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Archive for the ‘Nature and Man’ Category

Video: Continuity of Consciousness

Thursday, February 17th, 2022

The French and German versions of my new video just went online, the English version was done a few days ago: “Wisdom Teachings: Continuity of Consciousness” is from the series done on the basis of texts from the Lunar Messenger. The text is also available in html-form on the WTT website.

About the content:

Those who have once had an out-of-body experience are no longer afraid of death because they know that they will not die when they leave the body. The mundane identity is always mortal, whereas the supra-mundane identity as soul is immortal. The soul is the ‘solar principle’. As solar principles we continue to exist, and we take on bodies again and again, life after life. The continuity of identity is maintained. To acquire this knowledge, we were born with a physical body on earth…

My elder brother Winfried gave me access to his archives of fantastic pics he took while he still could do bicycle tours – he went into the solitudes of Scandinavia and other countries. I used some of his pics for the video, besides finds from my own huge photo archives.

The video was done, like the last ones, with a layout developed for the Friends of the World Teacher Trust, and it was also published on the Friends of WTT YouTube channel.

C.G. Jung – A Letter on Astrology

Monday, February 14th, 2022

Some days ago, a friend and astrologer from Seattle sent me a photo of a letter of C.G. Jung from a correspondence with professor B.V. Raman, an Indian astrologer / editor from Bangalore dated September 6th 1947. I transformed the photo into a PDF for easier sharing.

In the letter, Jung does the following interesting statements:
“Since you want to know my opinion about astrology I can tell you that I’ve been interested in this particular activity of the human mind since more than 30 years. As I am a psychologist I am chiefly interested in the particular light the horoscope sheds on certain complications in the character. In cases of difficult psychological diagnosis I usually get a horoscope in order to have a further point of view from an entirely different angle. I must say that I very often fund that the astrological data elucidated certain points which I otherwise would have been unable to understand. From such experiences I formed the opinion that astrology is of particular interest to the psychologist, since it contains a sort of psychological experience which we call “projected” – this means that we find the psychological facts as it were in the constellations. This originally gave rise to the idea that these factors derive from the stars whereas they are merely in a relation to synchronicity with them. I admit that this is a very curious fact which throws peculiar light on the structure of the human mind.
What I miss in astrological literature is chiefly the statistical method by which certain fundamental facts could be scientifically established.

Hoping that this answer meets your request I remain
yours sincerely
C.G. Jung”

The letter reminds me of the explications Dr. E. Krishnamacharya (Master EK) in his book “Wisdom of the Heavens” (PDF), where he gives excellent explications on the nature of astrology. This might answer what Jung gives as missing in astrological literature about establishing certain fundamental facts statistically:

” ‘Is astrology a science or an art?’ You can further enquire. It is a science while learning and art while applying. It has the same position as that of medicine and law… Healing is an art though medicine is a science. Same is the case with astrology. … When a prescription fails to cure, when a legal advice fails to restore justice, or when a prediction fails to come true, the fault is in the practitioner but not in the science… Man can foresee that there will be a sunrise tomorrow and if he does not kill himself in the name of religion or politics. Such experience forms the basis for the Wisdom of the Heavens. Whenever the basis is illumined by the sacred lamp of pure perception through the torch of quest, there is the development of the astrological science. Through this wisdom, man can foresee the will of his Creator and await His command… We prefer to follow such sciences. We read the symbols of this science and interpret in terms of man’s tendencies, seeds, reactions and results. We teach what we know. We interpret what we see. If man were to talk to His Father it is through the vault of Heavens. The wisdom of the stars should be the language… Astrology is the true key of spiritual wisdom which we call the ‘Science of Man’.”

Trance Work and Attachments – An article by my wife

Saturday, February 12th, 2022

The “Paracelsus Health and Healing” magazine has just published an article about “Trance Work and Attachments“, where my wife Cyrille explains her therapeutical trance work. Since the article is also published in English (she translated it herself), I present it here as well.

The idea for this article started sprouting 2.5 years ago, and we often discussed about it, especially in the last stages of composing the article. Although she is working with trance therapy since years and participated in a lot of trainings in the earlier years, she developed her own approach and thus, also had to develop and formulate the understanding in a new form.

It is very much based on experience. I like her way of illustrating. The pictures in the article are reworked by a friend and collaborator of the magazine. I give here 4 “originals” of her drawings I had scanned.

