Here come two paintings related to Lord Dattatreya – one is the new painting for Leo, and the other is an older painting I recently reworked. Here is now first

“The Mystery of the Dog-Star”.

The constellation of the Dog Star is called Sarameya Mandala in Sanskrit. The main star of the Dog Star constellation is Sirius. Sirius is the most brilliant star in the night sky. In Vedic symbolism, Sirius is personified as Lord Dattatreya. Dattatreya is the Master principle in creation; he is the Cosmic Teacher. Dattatreya is always depicted surrounded by four dogs. The dog represents vigilance, a great ability to listen and loyalty. The dogs are the guru, the teacher. Those who are attentive enough can hear the Master’s voice speaking from within.

If we engage with Lord Dattatreya, we will find that what is said is very mysterious and mystical. It is beyond our understanding. But when we connect with this sublime figure, known by the seers of ancient times, magical, mysterious transformations take place within us.

The Vedic seers perceived that the highest energies of love and compassion come into our system from Sirius and can only be received by the heart centre. These energies from Sirius come to us through the south. The Dog Star moves around the South Pole. It is the southern star. Sirius is located in Scorpio; it enters our system through the Central Sun of Leo, Regulus.

I designed Lord Dattatreya with a photograph of a statue standing on the South Pole of the Earth. Four dogs surround him. The representation of the globe was generated with the help of an image from WorldWind.earth, which uses NASA images. For the design of the Dog Star, I used an etching by Hugo de Groot, a Dutch humanist (1583-1645). At the top right you can see the Leo glyph, on the left the constellation of Leo. The earth is surrounded by 12 stars, indicating the 12 Adityas, the cosmic correspondences of the signs of the zodiac. At the centre of the image and of the globe, the Dog Star also radiates at the heart of Lord Dattatreya.

The Images of Synthesis for the month of Leo illustrate the related symbolism. You find there all previous Leo paintings with detailed explanations in four languages (en/de/es/fr). You can also download print-versions for free. Find here the Images of Synthesis with short extracts from the wisdom teachings. Or subscribe to the Lunar Messenger newsletter giving thoughts from the wisdom teachings to inspire putting them into practice.

The Mother Principle, Dattatreya and the Descent in 10 Steps into Creation

Painting from 20 November 2011, reworked on 30 April 2023, pencils, crayons and photo work

According to the Wisdom teachings, the Cosmic Person is the supreme God principle self-existing without mother and father. From there the Mother principle comes down and conceives the creation in her womb as her child. She comes down in 10 steps through 4 planes up to the gross material plane. The Mother is represented as a young lady, the planes are represented as spheres, and the10 points of the Pythagorean decade symbolise the complete creation.

In the picture, the centre of the decade lies at the womb of the lady, the top of the triangle at her heart centre. She is standing in a lotus, the principle of unfoldment. In her inner she carries a form of Dattatreya, the Cosmic Lord of Yoga. He is an embodiment of the Trinity, the synthesis of the First, Second and Third Logos. The decad is the ancient most symbol of Dattatreya. Since ancient most times he is evoked by the seers through this symbol.

There is a visualisation exercise where you imagine the Divine – be it Christ, Dattatreya or whosoever –standing over the solar plexus and the meditator becoming one with him. The delicate figure of the Mother is standing in the area of tension between the seminal emergence and the tremendous power of the manifesting energies. She carries in her heart this tension between the delicacy and the power of the presence of Dattatreya.

Cancer is a water sign, and all the waters of the Earth are associated with Cancer. Cancer is ruled by the Moon. Water carries the lunar principle, as it reflects the qualities of the environment. The waters represent life and the waters of the higher plane are the ethers.

Cancer is considered the abode of Varuna, the supracosmic intelligence that rules over the hidden potencies of the ether. He is symbolically represented as a boy of five years and with four arms. Riding a white dragon, he moves through the waters of space. Thereby he draws lines of power into the ether with a trident in his hand. An extract of a painting illustrating the symbolism of Varuna – which originally was not created for the month of Cancer:

The Images of Synthesis for the month of Cancer illustrate the related symbolism. You find there all previous Cancer paintings with detailed explanations in four languages (en/de/es/fr). You can also download print-versions for free. Find here the Images of Synthesis with short extracts from the wisdom teachings. Or subscribe to the Lunar Messenger newsletter giving thoughts from the wisdom teachings to inspire putting them into practice.

