A friend sent me today the following list of 100 benefits of meditation – provided you really work with it for a long time. Transformation is no instant magic. I’m sure there are many more benefits than cited in this list.

Physiological benefits:
1. It lowers oxygen consumption.
2. It decreases respiratory rate.
3. It increases blood flow and slows the heart rate.
4. Increases exercise tolerance.
5. Leads to a deeper level of physical relaxation.
6. Good for people with high blood pressure.
7. Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate.
8. Decreases muscle tension
9. Helps in chronic diseases like allergies, arthritis etc.
10. Reduces Pre-menstrual Syndrome symptoms.
11. Helps in post-operative healing.
12. Enhances the immune system.
13. Reduces activity of viruses and emotional distress
14. Enhances energy, strength and vigour.
15. Helps with weight loss
16. Reduction of free radicals, less tissue damage
17. Higher skin resistance
18. Drop in cholesterol levels, lowers risk of cardiovascular disease.
19. Improved flow of air to the lungs resulting in easier breathing.
20. Decreases the aging process.
21. Higher levels of DHEAS (Dehydroepiandrosterone)
22. Prevented, slowed or controlled pain of chronic diseases
23. Makes you sweat less
24. Cure headaches & migraines
25. Greater Orderliness of Brain Functioning
26. Reduced Need for Medical Care
27. Less energy wasted
28. More inclined to sports, activities
29. Significant relief from asthma
30. Improved performance in athletic events
31. Normalizes to your ideal weight
32. Harmonizes our endocrine system
33. Relaxes our nervous system
34. Produce lasting beneficial changes in brain electrical activity
35. Helps cure infertility (the stresses of infertility can interfere with the release of hormones that regulate ovulation).

Psychological benefits:
36. Builds self-confidence.
37. Increases serotonin level, influences mood and behaviour.
38. Resolve phobias & fears
39. Helps control own thoughts
40. Helps with focus & concentration
41. Increase creativity
42. Increased brain wave coherence.
43. Improved learning ability and memory.
44. Increased feelings of vitality and rejuvenation.
45. Increased emotional stability.
46. Improved relationships
47. Mind ages at slower rate
48. Easier to remove bad habits
49. Develops intuition
50. Increased Productivity
51. Improved relations at home & at work
52. Able to see the larger picture in a given situation
53. Helps ignore petty issues
54. Increased ability to solve complex problems
55. Purifies your character
56. Develop will power
57. Greater communication between the two brain hemispheres
58. Respond more quickly and more effectively to a stressful event.
59. Increases ones perceptual ability and motor performance
60. Higher intelligence growth rate
61. Increased job satisfaction
62. Increase in the capacity for intimate contact with loved ones
63. Decrease in potential mental illness
64. Better, more sociable behaviour
65. Less aggressiveness
66. Helps in quitting smoking, alcohol addiction
67. Reduces need and dependency on drugs, pills & pharmaceuticals
68. Need less sleep to recover from sleep deprivation
69. Require less time to fall asleep, helps cure insomnia
70. Increases sense of responsibility
71. Reduces road rage
72. Decrease in restless thinking
73. Decreased tendency to worry
74. Increases listening skills and empathy
75. Helps make more accurate judgements
76. Greater tolerance
77. Gives composure to act in considered & constructive ways
78. Grows a stable, more balanced personality
79. Develops emotional maturity

Spiritual benefits:
80. Helps keep things in perspective
81. Provides peace of mind, happiness
82. Helps you discover your purpose in life
83. Increased self-actualization.
84. Increased compassion
85. Growing wisdom
86. Deeper understanding of yourself and others
87. Brings body, mind, and spirit in harmony
88. Deeper Level of spiritual relaxation
89. Increased acceptance of one self
90. Helps learn forgiveness
91. Changes attitude toward life
92. Creates a deeper relationship with your God
93. Increases the synchronicity in your life
94. Greater inner-directedness
95. Helps living in the present moment
96. Creates a widening, deepening capacity for love
97. Discovery of the power and consciousness beyond the ego
98. Experience an inner sense of Assurance or Knowingness
99. Experience a sense of Oneness
100. Leads to enlightenment

Head of a Buddha statue in Bali – photo of a friend

I just came across a piece of text from my notes of the seminar with Sri Kumar in India, January 2006, where he spoke on The Secret Doctrine. You find there comments on the Stanzas of the Book of Dzyan. The notes said:

“We should read the first stanza of Dzyan daily and then go to sleep. This would be very helpful – pick up the OM NAMO NARAYANAYA, read the 8 steps of the first stanza (not the 9th one, which is a question) and go to sleep. We need to think it to get it sinking into the core of our being.”

