A friend sent me the photo of a beautiful celestial object in form of a red square, from the site World Science. They write: “The im­age was com­piled with da­ta in in­fra­red light from the Cal­i­for­nia In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy’s Hale Tel­e­scope at Pal­o­mar Ob­serv­a­to­ry, and the Keck-2 Tel­e­scope atop Mauna Kea, Ha­waii. A star at the cen­ter, named MWC 922, is spil­ling out twin cones of out­flow­ing winds and may be about to ex­plode as a su­per­no­va, re­search­ers say.”

Such pictures inspire awe in view of the sublime nature of cosmic expressions.

(Image cour­te­sy Pe­ter Tut­hill, Pal­o­mar/Keck)

I yesterday got some invitations to a conference end of May, of the Maitreya Sangha, to be held at the University of Redlands, Southern California. It’s a bit far away and I’m at an other event at that time… The title of the conference is: “A Cultural Renaissance. The Dynamic Power of Right Human Relations in Solving the Problems of Humanity“.

I appreciate activities furthering good will – if they lead to a practical commitment and not get stuck in talks about lofty ideals. For the invitation stirred up old memories:
I once met the initiator of this Maitreya Sangha, Keith Bailey, 12 years ago at a conference in Santa Fe, USA. He is a musician – drums and percussion – and he gave an impressive concert. He has a masonic background and is also founder of the Grand Lodge AUM.
The conference at that time was full of lofty talks “about” spirituality, and I myself had given a toplofty speech. Since then I have come down into into the “valleys” of a much more practical spirituality, casting off much ballast of spiritual concepts.

This conference seems to be based on more sound grounds: In the invitation it says:
“The questions of motive, purpose and group usefulness determine the spiritual nature of an activity. To work for the good of the whole, to be cognizant of the One Life pulsating through all forms, and to work in the consciousness that all men are brothers are the initial qualities which a citizen of the spiritual kingdom must demonstrate…
Goodwill nourishes the spirit of understanding and fosters the manifestation of the principle of cooperation…
A sense of personal responsibility – for group, community and national affairs…
Serving the common good – through the sacrifice of selfishness. Only that which is good for all is good for each one—one for all and all for one! These are spiritual values, inspiring the conscience and the consciousness of those who serve to create a better future and way of life.”

May this conference – and these thoughts – be an inspiration for the work for “A Cultural Renaissance”.

From the website of Maitreya Sangha.

As per Maitreya you might like to read the Lunar Messenger on Lord Maitreya.

I just came across the Fractal World Gallery, where you can find many beautiful images created with Fractal Flames. The gallery is run by Cory and Catska Ench, who have done many interesting paintings, also big wall painting.

Fractal Flames are algorithmically generated images and animations. The shape of each image is specified by a long string of numbers – a genetic code of sorts. You can create your own flames for example with the Apophysis interactive designer. Or you can download the Electric Sheep, a free, open source screen saver which can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac.

P.S.: Here you also find beautiful images of fractals.

(c) C. Ench

I yesterday read an interview (PDF) with Anne-Sophie Mutter, one of the world’s most celebrated violinists, in the Swiss newspaper “Der Bund“. Some of her statements caught my eye, for they reflect a deep spiritual attitude:

“I’m incredibly disciplined, but only when I feel like it. However, I feel nearly incessantly like doing music.”
Real discipline in music like in spiritual matters isn’t something imposed from outside, but an urge from inside.

(Speaking about her two Stradivaris:) “The sound is the combination of many things. The violins are strongly marked by the musicians who have played them. A violinist leaves part of his soul in the instrument. … The way of playing changes the violin, the violin with its past contributes to the formation of sound of the respective string player.”
In spirituality you come to know that psychic energies leave traces on the surroundings like deposits and charge the objects with certain qualities. So you can magnetise something for making it more suitable.

“Music is a divine gift. Composers are a gift of God to all of us, listeners and performers.”

“Very early I have understood that I can make a difference. I support many social projects. After all, this social vein has to do with the fact that I wanted to become musician in order to be able to improve and to change things on a small scale. … When I organise a charity concert together with friends and can support my girls’ project in Romania with 400 000 Euro, I walk home on wings and think, my life makes sense, because – besides having an incredible joy playing music – I’m able to help people who out of their own accord aren’t able to lift themsselves out of the quagmire.”
This is the real impulse of doing good-will work, for the benefit of others. You can do it, b e it on a big or on a small scale, provided that you have the right motive.

“The silence during the concert is what finally turns an evening into magic. The silence of together merging into the music. The greatest compliment of a listener to a musician is that he forgets everything around him – caughing, reading – he is simple totally captivated.”
At first sight this might seem strange that silence is creating the magic and not the music. But when you listen to music with rapt attention, your personality merges into the experience of music, lifting you out of your body consciousness. It is a deeply spiritual experience, which is cultivated through meditation. Also the musician can experience this silence during his play. “True musicians attune to the musical symphony of Nature through silence and reproduce the music. Such music remains – not obliterated by nature and time.” says K. Parvathi Kumar in his booklet “On Silence“.

Statue of a musician at the wall of the “Chinese Temple” in the garden of the Sanssouci Castle near Berlin.

