.”

I had a look at the site and thought, why not. Though there are quite a lot of “adds by Google” all around the published texts (clicking on them will cause costs for the advertisers and makes the cash tills ring with the site owner and with Google), but maybe this way some people will find the wisdom teachings which wouldn’t stumble across them otherwise.

I wrote to him, that I could contribute some articles, but since all of them are written on the basis of the wisdom teachings, especially those of Master KPK (Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar) and Master EK (Dr. Ekkirala Krishnamacharya), they should not go under my name, but under “Circle of Good Will”.

This wasn’t what they had designed: He answered, I could take one of the names of the Masters as the author, since for legal purposes he needs the name of the author. I replied that this isn’t possible either: I have reframed the texts, without changing the content, by taking parts from many publications, often unpublished notes. From a “worldly legal side” I might be considered to be the author, from a spiritual point of view, however, I’m not and I would never claim it to be, because it is not my content, even though I am entitled to use the texts.

Finally we found a way – that I accept the legal responsibility associated with publishing these articles on the site, by adding the related details in their admin-space. This information is not visible to the outside. As per the details under the general information, I can add something about the Circle of Good Will.

Having these points – and some others – cleared, I added a few articles to different sections of the library. Three of them have been reviewed and published by now, some others probably will follow soon. You might have a look here, here and here. But all these articles and many more you find in a better formatted form as pdfs on the Good-Will site.

“The Writer” in a doll’s house, after Carl Spitzweg’s famous painting “The Poor Poet“.

I normally don’t do „corporate marketing” in this blog, but today I got a news release announcing a new way of communication to cross language barriers, which sounds very fascinating:

Together with IBM, the phone company Jajah has just started today a real-time free phone translation service called Jajah Babel that allows anyone in China, the U.S., UK and Australia to call a local number, speak in English and immediately hear the message back in Chinese Mandarin. It also works the other way round. So you can simply hand your phone to the other person or put the phone on loudspeaker, so they hear the message.

I wonder how the system manages to understand the ambiguities of language, which automatic translation programs don’t hit (for example: “Bill Gates” as the bill for the doors…), but nevertheless it is a great step ahead in finding a way out of Babylon.

This week I read in the Swiss magazine “MK – Marketing und Kommunikation” an article about “LOHAS continue to be on the rise”. I never heard about LOHAS, a marketing target group, before. Wikipedia describes it as “an acronym for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability that refers to a demographic defining a particular market segment related to sustainable living, “green” ecological initiatives, and generally composed of a relatively upscale and well-educated population segment.” Another variety is LOVOS, “an acronym for Lifestyles of Voluntary Simplicity which are oriented to health and sustainability, and are critical of consumption and consumerism.”

Oh, I thought, now they have a scheme into which they can put me in their profiling. For I discover elements of LOHAS lifestyle as well as LOVOS. The MK article describes the LOHAS that they are very web-affine, have priorities in environmental questions, social responsibility and awareness. Trustworthiness is very important to them and they don’t easily believe what marketeers say, but orient more with the opinion of family and friends. When they are convinced, they stay with a product, and with an enterprise that sells it. If the enterprise, however, behaves irresponsible, they won’t buy it. And the percentage of LOHAS is increasing.

The article started with the lines: “Change of values. The central task of marketing lies in defining, creating, conveying and transmitting values. What happens, however, when the values in the society change and new lifestyles are forming?” Poor marketeers, hurry up to orient towards deeper values. It seems their claiming of “defining, creating, conveying and transmitting values” is an empty effort, when the society doesn’t behave the way they would like it to have, and the marketeers are running behind.

Hopefully people will come to the point of orienting more towards the real needs and not get caught by the desires foamed by marketing strategies, like it is still often the case. May they get more and more waterproof towards the temptations of the guild of market criers.

Putting posters on an advertising pillar

Last week I saw an article in the latest number of a German web-marketing journal about measuring user engagement on websites. The question which occupies the marketeers is: How to get people into an engagement, for example on a website, and start to do something.

The marketing specialist agree that it is most important to incite engagement, but it seems to be quite difficult to measure it: If you can quantify engagement, then you can put a price tag on it and benchmark the reactions you get, invest in raising the level of engagement and the like.

A comment in a blogpost by “Scobleizer” (Robert Scoble, the ex-Microsoft “evangelist”) from 2006 entitled: New audience metrics needed: Engagement, lists, what engagement is about and what might be measured:

1. Reactions (they heard you)
2. Learning (they understood and retained)
3. Transfer (they took in the information and can apply)
4. Results (they use the learning to achieve a goal)

There is a lot of discussion about this topic on the web, but these simple lines very well hit the point of engagement, also in the context of wisdom teachings – though measuring is more than strange in this context: Many people hear something about the inner path (point 1), some get interested and start reading about it (point 2), and this for a longer time.

A few of these transfer it into a practice (point 3) and start training themselves. Of these few again a small group really commits itself to continuous engagement, taking up a regular schedule, combined with some kind of service activities and diving into a deeper understanding of the teachings with studies.

Many quit their initial engagement half way through or get lost in some side-track or the other. In the Eastern scriptures it says, out of 1000 one person changes from one level to the other – from hearing to getting interested, to starting practice, to getting into engagement. So it is 1000 x 1000 x 1000.

