Our arrival at the WTT retreat centre in Visakhapatnam, India, happened to be on the day of Capricorn new moon – or, as it is counted in India, Sagittarius new moon. We were invited to join a water ritual at the World Teacher Temple: In the course of the ceremony water was poured over some lingams -egg-shaped stones symbolising the manifestation of divine will out of the space waters or cosmic ether -accompanied by rhythmic singing of mantrams. Later the lingams were decorated with flowers and with some cream of chalk. It was a very elevating and soul-stirring ambiance to experience the vibrations of the ritual on the veranda under a tree top, the night sky above. Sometimes a few persons from the paediatric hospital next door looked through the windows – a peaceful and totally normal scene hard to imagine in a European setting.

Decorated lingam at the end of the water ritual

After the ceremony was over, some delicious rice was distributed as a “Prasad”. Then we left with some Indian friends to the compound of Mithila East, where we participated in a New Moon meditation. At Mithila East there is a free school of the WTT for fishermen’s children plus a free homoeopathic dispensary and a vocational training centre.

The brother of our spiritual teacher explained to us the meditation structure: Visualising Mount Kailash, the spiritual centre located in Tibet, which is said to be the dwelling of Lord Shiva, the embodiment of divine will, with Lake Manasasarovar in the back, representing the quiet mind, keeping on looking at Mount Kailash and receiving the energy of the assembled Great Ones and distributing it to the surrounding, especially to people in need. The profound silence of the meditation elevated all to the sublimes spheres of the no-moon time. After the meditation three beautiful panorama photo posters of Mount Kailash were given to group members, and I received one for our group.

Tired, but filled with serene peace we returned back to the centre.

View of Mount Kailash, photo of a friend, summer 2005

Yesterday an express parcel arrived from Venezuela. I was surprised, but then remembered: Friends of mine, a couple from Caracas had announced a week ago they would like to send me something. I had met them 2.5 years ago at the marriage of the son of our spiritual teacher in India, and it was a hearty meeting. Though they don’t speak English and I no Spanish, we had some contact from time to time and they like reading our monthly newsletter, El Mensajero Lunar.

The content of the parcel was a beautiful little work of ceramic art inspired by Latin-Indian tradition: A serpent-bird, made out of an involving and evolving line. I was deeply touched by this gift, for it is a profound occult symbolism for the descent of spirit into matter and of the ascent back to the spirit. The Indian symbol of the Feathered Serpent is depicting the same truth and is regarded as a symbol of an initiate. You might like to read here more about the “Mystery of the Serpent” from our Lunar Messengers. The serpent descending the tree in paradise and tempting man with the sensual experience (apple) is half part of the story. As long as we live in matter, we are regarded as creeping snakes. But when we start upon the path of return, we move up again and the serpent becomes a winged serpent, just as you see in the symbol of the Caduceus, the rod of Asclepius which is still used by our modern doctors as a symbol of healing (though the wings are unfortunately missing – a sign of the state of modern medical art?). “The tongues of the serpent become the wings of the eagle” it says in Spiritual Psychology meditations of Dr. E. Krishnamacharya, thus being the symbol of the unfolding Kundalini energy.

I put the picture of the serpent-bird on the wall at the entrance of our apartment, so that it might be a constant inspiration.

The serpent-bird of involving and evolving currents of energy

Asclepius, the great healer-initiate. Photo: Epidaurus, May 2005

A few days ago I got a Christmas-letter with an end-of-the-year review of an old class-mate. He has done an extraordinary career, being since some years the head of Munich airport (Germany’s best airport manager 2007). In our youth we had done some bicycle tours through Germany – to Frankfort, Hamburg and Munich – and in later years he had been in responsible positions at the respective airports. A strange preview of destiny. In spite of his management career he remained somehow very normal, authentic and humorous.

I haven’t seen him the last 11 years, I have rarely been at the annual class meetings, since youth I have felt strangely not at home in this world we had shared in your youth. While a number of my class-mates had done quite a professional career and are well established in different niches of mainstream society (doctors, university professors, lawyers, consultants…), my focus had always more been on exploring the inner realms – though not neglecting having a sound footing in a bread-giving profession which I like. I had felt somehow speechless in mainstream social contexts and their ways of associating – concerts, holiday tours, parties, arts, and the like.

