In the afternoon of our arrival some friends asked me if I would like to join them for an excursion to the Cataratas, the falls on the Brazilian side. They are in a beautiful national park, full of luxuriant vegetation. I had been there 7 years ago, but now the weather was fine.

The public bus brought us right to the entrance of the park, where we changed into another bus which brought us closer to the falls. And then we saw them, the overwhelming range of cascades, large and small ones, falling from different heights over brown rocks, embellished by green spots.

Clouds of spray hovered over the falls, and the sun painted beautiful rainbows.

At the upper part of the Brazilian side of the falls looking at Garganta do Diablo / Devil’s Throat

It is a most enchanted scenery, with the continuous roar of the falling waters resounding over the valley. The path lead us closer and closer to the “Devil’s Gorge”, the big hole at the beginning of the falls, where huge amounts of water tower down into the abyss. The water sprinkled over us and gave a cooling feeling. The soul feels uplifted and inspired by all the natural beauty. Some coatis were running around, watching us tourists, and waiting for some food to be picked up.

The next day we went with some small busses to the Argentinean side, where you can go even deeper into the cascades, through forests full of tropical bushes. A little train brought us to a catwalk leading to the other side of the Devil’s Gorge. The waters seem to be so quiet before rushing down into the abyss – like in life, where surprises often come unexpected.

At the end you can look from a platform down directly into the white of the thundering waters, without seeing the bottom.

Flocks of birds were dancing in the clouds, sometimes disappearing in the waters. A friend said he had seen a film about these birds having their nests behind the falling waters, a safe place without any natural enemies.

We later went with a little ferryboat to the St. Martin’s island in the middle of the falls.

A boat in front of the rocks of St. Martins Island

Some huge black birds circled over our heads or sat in trees.

Some lizards darted over the rocks or enjoyed the sun. Signs warned of serpents, but we didn’t see any.

On St Martin’s Island there is said to be a power-spot, an entrance to the subtle Devic kingdom – and you could really feel the sublime presence, surrounded by the torrential cascades.

The sun painted horizontal rainbows into the mist over the rocks.

The energetic center is said to be around the rock in the middle – a superb, but inaccessible place.

For hours after the return there remained the impression of the thundering waters in my subtle bodies. It had such a strong impact of purification, power and upliftment.

In Eastern wisdom teachings the descent and ascent of water is seen as the movement of involution and evolution of creation. It is described with the “Narayana” mantram. A friend from Miami who was at the group living in Iguazú sent me today a picture of the falls writing:

“I selected this photo because for me it represents the synthesis of the message of the past group living: NARAYANA: Waters from heaven and waters from the earth. For me the mist that is produced from the fall of the water represent our souls going on the return path. Thousands and thousands of little drops that at the end merges with the immense, unlimited blue sky.”

Two days ago I received a beautiful powerpoint presentation from an Argentinian friend with incredible pictures of the waterfalls in Iguazu, near the border triangle between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. We will be there next week for a seminar with our spiritual teacher, Dr. Kumar.

A photo of the Iguazu Falls, from a friend.

A member of our local group had yesterday birthday and invited us for breakfast and a little excursion this morning after our group meditation.

The outing went to a nearby hill, the Belpberg (more in German) which in previous epochs had been the end moraine of a glacier. Our friend wanted to show us a surprise and didn’t tell us what we would see, we should just experience.

From the western side of the hill we took a little road, entered a forest and came along a beautiful waterfall.

A little further on there was a house directly next to the forest, with a magical ambiance around.

Our friend told us that until recently a man lived there, who used to do rituals and ceremonies in nature. She once was invited by him into his house. She was fascinated by the friendly way he lived in tune with nature. Only the nearby farmers didn’t like it, they were a bit irritated by this strange guy and so the owner terminated the contract. Though the man tried his best to stay there, it seemed that now he had left the place and other people were living there.

Someone of our group mentioned: “It is quite hard to live in a non-orthodox way in Switzerland, it’s very different from India, where everyone can live the style he likes, without irritating the others.”

We continued our walk and took a small, steep path through the forest,

and then saw some chalk cliffs with a little cave overlooking the valley, called the “Pfaffenloch” (Parson’s Hole):

Between two rocks there was a small entrance into a tunnel. We went in, but the passage got more and more narrow, and after some meters you had to creep.

I felt uncomfortable and returned. While the others crept to the other side, I looked around and saw remains of some rituals – candles, fire etc. – a beautiful place for celebrating nearness with nature.

And there was a fantastic view over the valley to the Alps. The cars and the railway down in the valley looked like little toys.

When the others came back, we sat down and intonated a few times the holy word OM – quite a contrast to the shooting going on in the valley – Swiss marksmen training.

Back at the foot of the hill we saw some farm houses, which now serve city people to live in. I’m always astonished how much energy some people put into making their houses representative dwellings. So much vital energy is being absorbed by these activities.

Yesterday we went with a relative and her friend to the Niederhorn, a peak in the Swiss Alps in the Bernese Oberland near Beatenberg. The friend was a clairvoyant from Germany, who was for the first time in these mountains. Our relative had been at a geomantic seminar at Beatenberg some time ago and wanted to show us an energetic power place.

We first walked along a private road, through a series of tunnels, where the friend said she felt overwhelmed by the multitude of subtle beings in the rocks. I just felt a bit small under this huge mass of rocks. Afterwards the road went along the mountainside and after a few hundred meters we came at a place where a fault had cut a drop between the rocks. There was somehow a special energy around, which, when you paid attention, felt different from the part before.