The percentage of those who set upon a focused spiritual journey along the guiding lines seems to be very low (marketeers would be very much frustrated…), and hopefully it scores a bit higher. But it also says that the goal of a spiritual teacher is reached, when he finds a fistful who really apply and reach the goal and take up the torch of teaching themselves.

Have a look at “Basics of Spiritual Life” on “The Teacher-Student Principle“.

Which way to take with engagement – turn to commitment, or pass on, or stay undetermined?

In a German internet marketing magazine I saw a note about the American site “Christvertising“, which describes itself with the following words:

“Christvertising is a network of communication specialists and advertsing professionals which help you navigate through the maze that is the world of competitive brands. If you like your product, so do we, but more importantly, so does God. We believe that nothing is possible without the Lord’s blessing and consent. Your product is no exception. May God bless your Brand.”

And: “Christvertising manages a network of creative, innovative, and pro-active believers, who will help you, through intensive prayer, improve your brand in the eyes of the Lord. If God loves your brand, it will become stronger and more successful. Cristvertising helps you access the power of brand-targeted prayer (BTP™) using our unique, isosceles approach to marketing: Reach – Connect – Pray.” …. “Ask yourself this simple question: Is your brand in God’s good books?”

Prayers are very helpful on the spiritual path, they can orient us to the Divine – not from the intellect, but from the heart. However, using prayer to bribe God and exploit him for marketing purposes is one more expression of our excessively materialistic time.

Hands of a Buddha statue, photo of a friend

This afternoon I went to a talk announced as “Guerilla Marketing in the Web – Affiliate-, Viral-, Blog- & Buzz-Marketing etc.” from a group called “Internet-briefing.ch – Where Web Pioneers Meet”, on the site of the Topsoft software fair. Was it already guerilla marketing announcing this title to attract people and then change it to “Web-woven promotion” (a word-play in German) at the presentation?

Though basically well-known, but astonishing again – all these tricks marketeers use to channel the waters of attention to their mill-wheels. Such a great human creativity used to catch people’s awareness and get them into the desired direction – and this by giving them the feeling that they act by their own free decision: Viewing YouTube-videos or down-loading desktop gadgets with ads, or, even more important, getting into the talks of the people.

The presenter quoted from the Cluetrain Manifesto, that markets are conversations (“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies. These markets are conversations. …”).

This is a very important point, and it is also true for non-marketing purposes. You can also use it for spreading ideas and concepts of spirituality. However, this is much more difficult than to work will mass-consciousness, as the marketeers do.

In the East the power of the word is called Saraswathi, the goddess of speech and of wisdom. Going into wisdom, however, is not just that what marketeers are interested in.

Markus Gabriel, CEO Angelink, preparing for the talk

After the lecture I strolled along the stands of the Topsoft exposition – a fascinating world of hopes and promises, with dark-clothed smart salespeople or a bit more freaky open-sourcelers. I had nothing lost in this ambiance and left the fair again.

The Topsoft-flag lying on the floor at the entrace, and people leaving.

Christmas is the time of presents – this is also the case in the business world. A number of Christmas presents popped in at my office. It seemed that the agencies and partners want to outdo the others in originality – and not necessarily in beauty and style. In some case there is a subtle material “aggression” behind – a kind of an endeavour to gain favours to get another order or contract. I don’t assume bribery ambitions, but there is some kind of this tendency.

Last week however, I got a very original small gift from an agency which has developed a media management system we use for administering our photos. It is a very good system, and I appreciate the executive director very much – he has an enormous commitment, not only for his enterprise, but also in social activities. Over the last decades he has built up in Andhra Pradesh, India, a mango cultivation and distribution system, which helps hundreds of farmers to have a good job. And then he built up several clinics, and also opened an office of his agency in Hyderabad where they do development and distribution of their media managing system.

The last years he sent always very creative little presents: Once a little granite stone with moss from a pass in the Alps, with a little booklet on how mosses survive in most difficult surroundings, showing parallels to our lives. Last year a stone with petrified little fish from South America, and a small booklet about the evolution and power of life. This year he sent an old Intel Pentium (c) chip, which people from a prisoners rehabilitation centre had opened and prepared, together with a booklet on silicon – how silicon, a material second-most spread on the surface of the earth has become the pivotal point of or technical development. By using the qualities of this semiconductor we are now able to reach technical heights unthinkable of only a few decades ago. The booklet mentioned that for the first flight to the moon the Nasa computers had less capacities than nowadays every cellphone has: We have entered into a silicon age. Now silicon starts even to emit light, through its use in LED light emitting diodes. A real step into the sublimation of matter.

The chip – a little work of art, with a beautifully reflecting centre

Today I came across the site FreeRice, an online English vocabulary learning game to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free. This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on the site. By improving your vocabulary your donated rice enables hungry human beings to live and be productive. The sponsored money is given to the United Nations World Food Program.

Though it is a marketing instrument for the enterprises advertising, the game is serving a good purpose. There is a database containing thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty. There are words appropriate for people just learning English and words that will challenge the most scholarly professors.

There are 50 levels in all – I quickly reached level 49, though the vocabulary was very difficult – not because of an excellent knowledge of English, but because I had in a second window the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, which found the meaning of the different search-words. FreeRice is making no profit, all the rice “won” goes for sponsoring food. It is a sister-site of Poverty.com, where you also can see how much the different countries gives as international aid.