21 May, we started with the first “Aquarian Salon. A conversation – Art, Astrology & Wisdom Teachings“. Now, the second Aquarian Salon is on the way. We will meet again on Saturday, 19 August 2023, 07 pm, CEST (UTC +2) / 12 pm, CST (UTC -5). The meeting will start on time. See here for more info (PDF).

Cancer is said to be the gateway for the birth of souls, of humanity; this means, the descent of the soul into the form and matter where the matter completely holds a grip over the soul or spirit. The spirit finds its release from matter in the opposite sign of Cancer, that of Capricorn. These annual cycles of birth, or spiritual death, and death, or spiritual birth, through Cancer and Capricorn are imitations of the drama of evolution. The growth of the foetus in the womb buries us, the Soul, in the grave of the physical plane.

The space around the embryo is like a globe to us with ourselves as our geometrical centre surrounded and impregnated by the twelve signs of the zodiac. After the birth of the personality, we follow the path of our life with ourselves being the centre of our experience. Through our spiritual evolution, we conduct the symbolic journeys of the soul growing in awareness through experience. Thus, we slowly overcome the influences of death and rebirth.

In the centre of the painting we see a foetus designed on the basis of a drawing of William Hunter (1718-1783). It is surrounded by the zodiacal signs from an Italian church, photo of a friend. The upper dome is created with a transformed view of the Himalayas from WorldWind.earth using NASA images, and with a transformed extract from a NASA photo of a galaxy. The lower part shows the reflection of car headlights on a street seen through fog. It illustrates the arrival of the soul on earth and the beginning of its path.

The Images of Synthesis for the month of Cancer illustrate the related symbolism. You find there all previous Cancer paintings with detailed explanations in four languages (en/de/es/fr). You can also download print-versions for free. Find here the Images of Synthesis with short extracts from the wisdom teachings. Or subscribe to the Lunar Messenger newsletter giving thoughts from the wisdom teachings to inspire putting them into practice.

The program of this May Call celebration was born over Christmas 2022, while Manfred, Sabine and me were together with a few other members at the Master Mountain Retreat Centre in the Nilagiris of South India. A storm was raging outside for several days hiding the outside world behind clouds and rain. It was just about 6 weeks after the passing of Master Kumar and we pondered on what should be the essence of the 5-days May Call celebration in Neckarelz 6 months later. We wanted to focus on synthesis – the energy of the Aquarian Master – friendliness and friendship, the qualities of Lord Maitreya, the World Teacher.

At the end of this year’s celebration, we mentioned this origin to the group and why we had tried to integrate various proposals and contents – and the May Call was a time of profound inner and outer integration processes.

A very aged elderly lady from Belgium, who could no more come to the May Call celebration herself, gave the inspiration for the Tibetan prayer flags. Over many long e-mails and phone calls, Sabine had had intensive discussions with this lady about the meaning of the flags, about the technique of labelling them and about the need to create coherent sounds. In earlier years, she had travelled for over 30 years with a Tibetan Lama over the world until he sent her away with the words, she should now go to Maitreya. Not knowing what to do, she searched the web. She found the World Teacher Trust and came into contact with me and since then she linked her life to these wisdom teachings. Sabine then ordered the prayer flags online and during the May Call celebration, we wrote messages of the CVV Sharing prayer or little symbols on the flags.

Hung in the wind, the prayer thoughts were spread into the ether and distributed at the end of the seminar to be placed a different locations.

The May Call location was next to a Temple house, a former castle of the Knights of St. John from the 12th/13th century, of the time of the Crusades. At May Call, Chuck, a retired psychology professor from California, spoke about the story of knight orders of the Templars, leading later to the masons who, as free masons, went through Europe to the building lodges of the gothic cathedrals. And he showed how these impulses carried ancient wisdom found new expressions in later centuries and in the teachings of the WTT.

There was a great range of other activities during the May Call celebration – prayers / meditations, water and fire rituals, and guided visualisations.

We saw a video extract from a speech Master Kumar gave about “The importance of the May Call” at the 2022 May Call celebration in Bengaluru. We participated in an intercontinental meditation and listened to Guru Prasad’s inspiring words about working together in the new era.