Over the last years I increasingly broke the silence about the inner journey – which also reflected in outer journeys, like regular tours to India for seminars with my spiritual teacher. I noticed that by now an inner ground had grown on which I can express myself much more freely and explain about inner processes and give an understanding. To this had greatly contributed the work with the monthly newsletters about the wisdom teachings, which found an expression in the public talks on Meditation – Experiment and Experience given during the last months.

And so when I replied to the mail of my old friend, I wrote to him much more about what had been going on on my spiritual path than I would have done some years ago. In his letter he had mentioned a famous German sculptor, whom he had visited and who will make a sculpture for Munich airport. The sculptor told him about 2500 kinds of steel, having different qualities. I told my friend that very similarly you develop a sensorium for subtle dimensions, when you work with it over the years, a sensibility which is not possible to convey to someone else who hasn’t developed the related inner instruments.

It is fascinating to observe how these inner tools – called anahkaranas in the East – develop over the years. It is nothing spectacular, just a way of dealing in a clear way with situations, a deeper way of perceiving. It is just the same way a scientist or an artist develops his skills over the years – only that the field of investigation are the inner realms. For those who don’t know them, they remain an unknown continent.

Blue landscape with Bernese Alps. Some paths lead into far away worlds. It says that Eskimos have 20 different expressions for snow – a subtle differentiation coming from a more refined perception.

I yesterday had the chance of seeing the draft of a website of another country’s group of the spiritual movement with which we are closely connected. It made me think of how different people express their spiritual stances. Whereas I feel more sober and, unlike in earlier years, prefer clear, unemotional and down-to-earth presentations, others have a more flowery or romantic attitude and also prefer for web-design a more baroque depiction (“web-baroque”). I remember times in my life where I myself was attracted to more devotional expressions, but these have faded away and given rise to what I experience as a stronger stringency or consistency.

One of the new year’s greetings I received yesterday was from India, showing 3 photos of white statues covered with flowers from a ritual. I try to keep the stance of an observer to what, in the critical part of my mind, goes into the category of kitsch or overladen imaginations. But I know that judging closes the doors of perception. I have participated in rituals which on the outside seemed to be thus pure devotional emotions, but where for the inner eye there was a strong spiritual energy present magnetizing the whole atmosphere.

How to give an expression to beauty? How to express most sublime energies? Much certainly depends on your own cultural background and / or your projections. If you see just the surface, you easily get lost in your own superficiality.

Angel silently meditating in a shop window

Everywhere in the city little forests are sprouting – fir trees, often carrying little electric candles – christmas trees (and this in spite of the Bali-decisions to fight deforestations 🙂 ) The powerful impulse of seeking the light of the soul, the birth of the Christ within, is like being diluted and scattered into many reflections all over: Not only all the shop displays are in the Christmas ambiance. People are busy with preparing gifts or decorate their houses with lamps – an outer  reverberation of the inner light. The main streets of the city with their garlands of lights are in a festive outlook.
There is more impetus behind this gigantic activity than just a traditional commemoration date.

I wrote for the text of the Circle of Good Will Christmas Card: “The light of the higher mind is described as a flame of Manas (the mind principle) which comes down into us and which is called the birth of the saviour in us. The five-pointed star symbolises this light. It can transform us into an enlightened being, if we prepare ourselves appropriately.”

Last Sunday at the afternoon walk at the beginning of the Emmental, we saw some nicely decorated farm houses. The Christmas-wake has got them all. Here are a few impressions:

The five-pointed stars “landed” near the entrance door.

A painted stone with some Christmas scenery in front of a house

Another painted stone with Christmas motives

And on the windowsill some snowmen

Wooden candles burning

A collection of 6-pointed stars, wooden squirrel and a Santa-Claus lamp

An arrangement of 6 pointed and 5-pointed stars

And finally a Christmas tree with 5-pointed stars next to the entrance door

I wonder whether they know about the deeper meaning of this symbol of the stars…

Last Friday we had the last evening of the series of evening topics on Meditation – Experiment and Experience. 11 Persons had come, and again there was another quality of atmosphere: Somehow a kind of group spirit had formed, there was a familiarity which had not been there before. I spoke about The Importance of a Teacher on the Path:

Without guideposts or a map you can easily get lost on the way. (See the blogpost on Guru Phobia or the Need for Guideposts.) The wisdom teachings give us an itinerary of the journey. And a teacher helps, gives information and support.

A teacher who knows the way and can explain it to others is called „Guru“ in the East. Today the term is totally distorted. For us, a guru is a wrong teacher and a deluder. That is why many don’t accept any teacher and prefer making their own experiments; out of ignorance they make many detours. Some therefore pretend that teachers or masters of wisdom don’t exist.

