A friend sent tonight a nice text in Spanish. I translated it with the help of a translation software and some “polishing”:

There was once a student who asked his teacher: “Where should I look for enlightenment?”
Teacher: “Here”.
Student: “And when will it take place?”
Teacher: “It is taking place right now.”
Student: “Then, why don’t I get it?”
Teacher: “Because you don’t look.”
Student: “And in what should I look for it?”
Teacher: “In anything. You simply look.”
Student: “To look what?”
Teacher: “Anything where you settle your eyes.”
Student: “And should I look somehow special?”
Teacher: “No. It will be enough the way you usually look.”
Student: “But don’t I always look usually?”
Teacher: “No.”
Student: “Why?”
Teacher: “Because to look you have to be here and now, and there you ‘are’ hardly ever.”

To meditate is to be aware of what is happening at each instant, without judging it, with a total acceptance of each present moment. It is to learn how to see that that “it is” as it is, simply. We don’t realize, but when we look to the world, we don’t see it such and as it is really, what we see is what “we think” of it.

Reflection of the sun in water. Our mind is reflecting the reality and so we don’t see it as it is, but as we perceive it with the mind.

Yesterday was Libra new moon. New moon is the darkest point of the month, also concerning psychic energy. And in spirituality Libra is regarded as the darkest point of the year, where it is more difficult to keep the thread to the light of the soul.

So this time is compared to a bottomless pit into which you can easily fall. It stands for the impermeable Nature causing a veil of illusion. In the east the impermeable Nature is visualised as Durga, the “Mother Impermeable”. Durga means, “impossible to move”.

It says it is very difficult to overcome the illusion of the Mother or the matter, and she stands at the threshold of the illusion of life. Sri Kumar says, “Unless you are in a program of discharging your karma you cannot enter into the inner chambers, and Durga blocks the way.”

Durga is depicted as a lady on a lion, the wild energies of matter. The mantram related to Durga is Dum, or Dum Durgayi Namaha (MP3). The most propitious time to invoke the mantram is on the first 10 days of the ascending moon in the month of Libra.

Last year Sri Kumar wrote, “People interested may contemplate upon the Mother with the lion, with the mantra ‘Dum Durgayei Namaha’. It can be said 108 times in the morning and 108 times in the evening after a shower, putting on fresh clothes and a fresh mind. …. It is an elaborate ritual, which people do not need to pick up. It is enough if they chant the mantra, morning and evening.”

When Durga is invoked, she protects and gives access, we are given the way through.

Statue of Durga in the house of Sri Kumar

The holy sound, OM, reverberates through the teachings of The Master – and every teacher is in truth a representation of this one principle, an exemplification of The Teacher or Master.

Two years ago Master Kumar gave us a beautiful OM sign with 3 bells, symbolising the 3 Logoi coming out of the Sound of Silence. Last week a reflection through a prism created a beautiful rainbow light shining on the symbol hanging at our altar. It is like the 7 rays coming out of the one light. This constellation of light was there just for a short moment.

The last three days we had a beautiful seminar with Dr. Kumar in a small circle at the WTT-office in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, about the scripture of Bhagavatam, the story of a world disciple. Here is a short extract from my notes of yesterday’s lecture, which was very thrilling:

“Spiritual aspiration happens to every human in one incarnation or the other. The various beings come down into incarnation into various kingdoms only to experience, be it in the mineral, plant or animal or human or even angels. They get incarnated in the mundane and even super-mundane planes to relate to the creation and to experience. As much as one experiences so much one experiences various aspects of life. There are thousands of aspects of life, it is not just one or two. Man experiences many things and yet in the energy of life there are many other things unfulfilled. Therefore he comes back to fulfil the unfulfilled.

On the physical plane there are many things to experience, on the emotional plane there are many things to experience through the 5 senses, and on the mental plane there are many, many more things to experience. The moment one takes to human birth he not only experiences the physical, emotional and mental plane activity but also has the potential of the subtle plane which is called supramental or super-mundane.

If you see the humans on the planet, there are millions and millions, experiencing different things in different ways. It is only one agenda, that agenda is to progress. Every day you see so many vehicles in the early morning moving out, and many animals. What fore are they moving? To fulfil their desires, their emotions and their thoughts. When there is no such desire nobody moves. The movement is due to the inner impulse to know and to experience, to do and to experience. In doing so when the related experience comes, if it is a good experience he repeats the experience all the time, if it is an unpleasant experience he tries to avoid. By nature nobody wants an unpleasant experience. Unless one is a sick person he does not invite any unpleasant experience. But unpleasant experiences do come, due to lack of knowledge how to do. Due to lack of knowledge about what to do and where to do. We cannot do everywhere what we like, according to place and time it changes. What to do, where to do, when to do. If these 3 things are in tune the experiences are pleasant, if not they are otherwise.