We exchanged in small groups about how we met Master Kumar and which incidents or exchange with him particularly touched us – a very touching exchange. Nearly the entire group life was bi-lingual, English and German.

Saturday at the beginning, there was the General Assembly of WTT-Germany, and later presentations of current projects, also a presentation about the work of Sintergética – Synthesis in the area of healing, impulses from Latin America. And there was a talk on astrological qualities of the present time.

In the morning of May Call Day, 29 May, there was a fire ritual in the beautiful amphitheatre.

And later, there was the cake ritual and distribution of May Call gifts.

And in the evening of the May Call Day celebration there was a beautiful candle ritual in the garden – a traditional “Pilgrims’ Dance” – two steps forward and one step sidewards, accompanied by live guitar music.

The day after May Call, there were further exchanges and part of the group visited the Raptor Research Centre at Guttenberg Castle. It was very impressive to see the big birds of prey – eagles, vultures and eagle owls from very near and observe them flying. You could understand well why the eagle is such a profound wisdom symbol.

The whole celebration was like a big colourful garden with many different plants and flowers, growing in synthesis – the sprouting seeds of the Aquarian energy will continue to spread in surprising ways.

The air sign Gemini has to do with exchange and communication. The ruler of the sign is Mercury; he helps us to distinguish between what is reality and what is illusion. However, those with a strong Mercury are also tempted to use their mental skills in a tactical and manipulative way, twisting facts to their own advantage. Used with transparency and love, however, Gemini and Mercury also help resolve conflicts and improve interpersonal relationships through friendliness. Through the Gemini energy, we can see the underlying unity in apparent opposites and thus understand the deeper purpose in relation to time and place. The goal is to realize inclusiveness and synthesis beyond dualities.

The Images of Synthesis for the month of Gemini illustrate the related symbolism. You find there all previous Gemini paintings with detailed explanations in four languages (en/de/es/fr). You can also download print-versions for free. Find here the Images of Synthesis with short extracts from the wisdom teachings. Or subscribe to the Lunar Messenger newsletter giving thoughts from the wisdom teachings to inspire putting them into practice.

The first “Aquarian Salon”, 21 May 2023, was a great experience and a beautiful experiment of an online group exchange on spiritual topics with the power of the group. All was done just for the joy of doing as a free and non-commercial initiative. There was a vital participation with sharing insights, observations and questions. I blogged before about the preparations.

We were a team of 5 persons conducting the Salon:

Frank Berger, a guitar teacher from Berlin, Germany, started the Salon with a live guitar play. We then spoke together an old Sanskrit Prayer for Group Coherence.
Risa D’Angeles, from Central USA, gave an introduction moderated the conversation. She is an experienced psychologist and a well-known astrological teacher and publishes the Night Light News.
Rosa Fernandez, living near New York City, was taking care of the members who wrote in the chat or who wanted to speak.
Lauren Glass, from California, operated the Zoom activities and showed the slides we had prepared.
The participants gave their thoughts and understanding of the symbolism of my paintings which I had selected for the presentation. And I added further perspectives concerning the artwork or answered questions.

Besides our team of 4, 38 persons from about 8 countries were actively participating. Some feedbacks: “”Just wanted to share my gratitude and joy for being part of this wonderful project! Felt such great inspiration in today’s first Aquarian Salon! Thank you all!”, “To everyone behind the Aquarian Salon…. It was a joy working together, all of us. We did a wonderful job together!”, “These feelings are what I sensed. Excellent attitude, bright intelligence and a warm heart.”

Here is the uncut recording of the meeting; it is about 1:50 h. If you would like to see a specific part, go directly to the minutes indicated here:

· Welcome, explaining the schedule: 0:20
· Guitar piece: 5:10
· Prayer for Group Coherence: 10:30
· Introduction: Meaning of Salon… : 12:20
· Exchange on image: Aries – Spring-up of Awareness : 30:10
· Exchange on image: Taurus – The Bull and the Lingam : 53:10
· Exchange on image: Gemini – Group Consciousness, Merging and Emerging : 01:04:20
· Exchange on image: Scorpio – The Seven Kingdoms of Nature : 01:15:40
· Exchange on image: The White Island : 1:29:30
· Closing words: 1:43:10
· Violet Flame Invocation: 1:44:30

For updates, you might subscribe to the Telegram channel of the Aquarian Salon. And if you want to see my Images of Synthesis paintings, go to ludgerphilips.org.