We stood there for some time feeling the quality of the place. The friend started guiding us into a visualization of what she was perceiving. After a while I preferred not to go into the descriptions of her experiences, but to stay with my own experiences, and so I took a stand a bit apart. I tried to keep the stance of an observer and not to get into some fancies of imagination. Better just some small authentic experiences than a bunch which isn’t my own.

Afterwards we returned and took the gondola lift up to the summit of the Niederhorn. At the top there was still quite a lot of snow on the way, and a snowblower was cutting a new way. But it was warm and the view was fantastic. Daws were flying around the cliffs and paragliders jumped down into the valley, circulating over the precipice.

On the way back at the middle station we hired some scooters and rolled down through forests and meadows – a beautiful descent.

Daws observing the visitors

Paraglider with view of the Eiger mountain

Way down into the valley

On the way back from the BEA fair I saw a field with three old apple trees in full bloom radiating their beauty in the glow of the evening sun. I stopped my moped to take some shots:

Some days ago I got a beautiful powerpoint presentation called “Power of 10 – From Micro to Macrocosmos” (you can also download it here as a PDF, of course without music and animation). It is a trip at high speed, jumping distances by factor of 10, until the limit of our imagination in direction to the macrocosmos are reached. Later the journey returns to the point where it started and continues in the opposite direction reducing distances of travel by factors of 10 into the microcosmos. An impressive visualisation which gives you a feeling of the infinity of the One Life.

Flower arrangement at a fair in Berne, last Sunday

Yesterday 59 new images of colliding galaxies taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have been published to mark the 18th anniversary of the telescope’s launch. They have also published a special site with the pictures and other information.

“This is the largest collection of Hubble images ever released to the public simultaneously” it says on the European homepage of the Hubble Information Centre.

“Interacting galaxies are found throughout the Universe, sometimes as dramatic collisions that trigger bursts of star formation, on other occasions as stealthy mergers that result in new galaxies…. Our own Milky Way contains the debris of the many smaller galaxies it has encountered and devoured in the past, and it is currently absorbing the Sagittarius dwarf elliptical galaxy.”

You can download the images of the cosmic collisions, and also see them in a beautiful video.

So the next time you are flying through the galaxies, pay attention not to get involved in a galaxy crash!

Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (Click on picture to enlarge)

Today I got an e-mail from a Canadian friends with pictures about what people eat during a week’s time in different countries of the world and how much money they spend.

I googled it and found that the pictures are from a photo gallery from time.com: “What the World Eats – What’s on family dinner tables in 15 different homes around the Globe?” The photos are from the book “Hungry Planet” by Peter Menzel. It’s worthwhile having a look at it! They show us a mirror image of our lifestyle and the global imbalances.

Though the photos can be found on many blogs, the author writes they are copyright protected, and so I don’t produce them here. The photo below is from an Indian friend.

A friend sent me a link to an article on Live Science called: “Earth’s Hum Sounds More Mysterious Than Ever“, by Charles Q. Choi. He writes:

“Earth gives off a relentless hum of countless notes completely imperceptible to the human ear, like a giant, exceptionally quiet symphony, but the origin of this sound remains a mystery. Now unexpected powerful tunes have been discovered in this hum. These new findings could shed light on the source of this enigma.

The planet emanates a constant rumble far below the limits of human hearing, even when the ground isn’t shaking from an earthquake. … Now oscillations have been discovered making up the hum that, oddly, are shaped roughly like rings. Imagine, if you will, rumbles that twist in circles in rock across the upper echelons of the planet, almost like dozens of lazy hurricanes.”

In the Eastern scriptures the humming sound of creation is called OM, which causes all creation to happen. Intonating this sound in the right way transforms the matter of our body and makes it more receptible to the light of the soul. The OM we sing is an utterance of the underlying continuum of the vibration of existence. This is also called the soundless sound or the Voice of Silence. Have a look at the Lunar Messenger on “The Power of OM“.

Rings on the waters of a pond. Photo from last Sunday’s excursion

Whereas nature is very beautiful in our surroundings and breathes a wide and uplifting air, it seems that man is doing his best to create for himself cages to imprison the soul. On a nearby meadow shoe box-like gray blocks have been set up and are still being constructed, devouring the green:

They are sold with the euphemistic slogan “Living in the Orchard”, but the ambiance they radiate is like living in the suffocating gray-in-gray of materialistic life:

It is a high-standard settlement in a rich municipality near Berne, and the blocks are filled with shops, a bank, a large underground supermarket, old people’s homes and offices. The whole is very symbolic of the mental attitude in sway: The objective life is developing, but the subjective life is starving. The intellectual mental concepts keep on repeating themselves everywhere along the same lines:

Planning is a mental process, ruled by rules and regulative restrictions, restricting the free flow of ideas, which is in tune with dynamic, ever new original life. A life spreading comfort and well-being, beauty and cordiality. Thus the outcome of mentally crystallised planning is but repeating the same square-head patterns, the cube being the symbol of matter ruling over spirit. Ironically the name of the building company is “All real” – but which reality? – the outermost, concrete-tized.

The rhythms and forces of nature seem to be kept outside, and they, too, seem to be helpless in trying to reach man:

Snow-White and some dwarfs in a nearby garden are losing their colours, and people look at these beings like past superstitions, having themselves lost the inner view of subtle realities:

But although a cold wind was blowing yesterday, bringing snow instead of gentle spring breezes, there are fresh colours on the way:

And although the birds still are suffering from ice and a backlash of winter

you find everywhere already the forces of spring at work:

And there is not only a sunrise in nature, but you find also new forms of human life seeking expression.

So spring is in the air, an Aquarian breeze at Easter, lifting the souls up from crystallised stagnation. Even in mainstream society.

Photos from yesterday and this morning in our village

As per living in cages you might like to read the “Good Will in Action” on “Body and House“.