So through unpleasant experiences we learn what not to do, where not to do and how not to do. He will learn that he cannot do certain things in certain places. If he does so he will have unpleasant experiences. Likewise he also learns that when he does certain things when the experience is unpleasant he slowly learns what not to do. Even if he knows where and what to do, it is to learn how to do so that the experience is favourable. The scriptures and the teachings of the initiates lay down certain parameters for the humans, but unless man experiences some things he would not follow the scriptures or the teachings of the initiates. The best teacher is life itself.”

Einsiedeln this morning

Tuesday afternoon we visited the Paracelsus centre near Einsiedeln, where at the place of the birth house of the great initiate Paracelsus the WTT has a little centre in memory of Paracelsus. And we are also publishing a monthly magazine Paracelsus – Health and Healing.

A commemoration stone with a picture of Paracelsus

A Paracelsus medal inside the centre

Today was Ascension Day and Taurus new moon, standing for dissolution and new beginning. It was a good day for dispersing the ashes from the cremation of my mother-in-law. We went with our family to the place we had found last Sunday. It was again a cloudy day, the right ambiance for this occasion. It was a very solemn and enchanted ambiance, when the camphor fire and sandalwood incense were burning and the ashes were dispersed on a rock, while we intonated some mantrams. Here are some impressions from the place, the ceremony and the surrounding.

There is a beautiful river running along the borders of our village, the Aare, where we like to go for a walk. I love the scenery of sublime beauty and also like swimming there in summer. For me the river is full of spiritual symbolism.

Two weeks ago I saw a note in our local information paper of our village calling upon the inhabitants to hand in photos and texts about the Aare river for an exposition next summer “Art at the Water”, for which they also plan to release a photo book. I had a look through my collection of photos and sent them a selection. Early one morning I also wrote a poem which I now tried to translate. Here it goes, followed by some impressions

The Aare at Muri

Though you pay us only a short visit
on your journey
from the snow mountains in the background
passing on to the capital
and further on to more distant destinations,
you give us a loving smile,
youthful Aare,
when you come in through under the old wooden bridge
and pass along the pools,
to take again your leave
with a long curve towards Berne.
Sometimes, a bit vain,
you seem to change nearly daily your colourful clothes.
You friendly greet joggers, strollers with their dogs,
rejoice at the lovers.
And during summer days
boats pass by with you
and you refresh us bathers
with your cool-tickling energy,
grant us a little paradise of rest,
into which the villas on the slope
look down through the trees.
And from the other side
roaring iron birds rise into the sky.
Children throw pebbles, laughing,
while fires are burning on the banks
and surfers stand for a short time in your waters.
They feel a little of your power,
which sometimes you suddenly reveal,
when you leave your banks
and carve your way through the valley,
wildly roaring,
sweeping trees away with you,
reminding us of your wild origin.
But mostly your are more silent,
like wrapped in thoughts,
in your meditation
about grey-blue-greenish colours.
And the ferryman reminds you of the
Siddhartha of an eastern world.
Do you dream already here
of your release
into the boundless realms
of the far ocean?

A friend sent me a powerpoint with the following story I extracted from it:

Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison.

He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience. One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!” “How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb. “I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude.

The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, “It surely did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”

Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory-he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason. As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachutes.

Flying over the Alps

This morning an Indian friend forwarded me an e-mail with the following text. Very interesting…

Read the questions before looking at the responses.

Question 1:
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Question 2:
It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates:

• Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He’s had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 Martinis a day.
• Candidate B: He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
• Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He’s a vegetarian, doesn’t smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never committed adultery.

Which of these candidates would be our choice? Decide first without peeping below… then see the responses.

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question: If you said YES, you just killed Beethoven.

Makes a person think before judging someone.

Remember:
Amateurs … Built the ark.
Professionals … Built the Titanic

Dawn over the Godhavari River, India, January 2009

Yesterday evening I had a talk with my wife about subtle communication. I felt a bit empty or even irritated after having sent an e-mail to a friend, where I wasn’t sure if the thoughts would be received well. I also had re-written a letter in order to express thoughts more clearly, leaving away certain thoughts of the first letter.