Two Australian scientists, Hatice Gunes and Massimo Piccardi, have invented a computer software that distinguishes a beautiful face from a less attractive one. They use a software that measures faces and relates them to images of models, actors and about 200 women from around the globe, from different ages, levels of attractiveness and ethnic backgrounds. When you give a photo of a woman’s face into the machine, it returns a beauty rating between 1 and 10.

In their paper in the International Journal Of Human-Computer Studies they explain: “Potential applications exist in the entertainment industry, cosmetic industry, virtual media and plastic surgery.” Dr Piccardi says, one danger of the software was that it could fall into the hands of adolescents or others sensitive about their looks and harm their self- image.

Another danger might be that you believe what the device is telling you …

The wisdom teachings tell us that beauty is the Divine aspect of form being veiled by a beautiful shape. This is meant with the saying that real beauty is within and not without. No technical device will ever help us finding it. We see beauty through forms, but not as the forms. A lightful form lets the inner beauty radiate through more easily. Read more about it in the Letters on Spiritual Astrology on Taurus, Nr. 1.

Mongolian woman. How to measure the inner beauty of a person?

In a showcase of a shopping gallery in Berne I saw some doll houses done in most minute details – replica scenes of paintings of Carl Spitzweg like his famous Bookworm or the Poor Poet, but also models of an old blacksmith’s shop or street scenes. A fascinating model was that of a bank robbery in the “Swiss National Bank“, where the robber had tied up the clerk, and in the underground there was a partner carrying away great sums in a miniature wheelbarrow:

I asked myself how much time the constructor had to invest to build these doll houses, to sew the clothes, to prepare the bundles of money. The doll houses didn’t look like toys for playing, but like models you just put somewhere, where they will collect dust. A Sim City of another time…

Though the robbery scene isn’t that peaceful like the others, the doll houses somehow look funnily playful and the “actors” lost in their little worlds.
Not only the semi-realistic pattern reminded me of our tiny worlds in which we live. When you look at them from above, from an inner distance, you have to smile how easily we lose ourselves in games with “little toys”, seeming so important to us. Doll house scenes.

My wife and I yesterday were at the vernissage of an exposition of Hugo Lizandro Godinez, a Guatemalan painter living in Switzerland, whose wife is a colleague of mine. The exposition exhibits watercolour pictures of old alleys in Antigua and Berne. The beautiful paintings show houses, flowers, water reflections, painted in subtle, but luminous colours full of different shades.

Though seemingly painted in a realistic manner, they have something dream-like, and though luminous, not only the titles indicate an ambiance of solitude and yearning. Some titles are “Melancholy”, “Reflections of Sadness” or “Lonely Wanderer”. The pictures are nearly all without any persons. The paintings reflect the undercurrent mood. The alleys are like symbols of search – old and lonely alleys. The painter is not old, but old might be the soul’s wandering.

My experience from my own youth time as well as from observing others is: This feeling of yearning and sadness results from an inner urge, which has not yet found the direction. This might cause restlessness, but also frustration and depression. You somehow sense that there must be a higher light, but you don’t know how to get there, how to find the way out of the cocoon of personality. You haven’t yet realised that there is the cocoon of the caterpillar blocking.

People might stay in this stage for very long, or they search in outer or erroneous directions, like drugs, workaholism, adventurism. When, often through crises, you have taken to the path of the soul, the higher self, you feel like getting replenished from within. The “reflections of sadness” of the lonely wandering dissolve into the fresh flow of energies: The wanderer has come home.

I got an e-mail from Maja Thommen, a Swiss artist living in Italy, inviting for an exposition which will be in the garden of the Parkhotel Delta in Ascona, Switzerland (the vernissage will be on April 13th, 07). (I had already written about her in a previous blogpost.) Here is a picture from this new exposition.

Though she told me that she is not working with a spiritual background, her work breathes a sensitivity for subtle perceptions of etheric structures and social relations. So see her “Little Emotional Medicine Chest“.

This photo I took at an exposition here in Muri/Berne 4 years ago could be a presentation of the incarnating soul enveloping into the dense physical tissues. You might like to read about “Etheric Existence” of the Good Will in Action-series.

A friend sent me the link to a good UN-initiative for children:

As part of the activities to celebrate the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and the end of the First Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, the Division for Social Policy and Development at the United Nations invites children from all over the world to participate in an art competition on the theme “We can end poverty”. The competition aims at raising awareness about poverty and inequality in the world, in particular among children.

The best 6 designs selected by the Panel of Judges will be presented during the commemoration of the International Day on the Eradication of Poverty, on 17 October 2007, and will be issued as stamps of the United Nations Postal Administration. In addition to the best 6 designs, another 20 designs will receive special commendation. The total of 26 winning entries will be displayed in a special exhibition at United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2007.

Flyers containing the rules of the competition in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic. The flyers are also printable from the web. Further information can be obtained from Renata Kaczmarska, Associate Social Affairs Officer Division for Social Policy and Development, UN-Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York, kaczmarska@un.org

A friend just sent me pictures of incredible body paintings. With some Google search through different blogs I found out they were from Guido Daniele, an Italian body painter and multimedia artist. The pictures show different kinds of animals painted on fingers and arms of models. Have a look at his website.

(c) Guido Daniele