You find the recording in the YouTube channel of “Friends of World Teacher Trust”: https://friends.wtt-global.org.

Gemini represents the threshold between the inner and outer worlds. We understand the world of objects as three-dimensional, and movement is considered as the fourth dimension. We experience a picture or a photo as two-dimensional, even if we travel with the sight into the worlds of the image. Depending on the rendering, we may see perspectives that appear spatial, or we may even see sensory illusions. In either case, we experience the world perceived through our senses as something external.

However, we often find that we are immersed in something, especially in moving images such as movies, games, or virtual reality. We do not feel that we have left the external, physical world and are in the internal world of imagination. Reflection or contemplation allows us to see the structures of the subtle and leads us to deeper realms. Intense, prolonged contemplation finally brings us to the experience of the dimension that lies beyond the constructs of our mind.

From a photo of the facade of the Bavarian State Chancellery, Munich, I have extracted a detail and used it to create the archway of two pillars, connected by a crossbeam. The pillars carry the Sun and the Moon, symbols of the world of light and the reflection of light. The mountain between the pillars directs the view up to the vault of heaven in the background. The zodiac, with its figures that appear to us alternately, is like another doorway to the world of cosmic symbolism. The stars of the cosmos are reflected on the white snow of Mount Shasta, just as the cosmic world is reflected within each of us.

At the bottom of the image, our view passes through the columns and the outer courtyard of the temple. Then we look through a square portal into the interior covered with a triangular roof. Square and triangle are symbols of the manifested and non-manifested worlds. The symbol of Mercury above the entrance represents our discrimination. The inside of the temple shows a checkerboard pattern. To our mind, the squares are each black or white. But the distinctions of the mind dissolve as we approach infinity, the background beyond all understanding.

The Images of Synthesis for the month of Gemini illustrate the related symbolism. You find there all previous Gemini paintings with detailed explanations in four languages (en/de/es/fr). You can also download print-versions for free. Find here the Images of Synthesis with short extracts from the wisdom teachings. Or subscribe to the Lunar Messenger newsletter giving thoughts from the wisdom teachings to inspire putting them into practice.

Taurus is a symbol of strength and vitality. The individual on the path stands between the pull of the personality and the pull of the soul. The Taurus personality is focused on the desire to be ahead of others, driven by ambitious. The Taurus soul is deeply motivated by the desire to work selflessly for the Divine Plan. In touch with the soul, we can transform the personality and accomplish tremendous works of goodwill in the world.

The Images of Synthesis for the month of Taurus illustrate the related symbolism. You find there all previous Aries paintings with detailed explanations in four languages (en/de/es/fr). You can also download print-versions for free. Find here the Images of Synthesis with short extracts from the wisdom teachings. Or subscribe to the Lunar Messenger newsletter giving thoughts from the wisdom teachings to inspire putting them into practice.

Through the Sun in Taurus, energy streams down to the Earth, causing germination and growth of life. The Sun is therefore called the fertilising bull, representing the spirit or divine aspect of will. The Moon in Taurus is called the Cow and represents that which is impregnated, the matter. Through this impregnation, the earth provides us with nourishment.

The union of spirit and matter is the expression of the divine Word. Before the Word was uttered forth, it was with God. Before we speak, the Word is in us. The Sun in Taurus represents the Word in its inner meaning or concept. The Moon in Taurus represents the expressed language, impregnated. Language is feminine by nature and the content of language is masculine. Their union is wisdom as creation. This is symbolised by Mercury as the calf; he activates the expression of the subtle in the gross. The bull, the cow and the calf thus epitomize these three phases of the expression of the Word.

For the representation of these subtle realities, I edited three photos of journeys to India of a bull, a cow and a calf. In the background I subtly hinted at the spheres of Sun, Moon and expression in creation.

The Images of Synthesis for the month of Taurus illustrate the related symbolism. You find there all previous Taurus paintings with detailed explanations in four languages (en/de/es/fr). You can also download print-versions for free. Find here the Images of Synthesis with short extracts from the wisdom teachings. Or subscribe to the Lunar Messenger newsletter giving thoughts from the wisdom teachings to inspire putting them into practice.