There are quite a lot of electronic gifts showing up at the moment. Here are some link miscellanea:

1. A friend from Houston Theosophical Society sent the link to a new page of the site of Theosophy Watch, where you find a number of photos of new crop circles from 2009, and a “Crop Circle Documentary 2009” video, from YouTube:

2. The photographer and environmental artist Chris Jordan does a fascinating work of sensitizing people for environmental concerns in a very aesthetic way (I have already before blogged about Chris’ work). You find new series of photo mandalas about “Portraits of Global Mass Culture” (-> Running the Numbers, 1 & II) and a new large scale mandala. It is depicting the names of one million organizations around the world that are devoted to peace, environmental stewardship, social justice, and the preservation of diverse and indigenous culture. He has taken the names from Paul Hawken’s “Blessed Unrest” project. The mandala is called “E Pluribus Unum”, meaning “The Many become One”.

Have a look at these other websites:

3. Freydoun Rassouli: a beautiful flash intro to the fascinating paintings of the Iranian artist living in California. There are some e-cards of him on the Good-Will website.

4. And another interesting flash on “Awaken Visions” by Daniel B. Holeman. On his site you find a section about animated art.

Iris – Photo of a friend

Today I came across two beautiful videos about the majestic beauty of the Himalayas. The first is showing impressions of a flight over an unaccessible mountain range with a sublime music (3:00):

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The second (2:50) is about “Himalaya – The Live God”. Though you don’t understand the text (it is, I suppose, in Hindi), you will understand the pictures – giving short impressions of saints and sacred places.

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And here is a short story playing in the Himalayas, by Master EK, from the end of the book “Occult Anatomy”:

“In the Tantra books, it opens like this: Siva and Sakti sit on the high cliffs of the mountains of the Himalayas. Always, it starts like this. There is no one in the vicinity, proximity. They can talk nonsense, they want. (Master said this as a joke, to the laugh of the students). Siva was a bit grim, serious. Sakti looked at Him and smiled. Then Siva smiled, because He is also a male fellow, tempted by female. (Laugh). His smile was captured as reflection in the eyes of the Mother-Goddess. This created the whole world. That means creation came as the solar energy called Siva reflects on the moon and comes down as the Moon’s Light called the smile. Then Siva said, “My darling”, (because there were two fellows. There was no third fellow). He said, “Some people in the creation worship you and get liberation. Some people worship Me and get liberation. So let us divide the worship into two, so that there may not be any disputes. The disciples may be divided into two”. He said these words. So there are two types of devotees. Some are the devotees who worship God as ‘You’ and some others are the devotees who worship God as ‘I AM’. So some people meditate ‘ I AM’ and some people meditate “You are”. So with this conversation, the wonderful fellow Siva started the Creation, when Himself and His darling were lonely. That is how the Tantra books start. So may these two parents bless you in every way, before we meet again and even after. “

I today got the link to the short YouTube-video “Bodhisattva in Metro“. It is a fantistic film without words, showing the contagious influence of a radiant good mood. Enjoy!

From the video

I today got an e-mail from Spain with a link to a YouTube video about a lecture given by Hira Ratan Manek at Sant Vicens de Montalt in Spain (English with Spanish translation). Hira Ratan Manek (HRM) was born on 12th of September 1937 in Bodhavad, India, and since June 18th, 1995, HRM has and continues to live only on sun energy and water. He has been examined by medical teams in India and the States for very long periods. He explains that more than 3000 people world are subsisting on light. A friend of mine tried it for a while, but stopped again. I doubt whether I will go into that kind of a diet, but it is fascinating to see this demonstration of living with the energy of prana by sun gazing, leaving the materialistic scientists perplexed.