My wife said that thoughts often get cleared through discussion, through talks, like we often have: “With certain people you can utter without problems your half-baked thoughts, while with others you don’t know what the other person can take. When writing a text, like for the Lunar Messenger, you enter into a dialog with the material and work out the thoughts, like with a heap of clay or a square block of a sculptor. You start forming it until it gets the right shape. It is similar when you play a song on the piano or work with an orchestra, where some instruments have to come to the fore and others have to stay back. What is important is the work with the from.

In relation with your friend you enter into a dialog in a chamber or your self which only you two have together, and this chamber up to now is still unknown, unfamiliar, new ground. There are things which you really have to explore. I know these situations where I know that there is something, but don’t know yet what it is. For your friend it is also difficult to orient in your chamber and to capture it, and it needs orientation like with you.

It takes you a lot of work to shape the texts of the Lunar Messenger, to work out the pearls. This is an artistic process, not just a working away of a heap, but a process of shaping. It is a very beautiful work, but it is also a work which attacks the nerves. This is how I feel it. There is the burning pulse of life. A friend of mine says: “You are leaving the comfort zone”, you aren’t at home, cannot relax, have to find it, bring it into life. It draws on your nerves. But this is also the sphere which takes you further. You are working on shifting a threshold, a border, in order to break open the Saturnian ring. This draws on your nerves, but also gives joy. Normally you only can afford it when the work is embedded in a stable context of life. You have to rest in yourself to be able to afford it. Otherwise it sweeps you off, even though it might be very beautiful.”

The response I got from my friend was full of a friendly understanding, and I felt that I also can share there thoughts in the process of clearing.

P.S.: A friend answered me about this post:

“I always carry with me the Mandra Scripture (An Aquarian Rendering of the Bhagavad Geeta, by Master EK). Today, I was re-reading  Book XVIII – The Book of Liberation, from the Scripture. ‘And the Lord said, the need of Mendicancy and sacrifice if we want to be free. Mendicancy is giving up of actions that produce desires, and Sacrifice is the giving up of the results of all that we do.’
This I think relates to your nerves, because you still look for results in what you do, and this draws on your nerves. The one who relinquishes the results of his work, is the one who has really given up. This book, also gives the five causes of a deed. ( page 262) Because the fifth cause is the activity of the whole creation and it is an impersonal cause, the whole thing is only instrumental. Let not any cause start from you as motive an end in you as the ultimate result. Then the whole burden of work is placed upon something we call God. Now you are only a worker, and not a doer. Do no be the owner, but be a steward of all your activities.”

I answered her: “I have read with the head many times about release from the results of doing, read the Mandra scripture a number of times but haven’t yet achieved it. I feel it is also a question of ripening… I stopped trying to ‘play’ a spiritual concept, like I did for many years, when I realise the gap between myself (My Self) and the concept, even a spiritual one.”

And when talking with my wife, she added: In a creative process there is full focus, and out of this tension might arise. Even Masters, when fully concentrating on a task ahead, go through a process of utmost tension. This doesn’t have to be accompanied by looking for the results, but ignoring this is like ignoring the great bow of a creative manifestation in a work of art.

“Mogul emperor, Akbar, frequently summoned the court jester whenever he felt himself tense. Blessed are those who have a cheerful companion.” (Vaisakh Newsletter Capricorn 09)

Structure of the roof of a room in a friend’s house

We now enter into the hours of Scorpio new moon. Scorpio energies are always somehow mysterious. In a seminar in 2005, our teacher, Sri K. Parvathi Kumar said: “Scorpio gives the message that the apparent is not real, because the real or the original is veiled by layers of illusion, and hence Scorpio offers illusion, Scorpio also offers initiations. It is a sign which is the profoundest among the zodiacal signs. Its secrets are unfathomable.”

This afternoon while walking through the nearby park of the Elfenau (Elves’ Meadow), I captured some impressions of the autumnal melancholy in the air, where nature withdraws and prepares for the deep rest of winter time.

View over the meadows to the old villa in the park

The villa seen from nearby

A pond next to the house with view down to the river Aare

“Sitting” on the bench

Reflections

A wooden woodpecker

Mushrooms on an old tree trunk – beauty of decay

Between the river and a lake of an old river arm

Swan reflecting on its beauty

The river Aare in autumn light

A little chapel in the forest, an ancient hermitage

Evening light

Flower elves dancing in the greenhouse in the park – timeless green

Colourful orchids in the greenhouse – messengers of a remote summer time