The stanzas beautifully describe the state between two creations – like the state of sleep between tonight and tomorrow morning. Enjoy the depth:

STANZA I of the Seven Stanzas Translated from The Book of Dzyan:

1. The Eternal Parent, wrapped in her Ever-Invisible Robes, had slumbered once again for Seven Eternities.

2. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the Infinite Bosom of Duration.

3. Universal Mind was not, for there were no Ah-hi to contain it.

4. The Seven Ways to Bliss were not. The Great Causes of Misery were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them.

5. Darkness alone filled the Boundless All, for Father, Mother and Son were once more one, and the Son had not yet awakened for the new Wheel and his Pilgrimage thereon.

6. The Seven Sublime Lords and the Seven Truths had ceased to be, and the Universe, the Son of Necessity, was immersed in Paranishpanna, to be outbreathed by that which is, and yet is not. Naught was.

7. The Causes of Existence had been done away with; the Visible that was, and the Invisible that is, rested in Eternal Non-Being – the One Being.

8. Alone, the One Form of Existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in Dreamless Sleep; and Life pulsated unconscious in Universal Space, throughout that All-Presence, which is sensed by the Opened Eye of Dangma.

Some meditative thoughts I received today from an Indian friend:

I Believe…
That just because two people argue,
It doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.
And just because they don’t argue,
It doesn’t mean they do love each other.

I Believe…
That we don’t have to change friends if
We understand that friends change.

I Believe…
That no matter how good a friend is,
they’re going to hurt you,
every once in a while
and you must forgive them for that.

I Believe…..
That true friendship continues to grow,
even over the longest distance.
Same goes for true love.

I Believe…
That you can do something in an instant
That will give you heartache for life.

I Believe….
That it’s taking me a long time
To become the person I want to be.

I Believe…
That you should always leave loved ones with Loving words.
It may be the last time you see them.

I Believe…
That you can keep going long after you think you can’t.

I Believe…
That we are responsible for what
We do, no matter how we feel.

I Believe..
That either you control your attitude or it controls you.

I Believe…
That heroes are the people
who do what has to be done
when it needs to be done,
regardless of the consequences.

I Believe…
That my best friend and I
can do anything or nothing
and have the best time..

I Believe….
That sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you’re
down will be the ones to help you get back up.

I Believe…
That sometimes when I’m angry
I have the right to be angry, but that
doesn’t give me the right to be cruel.

I Believe…
That maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you’ve had
And what you’ve learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated.

I Believe…
That it isn’t always enough,
to be forgiven by others.
Sometimes, you have to learn
to forgive yourself.

I Believe…
That no matter how bad
your heart is broken,
the world doesn’t stop for your grief.

I Believe…
That our background and circumstances
may have influenced who we are, but,
we are responsible for who we become.

I Believe…
That you shouldn’t be
so eager to find out a secret.
It could change your life forever.

I Believe…
Two people can look at the exact same
Thing and see something totally different.

I Believe..
That your life can be changed
in a matter of hours
by people who don’t even know you.

I Believe…
That even when you think
you have no more to give,
When a friend cries out to you,
you will find the strength to help.

I Believe..
That credentials on the wall
do not make you a decent human being.

I Believe…
That the people you care about
most in life are taken from you too soon.

The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything;
They just make the most of everything they have.

(Author unknown)

Autumn morning light seen from the bathroom, 2 weeks ago – now all the leaves are gone

Before evening meditation my wife and I normally exchange some thoughts about the day. The last days she had felt some pain, some inflammation of nerves or the like after having worked a lot in our little garden planting flowers for next spring. Last weekend she had been at a seminar with Anton Styger about using the pendulum and there she heard him say: “You can ask the body, he knows best.” This was a thought she had been pondering upon the last days:

Our body is not just a machine or a “bag” into which we have been put at birth, but a highly intelligent being which communicates with you if you listen to it. With pain it says, pay attention, something is going the wrong direction. You can feel its needs, and you can even talk to it. (Of course, with serious problems you should talk to a doctor….)

Anton Styger uses prayers where he addresses the body intelligences and the guiding angels of organs. They have received lots of wrong commands from our side and have received shocks and experienced hardships in the past. These memories are stored in the subtle structure of the body and can be released. We also might have collected “astral waste” from other persons / the surroundings, which keep clinging to us. Clairvoyants can even see that in a number of cases earth-bound entities / deceased persons who didn’t believe in a here-after or were surprised by their death cling to the body and cause feelings of dullness or strain.

