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.”

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.

This morning my moped suddenly started to roar – the rust had eaten a hole into the mouth of the tail-pipe. With a lot of noise I continued to my office. On the way home in the evening I took the direction to a motorbike mechanic. When I crossed the bridge from the old town of Berne to the other side, I saw an old steam engine tramway going along, an extra-ride blowing white steam into the air.

The tram was quite slow, so I could easily double it with my moped. I stopped and took out my camera, but it passed by a bit too fast. I drove on and made some shots from the moped and then a last one from the side of the road, here they are.

On the plate of the engine you can read it’s from 1894. I thought about the incredible speed-up of technical evolution in these 114 years. In esoteric parlance this is a result of the starting Aquarian age – though in mainstream society they are laughing it off and give other kinds of explanation concepts.

A few minutes later I arrived at the motorbike shop, where just 2 ladies were returning from a test drive with latest models e-bikes – a new generation of city transport means getting quite frequent here.
And in the newspapers and on the web I saw today pictures of yesterday’s show of the “fusion man” – a Swiss pilot who, with small airofoils and little turbines on his back had given a demonstration for press people, flying at 300 km/h over the Alps – another air of the Aquarian wind.

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

Today is the White Lotus Day, in commemoration of the passing-over of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, also called H.P.B., the great messenger of spiritual wisdom of the 19th century. Till today she is much disputed, mostly by people who  haven’t prepared themselves for understanding the teachings. She had a fascinating life full of extraordinary venturing. Some years ago I published a little brochure, “H.P.B. – Trailblazer for the Aquarian Age” (PDF). Her Opus Magnum, the “Secret Doctrine“, belongs to my daily reading, one page a day –  I find it very uplifting, though not easy to read. My spiritual teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar, has given some seminars about the book, which have opened an eye for a deeper understanding. He also has published a little booklet called “The White Lotus” (online version), about the symbolism of the lotus.

There is also another jubilee today – this is the 500th blog-post, which started on March 31st, 2006. With the time blog-writing became a favorite pastime of mine. May the inspiration continue.

A third anniversary today is the 180th birthday of Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross movement. In his commemoration we celebrate the World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day today.

Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891)

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

Another project focusing on promoting the awareness of unity is “run4unity“, an initiative of the catholic Focolare youth movement present in 182 countries. The initiative calls itself “youth for unity”. “Run4unity” is a worldwide relay race as a sports event to promote and build peace together: On 10th of May 2008 they make the run at places all around the globe from 4pm to 5pm in the respective time zones.

They start at the time zone of the Pacific island of Fiji. At 5pm, by means of an internet link, they will pass the “baton” on to the next time zone. Over the course of the next 24 hours, the baton will pass through locations of every latitude and in each location personalities from the world of sport, culture, as well as civic and religious leaders will participate.

The sports activities will take place in locations symbolic of peace, or near areas of conflict and war, or in places of strong tension. The activities are linked together through the website “teens4unity“. May the awareness of unity find deeper roots than just an emotional feeling of a joint action for a short time.

They write: “We are Christians but also belong to other religions and cultures that do not profess a religious creed. We are united by one goal: to make universal brotherhood a reality by involving many other teenagers in the world in this project.”

They had done a peace race in 2005 with the participation of over 100.000 teenagers in 340 cities of 89 nations.

A flower arrangement at a fair in Berne, last Sunday

There are quite a number of initiatives all around the globe, which stand up to foster the awareness of unity. Yesterday I came to know about two interesting activities. I’ll present them in three blogposts

The “ONE WORLD AWARD – the Prize for ‘One World’ ” was launched recently by a German health food company Rapunzel. Its founders Jennifer Vermeulen and Joseph Wilhelm have sponsored the 25.000 Euro cash prize to honour the visions and achievements of individual persons. Their contributions and projects that have the goal to make the world a better place. People who give examples of positive globalization using innovative ideas and dedication, people who make the future worth living. The prize is awarded every two years. The jury is formed by Tewolde B. G. Eghziaber, Director General of the Ethiopian Environmental Protection authority, Vandana Shiva from India and member of the Club of Rome, and Alberto Lernoud, a journalist, poet, activist, trader and true pioneer of the organic movement in Argentina.