Suppressed emotions in the pressure cooker
Strong emotions tear open the protective layer of the aura
Opening of the pot under protective aura
Simple first version of the visualisation of higher self, mind, soul body and subconsiousness (inspired by ‘Assagioli’s egg’)

So have a look at the article, where she also described how she supports as a coach and how she also helps neutralising the “Six Meddling Manikins” of the helpers – we know them only too well: giving one’s (negative) comments, advice-giving, telling about oneself and others’ experiences, sharing insights about the other, reproaches, and giving all this to the other person without being asked … to the poor person we feel we should help with all this.

Passing of a Great One: Thich Nhat Hanh

Saturday, January 22nd, 2022

Friends sent me this morning the information that today a great one has passed over: Thích Nhất Hạnh. The Buddhist monk left his body at the age of 95 (1926 – 2022) in Vietnam. In the 60s, he had been a leading voice in the opposition to the Vietnam war. and later had impacted the lives of millions of people. Here you can read about his life story.

I heard about Thich already many years ago, and consciously in the 90s through Buddhists among the Vietnamese refugees for whom I worked for 11 years. They had fled from Vietnam during the second wave exodus, and Switzerland had taken particularly vulnerable people from East Asian refugee camps. I met a lot of Vietnamese refugees, first in the integration centre for recognised refugees where I was teaching German language and first integration, and later as a head of “An Lac”, in the 90s a psycho-social meeting and counselling centre for South-East Asian refugees. Some of them deeply venerated Thich and spoke to me about his importance and a bit about their Buddhist life.

I never felt drawn to Buddhism but I was deeply impressed about the life and message of Thich, which largely is of a universal nature. He has taught mindfulness and right attitude towards life in a profound way. There are centres around the world, a central one, Plum Village in France.

My friend Robert from Spain sent me the following beautiful lines of Thich:

Oneness

The moment I die
I will try to come back to you
as quickly as possible.
I promise it will not take long.
Isn’t it true I am already with you,
as I die each moment?
I come back to you in every moment.
Just look, feel my presence.
If you want to cry, please cry.
And know that I will cry with you.
The tears you shed will heal us both.
Your tears are mine.

Thich Nath Hanh (copyright unknown)

Video: Wisdom Teachings: Sleep and Turiya

Saturday, December 18th, 2021

I started arranging some texts of the Lunar Messenger as video presentations. Here is the latest video on “Sleep and Turiya”.

You know what sleep is – or at least you think you know. However, we are not aware when we are sleeping, so we don’t really know it. At the transition from wakefulness to sleep or vice versa, we pass a threshold that separates both states.

The wisdom teachings emphasize the importance of remembering this point. At this moment, we experience the original state of consciousness and life. It is also called Turiya in Sanskrit, meaning the 4th – the 4th state of consciousness besides waking, sleep and dream states. The new video explains more about it.

There is a new YouTube channel for “Friends of World Teacher Trust”, https://friends.wtt-global.org. It is a platform where people who feel related to the WTT can communicate and teach the essential wisdom teachings of the WTT coming from Master CVV, Master EK and Master KPK. The idea behind: to welcome people who relate to World Teacher Trust teachings and would also like to teach to friends, relatives and like-minded persons.

So, I publish my new videos there, also in German and French.

A Mountain Excursion

Thursday, November 4th, 2021

At places where nature is particularly beautiful and tranquillity prevails, we might sense a special sublime energy, when we have an orientation to the inside. Otherwise, we will just walk by without noticing anything special. We can find such places of energy at riversides, forests, mountain valleys, waterfalls or lakes. With a certain sensitivity and a keen eye, we may experience the sublime presence of high souls through subtle hints, without being emotional about it. Such places are subtle ashrams and they might also be in the proximity of our villages, towns and cities. But we have to develop the necessary faculty and approach them with an attitude of respect. Then, it is good to visit such points from time to time in a spirit of pilgrimage.

Sunday 17 October, there was a clear golden sunshine, and my wife and I decided on a short notice to make an excursion to the Lauterbrunnen valley near Interlaken for a walking tour. It is a beautiful valley about 60 km from our home, surrounded on one side by the towering mountains Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau and on the other side by the Schilthorn. The meaning of the word “Lauterbrunnen” is “pure fountain”.

We wanted to walk from Lauterbrunnen to Stechelberg at the end of the valley, then take the cable car to Mürren, a mountain village on a terrace above the valley at the foot of the Schilthorn. It cannot be reached by public road, only by cable cars. From there, we wanted to walk along the edge to Grütschalp and from there back by another cable car to Lauterbrunnen.

