A Canadian friend sent me the link to a touching video about “Touching Strangers“:

“Since 2007, photographer Richard Renaldi has worked on a series of photographs for which he asks complete strangers to physically interact while posing together for a portrait. Working on the street with a large format 8-by-10 view camera, Renaldi encounters his subjects in towns and cities all over the United States.

Renaldi’s objective was to introduce an unpredictable variable into a traditional photographic formula, and to create spontaneous and fleeting relationships between complete strangers. The portraits are extremely difficult to make, involving complex negotiations with the participants that push them past comfort levels, into a physical intimacy normally reserved for loved ones or friends. Touching Strangers creates intimate and ephemeral relationships that exist only for the moment of the photograph. The images are beautiful and strange, crossing out of the zones of safe physical intimacy with strangers and into deep emotional landscapes never photographed before.

In Spring 2014, Aperture Foundation will publish Touching Strangers as a photobook, including new photographs from Renaldi’s shoots this summer in Albuquerque, Chicago, New York City, and Southern California.” An interview with Richard Renaldi. Here is another video about his project. You find more about Renaldi’s work on his website or on his blog.

Pics from the video “Touching Strangers”, (c) Richard Renaldi

“You are the infinite in your own way – the connection is within yourself…. Be the idea, be the deed… And no one of you is outside the heart of all that IS… Out of your soul be Light. For you are nothing else…” An amazing video visualising the cosmic connectedness and the etheric world.

Pic from the video (c)

The last weeks had been full of inspiring activities, and I enjoyed my time of reorientation, being free from professional obligations. It was a time of high tide and I didn’t find time for blogging. Over three weekends I was at meetings with my spiritual teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar, at seminars in Sant Feliu, Spain, and in Bonn, and last Sunday at a meeting of the Swiss group members in Hergiswil at the home of a friend.

Taking pictures of the Mediterranean sea in Sant Feliu

Reflection of the group during the group photo at the seminar in Bonn

Chatting with the grand-children, Hergiswil

In Hergiswil  we had a morning question and answers session for 3 hours, and my fingers nearly got hot while typing fast my notes 🙂 I’d like to share with you some of the notes from the introduction of Sri Kumar on individual consciousness and group consciousness. Of course there might be mistakes from my part, and in spite of the translation pauses I couldn’t get all the sentences. I  shortened the text a bit and did minor editorial adaptations of the spoken words:

“This is a gathering to be together, we as individual consciousness to be as group consciousness, to commune with the mind. The mind is a facility to know; it also has a higher faculty, to synthesise, to commune, to experience expanded consciousness.

When we live our individual life, unconsciously we build around us and we are the centre of our activity. Each one as he or she lives it becomes an activity around him or her and he / she becomes the centre. When two persons live together they find a common centre between them. Only then it is possible for two persons to live together. We can’t live in our own centre and live together. That is how we find from the centre within ourselves to a common centre. When three meet we all try to meet in those areas where we agree and be common. When there is something in agreement and in common, communication can happen.
Communication is communication of light, because every communication is through thought, and thought is fire. So there would be an exchange of fire and a communion of fire. There would be an expansion of the field of activity when two persons meet, because each works for the other, and when there are more than two there is still further expansion of consciousness.

This Sunday is different for all of us. We have travelled from our house in the morning to be here. It is not a routine activity as we do on a Sunday morning. Why? When we think of meeting, each one of us offers some of his activity to be together with the others. What we normally do, from that we have conceded in favour to meet here, to meet the human consciousness. Instead of living for oneself it is living together in consciousness. All have come out of our routine self-centred activity. We have come out of it to be in an activity where the centre is not any-more within oneself; it is in all of us together. We create a centre between the 15 of us through a common activity for a while. When we do that there is a group centre that forms. From being self-centred to group-centred there is a release of energy; from that which is self-circumscribed to the unwinding to the centre, from the self-circumscription. This unwinding of consciousness is already a release.

For days we live within ourselves. To go in such a living where we live for others, this kind of living in a group once in a week or in a month causes a movement which is contrary to the movement we conduct during the week. A work that we do for ourselves is self-winding, self-centring. Once in a while we unwind this movement of consciousness. This contrary movement of consciousness enables us to unfold our consciousness.

A plant – when it gives birth to a flower it is a different activity for the plant. It grows and grows for itself, but suddenly, after a point, there it gives birth to the blossom of a flower. Such an unfoldment is a relation to the surrounding. The natural fragrance hidden in the plant is given out to the surrounding.

