Yesterday I was at an interesting presentation on accessibility of websites, by Namics, internet specialists from Zurich. For many a handicapped person present websites offer difficulties, in navigation, in transporting the content to screenreader-softwares or in the contrast used for the sites. There exist definitions of the web-consortium about accessibility, which are in a process of updating, because many new technologies have appeared in the last years. Somebody of this consortium hold a talk at the meeting, explaining what they are talking about, when they try to define how a website should be for disabled persons to have free access to it.
Very interesting was a presentation of a deaf person from Gebärdenwerk in Hamburg, giving a 30 min talk about the special problems of deaf persons. At my table there were two translators transposing the talks into sign language (which in Germany is recognised as a separate language besides German) for a few disabled persons in the audience.
There exist a number of aids for disabled persons, but when the site is not well done, it is hard to get the right access. The Swiss Government websites have t be barrier-free until the end of this year, and for my office we are also thinking of making our site accessible. I wonder I find the time and know-how to renovate the good-will website according to the accessibility standards…
Most impressive for me was a talk I had at the end of the meeting with a blind man, who had been a high school teacher and later lost his eyesight and now is teaching again, and he is publishing a tape newspaper together with pupils and volunteers. He had such a commitment to sensitise organisations and people to the needs of visually handicapped or blind people and to render help to persons concerned.

“Dropping Knowledge” is a fascinating initiative which will officially start on September 9th, 2006, with a meeting of 112 of the world’s greatest minds at the world’s largest table in Berlin, Germany, as guests of “dropping knowledge”. On September 10th they will launch a freely accessible Copyleft knowledge portal and dialog forum with audio-visual content. There is a catalogue of 23 000 interconnected problem classes, and the public can ask questions and give answers, exchange viewpoints and ideas. All publications on the site are “copyleft”, i.e. free to use by the public, and everyone giving knowledge shares it with all.
They have already put many interesting questions on the site, well illustrated, where you can drop your questions or search answers: “Asking questions is fundamental to the practice of dropping knowledge. There is no better way to initiate a dialog than with a question, no better way to challenge conventional thining, discover new viewpoints and stimulate fresh ideas.” – A very inspiring initiative!

My wife just bought an orange mug saying on one side “I didn’t do it” and on the other “It’s not my fault”. We have often heard these two famous sentences from our children when trying out who did hide the key of the apartment or who was responsible for a new scratch on the wall. But I also observe more subtly this excusing oneself with myself, when something doesn’t work out as I want it to go or when I don’t find an object – where it sometimes turns out that not the children, but myself placed it in an unsuspected corner.
Not seeing one’s own part and involvement in a situation is very far spread. I just observed with a friend how out of seeing the others reactions as cause of her situation causes quite some suffering to her. We don’t like accepting the responsibility for an awkward situation.
The media just reported yesterday that Beirut-based freelance Reuters photographer Adnan Haji had altered some photos from the war between Israel and Lebanon with Adobe Photoshop – and not even very subtly. On one of the photos there was darker smoke coming out of bombarded houses, on another you could see an Israelian airplane throwing “added” bombs. He excused himself by saying that he just had tried to remove dust from his photos… Reuters gave a statement that they immediately terminated their relationship with the photographer and withdrew all photos from their database.
Altering pictures is very common in the “war of the media”, trying to influence the masses. However, it is a spiritual law that manipulators will get manipulated themselves. While excusing is an expression of laziness of mind, manipulation distorts one’s sense of truth and gives with the time a queer perception of reality with a logic of one’s own.
Honesty and openness are the bases for building up a lasting foundation of trust, so that we don’t get entangled in a labyrinth of lies. And it requires truthful living for a long time before you can enter into the more subtle realms of wisdom.

Yesterday I read in the German technology newsticker heise online an article about The War in Lebanon and the Infrastructure of Israel, how deeply the war is wounding the people on both sides of the frontline. There were quotes from an Israeli woman in Haifa writing since years about the situation, who gave a statement which touched me:

“My personal opinion is that all of us here are victims: Jews, muslims, druzes, Christians, Samaritans, Circassians, Haha’i, Lebanese, Syrians, Israelis, Egyptians, Jordans, Bedouins, victims of despots, tyrans, terrorists of an area with a mentality abhorring ‘the others’, educating generation after generation to hate and insult ‘the others’, teaching that ‘the others’ cause all calamities, treating women heardly better than objects and proudly and publicly slaughters deviating mothers, daughters and sisters. Wars, hate and bloodshed will continue here until the end of the days. Peace is a western concept, unknown in the 5000 years old history of this reagion. This is the reality of the Middle East. Either you accept it and come to an arrangement with it or you emigrate.”

After one day of publication of the article there were over 1100 comments to it -emotions are going high about the doggedness of the war parties. One cited Mahatma Gandhi saying: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Learning to see in the other the brother – (br)other – is a deeply spiritual challenge, and only when we learn to focus on the soul, we can overcome the separativeness of “mine” and “the other” – of individuals, groups or nations.