A very encouraging prize initiative

A flower globe at a fair in Berne, last Sunday

Last week I saw an article in the latest number of a German web-marketing journal about measuring user engagement on websites. The question which occupies the marketeers is: How to get people into an engagement, for example on a website, and start to do something.

The marketing specialist agree that it is most important to incite engagement, but it seems to be quite difficult to measure it: If you can quantify engagement, then you can put a price tag on it and benchmark the reactions you get, invest in raising the level of engagement and the like.

A comment in a blogpost by “Scobleizer” (Robert Scoble, the ex-Microsoft “evangelist”) from 2006 entitled: New audience metrics needed: Engagement, lists, what engagement is about and what might be measured:

1. Reactions (they heard you)
2. Learning (they understood and retained)
3. Transfer (they took in the information and can apply)
4. Results (they use the learning to achieve a goal)

There is a lot of discussion about this topic on the web, but these simple lines very well hit the point of engagement, also in the context of wisdom teachings – though measuring is more than strange in this context: Many people hear something about the inner path (point 1), some get interested and start reading about it (point 2), and this for a longer time.

A few of these transfer it into a practice (point 3) and start training themselves. Of these few again a small group really commits itself to continuous engagement, taking up a regular schedule, combined with some kind of service activities and diving into a deeper understanding of the teachings with studies.

Many quit their initial engagement half way through or get lost in some side-track or the other. In the Eastern scriptures it says, out of 1000 one person changes from one level to the other – from hearing to getting interested, to starting practice, to getting into engagement. So it is 1000 x 1000 x 1000.

The percentage of those who set upon a focused spiritual journey along the guiding lines seems to be very low (marketeers would be very much frustrated…), and hopefully it scores a bit higher. But it also says that the goal of a spiritual teacher is reached, when he finds a fistful who really apply and reach the goal and take up the torch of teaching themselves.

Have a look at “Basics of Spiritual Life” on “The Teacher-Student Principle“.

Which way to take with engagement – turn to commitment, or pass on, or stay undetermined?

I read today an article about a meeting of German newspaper publishers on April 16, where they spoke about the interaction between print and web. Norbert Bolz, professor of the TU Berlin said to the publishers that the battle going on in the internet is the battle of reputation: People are confronted with a tremendous amount of information which they cannot assimilate, and the newspapers help them to orient: “They decide what is important and unimportant. Nothing is more important in the 21st century than discrimination.”

What gives the guideline of discrimination? Who decides about what is important and what can be left away?

The situation is the same on the spiritual path: there is so much information around, that people get irritated by this and easily get lost in sideways. Some therefore prefer staying in belief systems they somehow have outgrown, like those of the mainstream churches.

Orientation by reputation might be helpful, if the authorities are farsighted and knowledgeable. Otherwise it is dangerous – the blind following the blind man.

Who are the authorities, what determines the right kind of reputation and who is creating it? In the case of orientation on the path into the subtle worlds the mainstream is of no avail, for they blind out the inner dimension of reality. The media as such seem to be ignorant of the signposts to the path of light. The same is true with the academic persons. They cultivate the intellect, but not the heart, the doorway to the higher worlds.

Discrimination is a quality of the soul, of the Buddhic plane of light. He who is centred in the soul knows how to discriminate, and more so if you have learned it from an enlightened teacher. In India there is a saying that the one who has found a wise teacher who has realised what he is teaching is really blessed.

You might want to have a look at our powerpoint presentation The Importance of a Teacher on the Path, from the series on Meditation – Experiment and Experience. It is also available as a PDF file, though not animated. There is also the number from Basics of Spiritual Life on “The Teacher-Student Principle“.

Picture of a Buddha statue at sunset. I took it last year in the garden of the friend.