Meeting in groups enables individual consciousness to grow and unfold, and eventually through such an unfoldment it causes fragrance to the surroundings. The fragrance is through the acts of cooperation that we express in such a group activity.

Each one of us has cooperated to be like this before. Those who are at home here have prepared something and those who have come have prepared early to come here. In that process the centre is shifting from them to a common centre. There may be many social groups that may also do a common activity on Sunday – cultural, social, political groups or clubs. But the difference is, when we try to group for wisdom, to live in wisdom, it makes a total difference. For the social, cultural and political groups, the thought plane is mental and intellectual. In a group that deliberates upon wisdom it is not only mental and intellectual, but also buddhic, meaning supra-mental, where there is a possibility for communion in consciousness.

When there is such a communion in consciousness every person sees a different release from oneself. And that enables them to re-join again at another group activity. A group activity should necessarily be an effort to rise beyond mind into that plane where we can experience a little unknown, something which is unknown that far. From known to unknown. That unknown is unlimited. From the limited thought activity to something that is unlimited, the consciousness opens to different possibilities.

Therefore there is a prayer or a meditation and also a talk and dialogue, not only a monologue by which we try to know something relating to us as humans. To know that part of us which is not yet totally know. It is not to dwell in the known part. To dwell in the known part is to dwell in one’s own. We try to live in the unknown, so that the unknown opens the known consciousness into the unknown. This effort is important. What we know is one thing; the very effort to open to the unknown helps us to help to know something more about us than what we know already…

In the world there are so many unknown things. There are so many unknown things in one’s own being. Be inquisitive to know. We know many things about ourselves. I only mentioned three, there are so many others. There are 7 planetary principles, and the 12 solar qualities in us, the 5 elements in us, there are cosmic intelligences in us, like cosmic fire, cosmic air, everything that is in the cosmos is in man. That is why it is said that man is a micro-unit. Each one of us can find this within oneself and concurrently within others.

Those who have known themselves gave certain guidelines. It is them whom we call the Masters of Wisdom or the Teachers of Wisdom. They experimented within themselves and found most of the things in common. What one found the others confirmed it. After thousands of experiments with themselves and having collaborated with their findings they gave out what it is in man, what is man constituted of. They found guidelines to know the inside story related to us. Engaging in such a field of unknown knowledge relating to man, our awareness, our consciousness is exposed to some new dimensions of wisdom.

That enables, and it relates to each one of us without exception. The agenda is common to all. Therefore there would be a communion of consciousness to know together. To know together is an age-old concept. It is a most ancient concept to know together. Because in every adventure togetherness is essential. An adventure by a team is helpful; every member is helpful for each other. Knowing oneself is the biggest of the adventures. To be together, to do it is given as a central agreement. In that context group formation and group study and group meditation has come to be. Group-sharing, sharing of food also forms part of the activity. That is what is contemplated even today in this group life. It so happened that I am here and I thought that we meet and relate and try to know. That is why we are here. So we now have some good dialogue…”

Sri Kumar at the group meeting

For quite some time the e-card module on the good-will site was closed – I had to do it because spammer abused it for some dirty mailings. Though my son had programmed some security measures, they weren’t enough. Now he included a captcha field, where you have to enter some letters before mailing. I”ll see if it is sealed now.

I changed most of the e-card pictures. You now find new photos from my collection and some of friends of mine. And I have added a number of pictures of my “Images of Synthesis” series. Below I left the paintings of Roerich and Rassouli as well as pictures of Buddhas and of Mount Kailash. So if you like, send a postcard to a friend. And if you find something not functioning, let me know. I have been checking the code on the different language pages, but I’m not sure I found all bugs… Enjoy.

Last weekend I was in Northern Germany for the annual CVV Sharing meeting. It was the 4th meeting, but for me it was the first. We were 36 WTT members – from Scandinavia, Germany, and me from Switzerland, meeting at a spiritual seminar centre on the countryside. It was a thrilling and very fulfilling experience in group integration. The meditative work opened a space to subtle spheres, and the meeting was an exchange in the spirit of synthesis. There was a team of organisers, but the group was the guide of the meetings. And though we all were different personalities, you could feel the profound and unifying potential of the group. There was a beautiful spiritual presence, which expressed through the group. And I enjoyed that for the first time I could present the new format of my paintings to a little public.

Morning light at the entrance of the seminar centre MaRah

Arrival / the entrance – cold and stormy wheather

The seminar hall and the inner yard

The candle and flowers in the centre of the hall

Early morning group meditation

Sharing – group experience

Master CVV – the inspirator of the meetings in the spirit of synthesis

In a little side-room I arranged a presentation of my images

Early morning light over a frozen pond

Though it was the beginning of spring, the temperature was – 8 ° C.