My wife and I talked about observations we had in this regard and our discoveries how to deal with them. She said: “I have discovered a new relation with my body.” And she had also been working with others helping to release pains and subtle burdens.

A famous drawing of Leonardo da Vinci

A friend sent me this nice story, which started with: “Don’t let the “Nay”Sayers hold you back.”

Once upon a time there was a bunch of tiny frogs….who arranged a running competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower. A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants….

The race began…. Honestly: No one in crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. You heard statements such as:

“Oh, WAY too difficult!!” “They will NEVER make it to the top.” “Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!”

The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one…. Except for those, who in a fresh tempo, were climbing higher and higher….The crowd continued to yell, ”It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!”

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up….

But ONE continued higher and higher and higher…. This one wouldn’t give up!

At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!

THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it?

A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal?

It turned out…. That the winner was DEAF!!!!

The wisdom of this story is: Never listen to other people’s tendencies to be negative or pessimistic….because they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you — the ones you have in your heart!

Always think of the power words have. Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions!

Therefore: ALWAYS be….POSITIVE!

And above all: Be DEAF when people tell YOU that you cannot fulfil your dream, but always be welcoming to listen to and accept sound advise.
“Achievers never expose themselves but their achievements expose them.”

A tiny frog, from Wikipedia.

Since the centre of WTT-Global in Einsiedeln, Switzerland will be dissolved in a few weeks – life lead the members who lived there to other places – I agreed to take all the books (English and German) to our home, while a member of our group will take care of the book orders. So yesterday I went to Einsiedeln to fetch the books.

The morning started with a glowing dawn, but later on the highway fog gathered and nearly the whole ride the weather was very grey.  When I took the way up the mountain to Einsiedeln, the clouds opened and a beautiful clear sky showed up.

In the centre there were already some boxes filled with books, and some more to be packed.

I first went around to take some final pics of the rooms which since February 2006 had served as headquarters.

The entrance

A picture of young Parvathi Kumar

A picture of Gayatri with a reflection of a window, like the opening into another dimension

A flower of peacock feathers

The outside of the building – not very attractive to me, but I liked the inner side.

A friend from the group then came and helped me packing the books and I took a TV for her into my car.

When both cars were filled, we did a good-bye meditation in the room where I had had several talks with Sri Kumar over the last years and where the executive board had often met.

It was a silent adieu, I won’t see the rooms again, and they will soon be emptied, and a family with 3 children will live there.

Afterwards I drove a bit around the nearby lake Sihlsee and visited friends, a couple living nearby on a mountain. It was a hearty exchange. The sun was hot like in summer.

Tomatoes on the balcony.

Back home again I carried the heavy boxes into our basement, emptied them and arranged the books on the shelves.

The whole journey made me think of the story in HPB’s Secret Doctrine, where there is a narrative how, at the end of a creation a certain group of beings, the Shisya, transport the seeds of wisdom through the dissolution state called Pralaya to a new creation…. I asked myself how the many good and inspiring books might find their ways to seekers who could make a good use of them. For the moment they slumber in the basement of our home. Time will show how things will work out. Always after a sunset and a night a new dawn will come.

This afternoon we made a little walk and had a pause in the café of the open air bath at the nearby river. An elderly lady came and sat down at our table, a friend of my wife’s late parents. She immediately spoke about the shock she experienced through the events in Oslo, the horrible terror killing of last Friday. She told us details of what she had read in the Sunday newspapers. We just knew what had been in the Saturday paper.

Later she asked about our family, about what my wife is now doing. Cyrille told her that 1.5 years ago she had stopped teaching piano and that now she is doing a formation as a coach in radical forgiveness. Like others of my wife’s friends the lady felt a bit irritated: For them making music is somehow a dream, for my wife it is something of the past, a thing she had learnt and practised for years but which no longer interests her. The lady wanted to know more about this kind of coaching and it turned out that she is a psychologist and first seemed to be a bit sceptical about the coaching. I mentioned how the work with radical forgiveness had done good to me…

She then started speaking of a journey last year to a place of her childhood and an event that took place in 1945 at the Danube, where Hungarian Nazis had collected all the Jews of the town, led them to the river and killed them there. She wasn’t there, but members of her family had been among the victims. Her father’s side was Jewish, her mother’s side Christian and she grew up as a Christian, but has always been in contact with Jews. She had been again at that place and read the memorial plate with all the names of the persons killed, and there was written the sentence:

“If you are a human, you have to learn to forgive, but not to forget.”

