Building Bridges
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.