The group

Three days ago I got a Skype-chat message from a German friend:

“Morning Ludger, yesterday I wanted to go to your Good Will webseite – but I don’t find it anymore at Google. Are you just rearranging something?”

“No, not at all, I see the page totally normal – oops, I see that Google doesn’t show it anymore. I don’t know what to do, I’ll try to check it… ” And some minutes later:  “I really have no idea what to do. You only find just the URL good-will.ch, but no other hints. Google seems to block the site! I checked a big spam-filter page, the site is clean.”

A feverish search started. I went to Google Webmaster tools, reconfirmed my site, checked. Being just an “interested layman” in webmaster affairs, more questions popped up than answers. I did tests, contacted friends, the provider, read online articles … … … It slowly dawned to me that the “Google Death Penalty” had hit the Good-Will website. Silently, not knowing when – I didn’t do any “ego-googling” for a long time, so I didn’t know when Google had taken the site off their search index.

Did the “Google Death Penalty” happen the 8th of February? (Graphic: Google Webmaster Tool, good-will.ch)

This means: No search of any topics relating to the Good-Will site is any longer shown in the search results (I still found some minor text hints on 4th and 12th sub-pages of Google’s search…). With all the topics where the site was best placed in the past, now there was  void. Other sites quoting texts of the site appeared, but never the original site… I became alarmed increasingly.

Searching the site of the Circle of Good-Will – other pages appear, at the first place our Facebook page, at least. (Graphic: Google site search)

The next day I contacted a good friend with web know-how. Together we increased the search for possible causes till late in the night. No clear results. We didn’t find anything wrong with the technical part of the Good-Will website, Google was scrawling the site, reported that no malware was found… I asked my youngest son, who had built the site when he was 16, what could be the cause. He wanted to think it over.

Yesterday evening he came and told me that on the home page he had placed some text describing the site in the same colour than the background, so that search engines who don’t pay attention to the header texts are informed (since the home is just a distribution page for the language versions without further text). This, however, is forbidden by Google. Did they find it and therefore blocked the site? My son immediately removed the text.

In the night I wrote a reconsideration request to Google explaining them what could have been the reason and that I’m not aware of any other possible violation of their rules. There was a reply this morning that the

This morning I saw a reply in the webmaster-tools that they will check the request but that it might take a few weeks.

During that time the Good-Will website is probably in the “digital limbo”. And if they don’t tell what has been the reason for their “digital death sentence”, the pralaya could continue… Google writes: “If it’s been several weeks since you submitted your reconsideration request, and you haven’t seen any changes in your site’s performance, this probably means that your site is still in violation of the Webmaster Guidelines, or it simply is not ranking as well as you’d like.”

No, not ranking at all I definitely don’t like – meaning that all the people searching for the spiritual wisdom teachings on the site won’t find it for the time being.

Saturday 16 February 13, 12 am: A friend from Abu Dhabi just informed me that the site is on the index again yes, it is Thank you, Google.
Tuesday,  19 February 13: Google wrote in the account of webmaster-tools that they didn’t find anything objectionable when looking at the webspam and that there can be fluctuations in the ranking… All the hints they gave didn’t show what was the reason for stopping the ranking (it wasn’t only bad performance…) Now it’s back to normal.

As a farewell-gift when leaving my job a colleague gave me a book about men over 80 telling about their lives. I’m reading it with fascination as a bedtime book, impressed about the variety and intensity of their paths.

I’m just reading the story of an architect / biologist explaining in a vivid way his experiences and reflections about how machines and electronics are controlling us instead of the other way round. He gives examples of  how we subordinate our thoughts and our will-to-form to the conditions of the computer screen, how the connections of the brain-currents in the nerves are cut off from the movements of the hand with a pencil, how a sensuousness gets lost and loud slogans without much content come at the place of deeper content and quality, which are more inconspicuous and self-evident. The way he describes his experiences as an architect when constructing a landscape park in Zurich show that he is a keen observer, a passionate maker and shaper and isn’t just plunging into a critique of the present.

It made me think of how the electronic media have shaped my life and inter-relations. For the last 12 years I have been professionally active in digital communication and have actively taken part in shaping and developing it in my surroundings, with the development of websites, social media channels, the management of digital documents and media, with newsletters and extensive writing. I am handling a lot of communication and inter-relations with these tools – quantities and kinds of relations which otherwise wouldn’t be possible, especially on a global scale.