At the parking, view into the valley

We did not want to take the huge parking house in the town but went to a little open-air parking outside Lauterbrunnen. And we had to smile about the “analogous” way of collecting the fee, not with a machine but in an envelope and noting hand-written the details of the stay…
The valley shone in glistening sunlight. I had to think of the visit to Yosemite valley two years ago.

On the opposite side there were already the famous Staubbachfalls pouring down the rocks for nearly 300 meters like pure energy of liquid dust – the meaning of the name of the falls – an overwhelming feeling of purity and majesty.

The Staubbachfalls coming down the rocks

We crossed the valley and went along the Weisse Lütschine river to a nearby camping site where we wanted to have lunch. When we turned towards the falls, there was a children playground and behind it a graveyard.

The graveyard is, in this perspective, directly under the falls

My wife immediately felt the presence of a great number of earthbound souls hovering around. I also sensed them – many seem to get stuck on the way up due to today’s materialistic orientation and ignorance about the subtle worlds. We went into a little road next to the cemetery. My wife started doing her inner work ( I have blogged about it several times); I also did some visualisation guiding them towards the light. We did not want to attract the attention of the passing tourists and kept it short.

The gorgeous Staubbach Falls

The noon light was shining on the downpour of waters and the air was filled with the shining “water dust” coming down along the rocks – a most sublime presence. You can easily imagine some dancing devas.

We then came along an old house covered with grass…

… and, on the way to the restaurant, of a chalet full of flowers before the windows.

Entrance to the restaurant

After lunch in open air, we took the path along the river which was glittering like molten sunlight.

We quickly went on, passed by the Trümmelbach waterfalls inside a mountain – we had seen another time.

At one point you can see the Mount Jungfrau through a small valley. The perspective reminded me of a photo of Mount Kailash in Tibet. Pyramid-like or conical mountains are particularly good at bringing energies down to the earth. You might read more about it in the Lunar Messenger about Pyramid and Double Pyramid.

Cow bell music
Crossing a little bridge

Towards the end of the valley, there is the rope-way station of Stechelberg going up to Mürren. A cabin just left on our arrival, so we had to wait for the next one. In the station, there were again a number of East Asian tourists and others. The lady at the cash desk was happy that tourism is coming back to normal.

View from the rope-way down to Stechelberg
View of Mount Eiger and the famous North Face

Coming out of the station in Mürren, there is a breathtaking view of the towering mountains on the other side. At one place, there was a scaffold for a new construction near the edge of the cliff. Some tourists were standing around, and one of them suddenly climbed up for the group to take pics of him. We felt, OMG, he is crazy – deaths through selfies and tourist photos is globally rising high.

Village buildings near the edge of the cliff
A wooden mask at an old barn – in older times a means to ward of evil spirits

We walked through the village along hotels and lodges, partly already closed until winter, and then followed the railway leading to Grütschalp. Most tourists took the train or another cable-car. We continued walking – soon there were nearly no more hikers.

At the railway station in Mürren

Walking along the rails and the electrical cables was not so nice, so we decided to try a way up. One road was blocked due to repair; the way we chose was a bit steep in the beginning and the sunlight was dazzling me. I had to close the eyes and felt dizzy. My wife helped me to continue up the rocky path through the forest. When after a while we arrived on a plateau, there was a mountain biker waiting for us to give way. He then jumped down over the rocks with great speed- we wondered how he could manage to do so – and avoid other hikers coming up.

Mountain hut at the upper plateau

Now the path became broader and slowly went down.

The whole time there were varying views of the “holy trinity”, Eiger, Mönch (monk) and Jungfrau mountains. For a while, we focused to perceive the subtle energies of the mountain range, and there was a feeling of sublime deva presence. We thought of Master Kumar mentioning that there is an ashram in the subtle spheres around Mount Jungfrau. (You can read more about subtle ashrams in the book of Sri Kumar on “Ashram – Regulations for Entry“.)

Jungfrau meaning virgin, Virgo. There was a profound pristine purity around. Switzerland is said to be ruled astrologically by Virgo – and this was like the manifestation of the quality.

On the other side of the valley, there was the village of Wengen. My thoughts went back to an important seminar of Master Kumar in Wengen about Sri Suktam, the hymn of the World Mother in 2002 – at the feet of the Virgin Mountain. (There exists an English transcription and a German translation of the seminar.)

My wife walking along

It was still some distance until Grütschalp and in the shadow it was nippy. At some places we saw some pieces of frost. At others, there were turnpike-like metal structures. We wondered what they were good for – and discovered that they belong to the snow-making system of the ski slopes… We imagined the masses of skiers coming soon in winter.