Sunrise, photo of a friend

A friend sent me some days ago an impressive video about a chameleon changing colours, which I also found on YouTube, tought the music there is not my style… I then came across the following passage of my spiritual teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar from a seminar last year in Iguazú, giving us a lesson of the chameleon:

“You may play the role of a human, but you are consciousness. Our real identity is that we are units of consciousness. Each one is a column of consciousness playing different roles. So many different roles, so many false identities. Your original identity is lost. We generally believe what we are not by repeated information and repeated action. That is identifying with an objective situation and becoming that, like a chameleon. Depending on the colours if the surrounding, it loses its colours. You have lost the original identity through the many modifications…. . The purpose of yoga is to gain original identity. That is what is called self-realisation. That is the purpose, and then there is a process of transformation from the present state. We have to transform many states to regain our original state of consciousness.”

Photo from the video (c)

I today got this link to a video about a presentation of an astonishing new development of the application of computer technology to virtualisation, another step of entering into the realm of etheric manifestation through technology.

Photo of a computer installation in Zurich main station, May 08

An Indian friend sent me a very beautiful and touching powerpoint about an old Chinese story called “The Cracked Pot“. It is about the value of the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. Enjoy!

A cracked pot, from an art exposition, photo of my son.

A friend living in the States sent me the link to the presentation of a film called “Playing for Change: Peace Through Music“, described as “a pan-global survey — and marriage — of varying styles of world music…” On the site there is an inspiring video with the soundtrack “Stand me by”:

“Starting on the pedestrian mall in Santa Monica, Calif., helmers Mark Johnson (who narrates) and Jonathan Walls made a recording of street singer Roger Ridley performing “Stand by Me” then took that tape all over the world. They added singers in New Orleans and Amsterdam, a guitarist in France, a Congolese drummer, some Zuni drummers in New Mexico, making musical collaborators out of people who’d never met.”

(c) from the website Playing for Change
“Long-range partnerships of singers all around the world are being formed: A singer sings in Buenos Aires, and his female backup trio, the Oneness Choir, is in India… A lot of the musicians are not seen playing in their own homelands — sometimes by choice, sometimes by the choices of others.”

(c) from the video

My friend also sent me another link, to the blog of Gita Saraydarian, with a beautiful recent post “Ode to Joy. The Power of Music”. Gita Saraydarian is the Founder and President of TSG Foundation, an organization dedicated to the Ageless Wisdom Teachings. Year ago I read some books of her late father, Torkom Saraydarian, to whom the organization is dedicated.

An Indian friend sent me a powerpoint with the following beautiful story, which you also find on the web. It is about wrongly directed good will causing harm and the value of obstacles and troubles.

”One day, a small oppening appeared on a cocoon; a man sat and watched for the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then, it seems to stop making any  progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and  it could not go any further. So the man decided to help the butterfly: he took a pair of scissors and opened the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a withered body, it was tiny and shrivelled wings.
The man continued to watch because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would open, enlarge and expand, to be able to support the butterfly’s body, and become firm.

What the man, in his kindness and his goodwill did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through our life  without any obstacles, it would  cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. Never been able to fly.

I asked for Strength…
And God gave me  difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom…
And God gave me Problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity…
And God gave me a Brain and Brawn to work.
I asked for Courage…..
And God gave me obstacles to overcome.
I asked for Love…
And God gave me Troubled  people to help.
I asked for Favors…
And God gave me  Opportunities.
“I received nothing I wanted…
But I received everything I needed.”

Live life without fear, confront all obstacles and evince that you can overcome them.

Butterfly, silk painting, 1984

By the way, today is the 3rd birthday of the blog, which started on March 31st, 2006.

A friend, president of Houston Theosophical Society, sent me the link to a beautiful slide show on world religions represented in Houston, he received from a friend:  “It is a wonderful picture log of world religions.  For those of you who are not from ‘around these parts,’ it lets you know that Houston has become quite an international city and more than the ‘brass buckle on the Bible Belt’.” He added: “Glad that Houston is home to so many faiths practiced in peace and tolerance mainly. Rightly missing was Theosophy because it is the primordial esoteric spiritual tradition underlying other religions, without being one, like colorless white light hides seven colors within it.”

The slide show is introduced with the words: “Your neighbor is a what!?! What is that? Yes, there are Zoroastrians, Wiccans and Jains in Houston. And people of lots of other faiths too.”

Source of Light, Dec. 1981