However, I note that many of these relations are very abstract, confined to short exchanges – a short “hello”, requests or giving some information and help to people, often in some remote corners of the planet. The keyboard is the main instrument, linked to the PC with its screen. There is little physical interrelation. Even the more concrete interactions via phone or Skype are reducing the interaction to an acoustic or sometimes visual transmission. With some persons I feel the presence of their being, even through these channels; they are like physically here. Mostly it is a thin, vague interaction, not even demanding much attention, probably not even with much impact.

At the same time there is such a flooding of information, seeking attention. The day before yesterday I answered a friend who sent me an article from a German newspaper, telling him: “I sometimes don’t know how to help myself with all the many interesting articles, statements etc. I don’t get around to read them; if I would do so, there wouldn’t be any-more time for the essentials. So I got today this long (“wonderful to read”) article, see enclosed. If you like and have time for it, you can read it…” I felt a bit snippy, answering flooding with flooding: “Similia similibus curentur” – curing by using the simile. Does it really cure or is it a “placebo”?

When I hear someone saying “I don’t have time…” I always hear “I don’t want to give my attention / energy to…” So when someone says, “I don’t have time for visiting / phoning / writing you”, it says, “I can’t give my energy to visiting / phoning / writing you.” It’s ok, attention is a rare  source, and there are enough energy-vampires around, making us feel depleted – the whole rush and pressure of our lifestyle. When I put a “like” or a short comment on Facebook, it’s like a surrogate of communication – showing, that I thought of the other, but at the same time keeping it low-level, non-committal. I seem to be there, but without much of my presence. So there remains a void.

There are so many Facebook birthday posts and mails coming in today – my living room would have be full to accommodate so many “friends”. But there is no-one – and it would be difficult with all the cakes…. E-mails often have a higher intensity, and more so real letters do. But the amount of letters decreases – just one came – and e-mails are more easily to dissolve with a “delete”.

How deep is an impact? I somehow sense whether there is a presence behind and how profound it is. Presence is a strange phenomenon, it has to do with energy. When you feel the touch of the heart, then there is the presence. When there is just a digital whirring, it’s just a mask of the presence. Presence and attention seem to be inter-related. I wonder how I will manage the upcoming flood of Christmas and New Years greetings. I decided to invest some time in phone-calls instead of non-committal copy-paste of “warm regards” or Merry-Christmas-postings. The Christmas-marketing in the city and the media will soon be over again. The flame of inner presence hopefully not.

3 birds “twittering” in our garden this morning

Going away from my profession was and is a profound spiritual lesson and experience for me. It is a kind of experiment in letting go and being joyful in the heart, without any resentment. I had been been intensely working on this during the last months, also together with my wife, and this in several ways. Besides the inner meditative and energetic work there were some other experimental dimensions in letting go and de-blocking  energies:

We did an inner cleaning work with detoxification by means of a liver and gallbladder flush as recommended in a book by Andreas Moritz and a colon cleansing; we did it several times with astonishing results and it increased the vitality.

In May a good friend sent me a PDF of a book by Michael Newton, an American psychiatrist who has developed a lives between lives hypnotherapy.  With deep interest I read this summer 2 of his works, Journeys of Souls and Destiny of Souls. These books on  spiritual regression, written in a research-oriented attitude, left a profound impact on me. They opened and deepened very much my understanding of the pre-incarnation periods. And so I became curious to go myself into an experience. For years I had a sceptical attitude towards regression and would not have dared to do such a work.

Via the website of Michael Newton I found a French / American therapist, Dr. Dominique Glaub,  and asked her when she would be in Switzerland. She replied, in November, but that she also works via Skype. I decided to try it, and to my astonishment this goes very well. Experiences with several old topics came to the surface and steps of a transformation showed up. So I decided to do a series of sessions over 6 months.

Dominique is now in Europe for 3 weeks and my wife and I met her for a session last Tuesday in Montreux at the Lake of Geneva.

On the highway – reflections of the Lake greeted us through the bushes.

We parked in the Casino parking and to our surprise came out in the gambling hall – what experience were awaiting us?

The hotel where Dominique stayed was near the lake. Since we were a bit early we had a little walk.

The regression led me deeper and deeper; she guided me through scenes of peaceful nature to a door and made me write a word on it. The door opened and I was inside.