But now, we were the only hikers on the way, surrounded by profound silence. Although a bit tired, we were like impregnated by the gorgeous panorama.

At Grütschalp, the tourists coming by mountain train from Mürren and other places arrived at the top station of the rope-way. From there, it goes down to the Lauterbrunnen train station and from there to Interlaken and other places. When gliding down into the valley, the high mountains looked as if they were sinking behind the promontories – a final view, and then they were hidden behind the steep rock walls of the valley.

Above Lauterbrunnen

A final walk through Lauterbrunnen, back to the parking and then driving home. A big traffic jam awaited us on the highway – we were not the only ones who took advantage of the nice weather.

Thoughts about the Passing of a Good Friend

Sunday, September 5th, 2021

Today two weeks ago, Jannes suddenly passed over. I was deeply touched when I read the e-mail of his parents informing that he had left – a thrombosis in the brain. His 33rd birthday would have been three days ago.

When I sent out the information via the mailing lists to the groups of the WTT, there were many reaction. Many people in different parts of the world knew Jannes. He had grown up in Berlin in a family deeply related to the WTT, and so he had participated in various group lives with Master Kumar, where I had met him early.

In 2006, I spent a week with my family in their home in Berlin. Jannes was 17, my boys 15 and 13. Jannes already had a pilot’s licence for gliders since the age of 15. And he even had a glider he could use, a 2-seater. It was stationed on a glider airfield in Brandenburg, an old military airport from GDR times, not far from Berlin. He spent all his free time there, in the aero-club. And he invited us for a flight. It was a great adventure for all of us.

I did the first tour. Shortly after starting, we reached an updraft and in small spirals we zoomed up like in an elevator, up to 1200m. Then we went to a tour over the country for 45 minutes. The next flights were my sons and my wife. The next days we went to different places in Berlin together with the Berlin group, and Jannes.

I met him several times in India. He was always very help-oriented, and so I asked him to take care of organising things for the group, which he did very willingly. I always tried to integrate young people in goodwill activities, for which it needs time, willingness to selflessly commit themselves, skills and the readiness to work in a team network. And endurance to carry out, under a certain supervision. Few were willing or able to do so. Jannes was.

In 2012 already, I had asked him to help preparing the German pages for the relaunch of the WTT website – quite a lot of work, and he was the only one working on this, carefully. In 2016, when we dared to bring a major part of the WTT website into Portuguese language, with the help of an American lady, a retired translator living in Sao Paulo, he also did it single-handedly.

At the same time, and besides his studies, he earned his living. Jannes worked in an organisation selling magazine subscription for nature organizations – for the birds, for the Nature Federation of Germany, etc. – a touch job, but he liked it. They went for a week or two to a certain area in Germany and there went from house to house, according to a plan, trying to get subscription contracts. From there, he received the money.

From a distance, I witnessed different crises he was going through, crises of relations which broke, crises in his studies, in the search to find his path. It was a rigorous training by life. From time to time we exchanged about it.

Jannes’ great dream was to become a Lufthansa pilot. He had to overcome a number of difficulties, and it was a challenging formation in Europe and in the US, but he succeeded. And there were long times between the trainings. So, he studied economy and later physics – he did not want to rely on being a pilot only. He did a bachelor and was about to do a Master degree. When he got his pilot licence, Lufthansa had stopped employing new pilots, so he went for a while to Air Berlin. Later, he got his job with German Wings, an airline belonging to Lufthansa but with lower wages. But then a little virus made its tour over the globe, and with the pandemia breakdown many pilots could not fly. Jannes was on short-time work and he focused on his studies.

The last time we met was in 2019 at Mount Shasta in California, during the May Call seminar with Master Kumar, his last international tour.

The last direct contact I had with Jannes was beginning of this year, when I asked him if he could help in the digital archives project, and he said yes. But the stage where he could be of help had not yet come. He passed over on Leo full moon. Thursday before his passing, Master Kumar had written:

“Jannes is very dear to me and to all of us. We let him go today himself as moon is ascending towards Full moon by Sunday. He finds his way into freer and lighter world. We join forces for his peaceful and later joyful journey. Om Santhi.”

Yoga and OM Maitrey Namaha

Sunday, July 25th, 2021

[Correction:] A friend just sent me the link to a video of Factly, an India fact checking site explaining that the video is not from the Olympic Games 2021 but from a visit of the Indian Prime Minister Modi in Mongolia in 2015. It is not from Olympic Games in Japan, so I changed the title of this blogpost . The video as such is authentic, the explanation not. It is nevertheless inspiring. So I keep sharing it.