People like telling stories, which don’t necessarily have to be true. Yesterday I got an e-mail from an Canadian friend informing that Mars will pass extraordinarily close to Earth in August 2006. By chance I “googled” it out and found on snopes.com, a website about “urban legends” that this message was a hoax. Also NASA hat already informed about this hoax.
I come quite frequently about such hoaxes, like a message about breast cancer by plastics or certain rain forest appeals. Some reached me several times in the course of years. I have learned to look up things on hoax-sites and not to believe every nice story or claim. Discrimination is a quality of the soul and we have to use it. Nevertheless enjoy the clarity of the night sky with Mars and the other celestial friends looking to you.

Back from holidays I found today a note about a post in Yahoo answers of the theoretical physicist and best-seller author Stephen Hawkins (“A Brief History of Time”), asking: “How can the human race survive the next hundred years? In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?”

The question of the famous handicapped physicist raised an enormous interest, and already 4 days after the posting there were 21.000 answers by commentors. He himself didn’t give an answer to his question. But up to now there are already over 24.600 answers – from jokes to serious replies. Answers are quickly given – but what about applying them?
About 2.500 years ago Pythagoras already gave the central answer, which you find in his wisdom teachings:
“It is the duty of every spiritual student to reduce one fool in this Creation before he dies and that is oneself. He should also see that there is one more wise man on this Earth, and that is also oneself. Afterwards you can do whatever you want. This is the minimum that is expected of a spiritual student.” So if you overcome your foolishness, the world is not the problem.

I yesterday got two e-mails from American friends both writing that around them there was Independence Day being celebrated, but that they didn’t feele like going into patriot feelings. With many countries it is a tradition of celebrating independence days, and often it is used to stimulate these patriotic sentiments – launching a space shuttle or waving flags, not only in football stadiums – are instrumental to this.
At its basis it is a good thing to celebrate independence – not just as a commemoration of gaining political self-determination, but the quality of an individual, a group or a nation to find one’s own way and rhythm of living – and to accept that of the others without imposing on others what one thinks is right for oneself. Everybody feels the way he goes is the right one, but it is arrogant to think that there is only one way.
Especially in the spiritual realm the respect for the individual – be it an individual soul or a nation – is very high. When we are in tune with our higher selves, we are thinking more from the perspective of the other and try to find out what their real needs are. This goes for nations, too – no ideological or commercial or violent aggression upon others.
Nations too have to attain to their highest aims and live according to it. Living in the light of the soul we are really getting independent – something worth celebrating.

Yesterday evening I got an e-mail from a friend from Germany asking me to send an English copy of the book Mithila. A New Age School Syllabus, by Dr. K. P. Kumar. She is the head of a group called Dem Frieden dienen (Serving Peace) and they are running a website called Youth Forum Mithila, dedicated to further a spiritual education (I reported about it here). She wrote that since she is getting requests from management trainers and other people working with education, also with some groups in Africa, she is planning to do part of the site in English – up to now it is mainly German, but with some articles in English, just go through the navigation). The website has grown a lot over the year of its existence, encompassing now ethical stories from East and West, little reports about youth projects of different groups (under the title “Learning Life”), about Nature and Cosmos (about� the star constellations of a month or on healing herbs, the mysteries of water or the crop circles), not to forget a section with little mathematical and other games and all the chapters of the above mentioned book on Mithila.
I am fascinated by this initiative, since it gives in a fresh way a lot of inspiration to show to youngsters (and those who have remained young or work with children) how to life a modern life with a spiritual perspective.
Although there are numerous activities trying to approach children to an ethical living – here ethical and religious questions is even a school subject – it is my observation that many children don’t adopt it because it is not really linked to life – their lives. So showing practical examples and living spirituality with children might give them an orientation and help them to cross the counter-currents of today’s mainstream way of life.

If you like to see humorous cartoons, have a look at Randy Glasbergens website. The cartoon from monday this week reflects well the “problem” of good-will activity, (see: cartoons from the past seven days) even though it plays in heaven…

Yesterday I got an e-mail from a person to whom I had send the book Spiritual Psychology. He wrote: “May I T U for the last book Sp.Psy …” I first was irritated: ITU? Of course I understood, it was not the first time I got such an e-mail. I know of the no-time-generation using abbreviations as some kind of a shorthand. Ad-language does: “4U”, “B2B”, … Washing away syllables in pronouciation goes into the same direction.
Of course I use in certain contextes abbrevisions, too. However, reducing basic elements of language to cryptic syllables and unclear sounds gives me the impression of a further deterioration of language. My spiritual teacher Dr. Kumar writes in “Mantrams. Their significance and practice“, “Language degenerates as man degenerates.” The degeneration of language is an expression of man loosing himself in the material, and when he re-ascends to spirit, he also develops a sensitive way of dealing with language.