An impression of a female figure clad in long brocade-like clothes came up, but dissolved again. For a while I was like hanging in space, no other images came. Then my body had little jerks and a feeling and images came: I was running down a rugged hill-path with rocks along the way. I felt persecuted by a man and tried to escape. He was faster, for he was riding on a horse, coming nearer and nearer. He held a lance in his hand, made me stop and shouted at me full of fierce rage. Then he pierced me with his lance, smashing it into my body. He obviously enjoyed killing me – I didn’t know why. I was covered all over with blood and then came out of the body, observing the scene from above, relaxed.

Dominique made me go back to the moment of being killed and asked about my emotions. I was full of anxiety, being locked down to the ground, helpless, powerless.

Then Dominique made me bi-locate into the person on the horse and describe his feelings. He was very angry with the other person on the ground, he was convinced that he had a right to kill him and did it with a grim joy, triumphant.

I was led back to the early childhood of this rider, to experience from where all started: Images came. He was playing with a ball and it was taken away by a stronger one. He felt powerless and suppressed his anger. This feeling of being powerless and the suppressed anger connect this young boy with the elder victim. Now the grown-up boy was in the position of the vanquisher, the stronger one, and he enjoyed his power.

Asked what is the connection with my present life situation I answered I experienced powerlessness and a feeling of injustice when I got my notice of termination, and my boss was in the power-position. I understood the message and decided to go away in peace, leaving the learnings of my boss to himself. I wanted to go with a firm stand, look into his eyes and tell him that I feel no resentment nor anger against him – and then to go my way, unhurt and with dignity.

This I did on the 15th, at the exit interview. When he proposed to have a view back on the last year, I didn’t go into the past but told him that I have a present for him, a card of my paintings. He was surprised, chose one and put it on his shelf in the office. I went out in peace and joy.

This was a direct result of the regression experience. For me it doesn’t matter whether it is “past life” or creative imagining. I didn’t make any direct connection between the persons in the inner journey and any outer ones. Like with the previous regressions the one in Montreux gave me a profound relief and transformation.

While my wife was doing her session, I went along the Lake of Geneva. It was a beautiful autumn evening light. While it was getting dark I sat on a bench, taking notes of my experiences. And later we sat in a Pizzeria, exchanging, before we drove back through the night.

Last sunrays over the Dents du Midi mountains in the background of the lake in blue evening light.

Nightfall at the lake

A friend teaching in Oregon, at Bastyr University, wrote me today:

It is my lot to be teaching World Religion starting in January. In preparations for this class I came across a rare group of interfaith friends and colleagues. They call themselves the “Interfaith Amigos.” This might interest our group members as well (they have a YouTube site).”

Their website presents the Interfaith Amigos with the following words:
“Known for their unique blend of spiritual wisdom and humor, Imam Jamal Rahman, Pastor Don Mackenzie and Rabbi Ted Falcon openly address the usual taboos of interfaith dialogue — the “awkward” parts of each tradition — in order to create a more authentic conversation.”

And they ask: “With so much divisiveness splintering our world, how do we Get to the Heart of Interfaith?” And one of the interfaith amigos, Imam Jamal Rahman, answers: “As the Prophet Muhammed said, we need to move from ‘knowledge of the tongue’ to ‘knowledge of the heart.'” – Perfectly true.

Here is a video from TEDxDU

Many groups focus on the 11-11-11 for a joint meditation effort to lift up humanity. 24 September Sri Kumar wrote to me: “Please send the following to all. ’11-11-11 is a very important day. It is considered so by the Hierarchy. Please invoke the entire Hierarchy and stand in Their Light’.”

Some days ago I got the following appeal forwarded from a site called Evolutionary Leaders – in Service to Conscious Evolution, where they also launch an appeal for a world-wide meditation for Oneness, and evolutionary leap in consciousness. The have created “Global Care Rooms” where you can see where other participants are located through a beautiful representation of our Earth.

The appeal further says:
“Countless individuals around the world share the belief that humanity’s next evolutionary leap will be achieved by collectively serving conscious evolution. They support the need to build a global community, restore ecological balance and encourage social transformation that optimizes human potential. Let us together reflect upon our own individual and collective part of the evolutionary process. …
11-1-11 Meditation Intention: Our intention is to transcend superficial differences that divide us – race, religion, politics, beliefs, culture – to acknowledge, experience and honor the essential bond that unites us all as one interdependent organism.

We also intend to evolve in both consciousness and action so that each of us learns to perceive the whole, relate to others in wholeness, widen our definition of ‘we’ to be all inclusive and become evolutionary leaders for a peaceful, holistic, sustainable world.”

“The Blessing” – extract from a painting done in February 1987