A friend today shared a video from the opening celebration of the [wrong: Olympic Games 2021 in Tokyo]: A large group is performing Yoga Asanas in artistic arrangement, while “OM Maitrey Namaha” is being sung.


Very nice that this is being performed at such a major event, which is currently the focus of attention worldwide. May this be an example for other occasions and other countries.

Visiting Friends in South Germany

Wednesday, July 7th, 2021

Last week I did the first trip over several days, after 19 months “pause”. Good friends from Heiligenberg (“Holy Mountain”) in the German Lake Constance area had invited me for a visit. Since the pandemia regulations have now become less strict, I could cross the frontier again without any controls…

The couple lives in a house at the foot of the Heiligenberg mountain with a gorgeous view towards the lake and the Heiligenberg Castle above. On arrival, I noticed that my camera had taken holidays from me and stayed at home – so I borrowed the mobile of Sabine to take at least some shots.

Early morning view direction of Lake Constance, sitting on the balcony for breakfast
Heiligenberg Castle

Even without meeting physically, we have a lot of contact with group activity exchanges. But physical meetings cannot be replaced by zooming… It was a very hearty stay.

Thursday afternoon Manfred and Sabine took me on a trip to a beautiful ridge along the lake overlooking vineyards near Meersburg. And Friday morning we went to the Beuron Archabbey, a monastery now of the Benedictine order and in earlier centuries of the Augustinians. It was founded in the 11th century AD and is located in the upper Danube valley.

Map of the Beuron monastery from 1787 AD

When we entered the church, a mass was going on. The air was full of frankincense smoke and organ music was filling the space. We preferred to do a little walk along the Danube and to come back later. The monastery has beautiful artwork of the Beuron Art School. The church ambiance brought up reminiscences of long-gone childhood times – I first went to a kindergarten in a monastery near my parents’ home and later served there as an altar boy over years. Parents and relatives wanted to make me a priest. I escaped to other directions but impregnations remained… In the souvenir shop, my friends bought for me a candle with a beautiful blue angel…

Later we drove to the nearby Campus Galli, a kind of museum and construction site (see their German website), where craftsmen and volunteers are using 9th century resources to create a monastery based on the St. Gallen monastery plan. It is the only surviving major architectural drawing from the middle-ages and copies of it were displayed at the site. The workers not only help with the construction, but also act as costumed interpreters. It was very impressive to see blacksmiths, weavers, carpenters, crockers, or coopers doing their work and to talk to them. How many steps were needed to come to the present way of living…. On the marketplace, we had our lunch with “dinnele”, a medieval kind of warm flat bread from a stone oven with cheese.

Crocker at Campus Galli Meßkirch (c) creative commons 3.0

Sabine is a language teacher and Manfred is a former engineer and manager of a huge German electronic enterprise. He later deeply went into the knowledge about herbs and the healing powers of plants. He built up a large network of people interested in cultivating existing herbal knowledge, applying it and making it available in an understandable way. And he developed a beautiful garden with many kinds of roses and other plants – I very much enjoyed relaxing there under an apple tree, smelling the roses in the air….

Saturday morning Sabine took me to the market in Überlingen. A regional horticultural show is going on over the summer. Plenty of people were strolling along the lake and through the lanes. Near the ship landing point a group of artists was playing the “Pandemia Fairy Tale”… Life seemed to be nearly “back to normal”, with a Mediterranean ambiance.

Instead of pictures with other people not having agreed, the writer….

In the afternoon two friends came for a visit – meditation and intense exchanges, which weren’t possible since a long time.

Sunday morning Sabine and I had an intense working session on the navigation structure for a future website of the German speaking WTT community – a team project. The time was running by, the sunny days as well. Soon I was back to the highway. Rich memories remain.

Video of a Buddhist Monk Dying Consciously

Monday, June 14th, 2021

Some weeks ago, a friend sent me a the link to a YouTube video of a monk dying consciously. It demonstrates the sublime art of spiritual living and leaving. You might be interested in the text on “Dying and Deathlessness” (with info about help during dying; see the text as PDF here) or about “Death, Birth and Continuity” (PDF here) . In the book “Enlightening Encounters” (p. 31ff) of Dr K. Parvathi Kumar you find the profound story of Sreeman Ekkirala Ananthacharya, the father of Master EK, who also departed in a yogic posture and with full consciousness -which is rare in the present times.

Just lying down and departing, then the body carried away by the other monks (picture from the video)