She continued speaking of her father who later went to Israel, whereas she came to Switzerland. She became a psychologist and in spite of her high age she is still working, for victims of mobbing.

There was a magic spell in the air, a feeling of souls touching each other, beyond words. My wife stood a while at the river and looked at the flow, reminding her of the times passing by. On our way home we reflected about the scene, and my wife said: “I didn’t know anything about her before, we only had exchanges on a small-talk level. I felt that she still carries  a heavy load of past experiences and was very grateful to open up and speak a bit about it and to feel that we listened with an open-heart. Just listened, and this opened her feelings. I felt love coming from her side. And there was a flow.”

A Norwegian flag on half-mast in the neighbourhood

My sister just sent me the link to this beautiful video:

On the 2nd of June 2011 strangers gathered at 6:30 pm in Trafalgar Square to share a peaceful half an hour meditating.

Here are some thoughts from the wisdom teachings of WTT about the month of Gemini:

Master EK says in his Full Moon Meditations, Gemini:
“The whole creation is an objectification of the subjectivity which we call God. These two aspects, Subjectivity and Objectivity are visualized as the first pair, Gemini. According to the ancient Indian tradition, Gemini represents a pair of supplementaries, subjectivity and objectivity.
Subjectivity is called the Lord and objectivity is called the power of the Lord in relation to his Lady. Hence the pair represents the birth of the first Androgyne, Sakti and Siva. The emblem is called Ardhanari (the male who is half female). The sign Gemini is worshipped as the temple of the Lord at the entrance of which there are two pillars, Boaz and Yakhin (word and meaning). Man passing through the gate between the two pillars represents himself expressing as word and his concept.”

In Hamburg, 1989, Master KPK said about Gemini: “Gemini is the sweet process of One existing as two. Is it not sweet to live together as man and woman? What is true in the lower world is also true in the higher world. What exists above exists below. So, the sweet experience of living in companionship is offered by Gemini. We know that Gemini is a symbol of man and woman given as two pillars. Who is the man and who is the woman? If you can take the male and female energy as man and woman, there is the proper understanding of the man and woman.”

And in Achberg, Germany, in 1991, he said: “Gemini gives hints to us that everything exists as two, but understand that which is two is only one. That is what is called ‘the lower pole merging with the higher pole’. This is normally known as the glyph of Gemini II. This is for all those who practise discrimination in the objective world. Discrimination is one of the important faculties of Gemini. For all objective working we are all required to work with discrimination, but subjectively we should carry the understanding that all that which appears as duality is nothing but the one manifesting as two. When we know this aspect of Gemini, we have known how to work with Gemini. It is a state of awareness, where we carry the understanding of oneness in the subjective plane and work in the objective plane with discrimination. Carry the understanding that the two keep functioning and according to the need of the hour we function with both of them with discrimination. That is the purpose of Gemini Full Moon.”

The picture, “Gemini – Union beyond Duality”, shows on three planes, between and above the pillars, Krishna and Radha as a symbol of duality and union.

A friend sent me the link to an online presentation with sublime pictures of Ireland, subtle music and “An Irish Blessing: This Blessing Is For You“. You can download the music by Roma Downey with the text by Phil Coulter as an MP3-file from the following website.
And you find the text of the beautiful blessing also below – I googled and found it. In Ireland there is the St. Patricks Festival celebrated from 16 – 20 March (it’s on 17 March).

An Irish Blessing

May the blessing of light be upon you,
Light on the outside, Light on the inside.
With God’s sunlight shining on you,
May your heart glow with warmth,
Like a turf fire that welcomes friends and strangers alike.
May the light of the Lord shine from your eyes,
Like a candle in the window,
Welcoming the weary traveller.

May the blessing of God’s soft rain be on you,
Falling gently on your head, refreshing your soul
With the sweetness of litte flowers newly blooming.
May the strength of the winds of Heaven bless you,
Carrying the rain to wash your spirit clean
Sparkling after in the sunlight.
May the blessing of God’s earth be on you,
And as you walk the roads,
May you always have a kind word for those you meet.

May you understand the strength and power of God.
In a thunderstorm in Winter, And the quiet beauty of creation,
In the calm of a Summer sunset, And may you come to realize,
that, insignificant as you may seem in this great Universe,
You are an important part of God’s plan.

May “HE” watch over you and keep you safe from harm.

From the intro of the presentation by Andie on Andies Isles.