A teacher or a master becomes visible for those who are seriously seeking to realise the self. Many are searching in vain, since they are not willing to take the first small steps to right living. We spoke about true and wrong teachers and how to distinguish between them, about guidance from within and about experiencing the presence of the Great Ones. This can give us help from sources which we cannot touch by ourselves.

It is important to get an outline of the journey and understand the goal, but then work with the next step lying ahead of us:

“Man can overcome all hindrances if the goal of his journey is clear to him. When he sees the Light in the distance, he will pay no attention to the hardships of the journey. He will not count the steps to this Light, for it shines also in his heart.”
(Supermundane III, 634)

Dawn on Mount Rigi, Switzerland, Summer Solstice 1999

I discussed with my wife the observation of encapsulated feelings. We have met several persons where there seem to be locked emotions, which block the free flow of energies (see the post on “Filling the Love Leakage“). It seems that losses of dear ones, hardships of destiny or severity against oneself are at the roots of such encapsulations. Seen from the outside there seem to be walls in certain inner areas, where you cannot touch the core, or the person is trying to evade situations of contact with deeper feelings. So it is difficult to come into a flow of exchange.

At the same time there seems to be some mirroring of these blocked energies or fears: In the contact with the person you might get similar feelings out of a momentarily reflection, and you might feel irritated, not realising from where this vague cloud of discomfort comes. In retrospection you might realise that it wasn’t from yourself, but from the atmospheric ambiance. When you are in a receptive mood you are more prone to such infections.

As soon as you link up again to your higher self, you get out of this contagious mood and back into the flow. By linking to the inner awareness, the soul, you also help the other person to break through his or her encapsulations and come again back into the flow of life. My wife remarked she witnessed that this opening up of encapsulations might lead to overwhelming feelings, but afterwards normally a new balance is found.

Yesterday there was an article in the Swiss newspaper Der Bund about an esoteric fair in Berne, which is going on at the moment. There was a quote about the organiser saying that “esoteric is slowly getting adult”: He had cleaned-up the kinds of exhibitors and didn’t want to have people who are trying to manipulate others: “I don’t want to have here all the guruism” – instead he wants to show that “spirituality can be rooted to the soil” and must not be aloof. So at the fair there is now a number of spiritual craftspeople, besides healers, channels, tantra-or Reiki teachers… Of course the article writer doesn’t miss to out herself as “sceptic”…

The commercialisation of esotericism results in funny products. When you consider that originally esotericism was a way to explore one’s higher self, it now is a field for all kinds of psycho-softy’s gadgets.

What the fair organiser, together with many others, dismisses as “guruism” is maybe the pivotal point on the path. Just like you need a teacher in school or when you study an instrument, you need a guide, a “guru” to be able to advance beyond a certain point. You need a role model for orientation, monitoring and correction. Of cause the number of pseudo-gurus and sectarianism have caused a phobia in our society. But what you fear is often where you have a sore point – the absence of reliable guideposts. This lack makes many people even doubt their existence.

In the East the guru or teacher is compared to a magnet, an his presence – not the physical – helps with meditation: “The presence of the teacher transforms the student, as a piece of iron is magnetised in the proximity of a magnet.” This presence is neither an external influence nor the personality or the physical presence of the teacher, but his inner realisation. You might like to read the Basics of Spiritual Life on The Teacher-Student Principle.

A guidepost in the Emmental, Switzerland, November 2007

Yesterday at my office a colleague gave me an article to read. It was a talk which one of our heads of the Red Cross had given on the occasion of the release of a book about Professional Solidarity on the World Volunteer day of Dec 5. The book has been financed by a Swiss association of fire insurances. The talker, a theologian, presented a brilliant association between volunteer work or donations to a good cause and fire insurance:

Volunteers help other people, often with the perspective of getting something good in return, at least a good feeling. Also people giving money for a good cause mostly do it with the perspective of getting a better feeling. They are hoping for a better hereafter, so that they don’t land in the purgatory fire. Thus doing good-will work or giving donations is in a way some kind of a fire insurance.

The wisdom teachings tell us that the purgatory is not a world hereafter, but the plane of unsolved emotions, desires and reactions on our doings. You can experience the effects now as well as in the time between the passing and returning. There is a beautiful passage on the purgatory fire in the book Fiery World 3, § 69, from the Agni Yoga series:

“There is no mightier purgatory than earthly life, if all the potentialities of the spirit are intensified. Likewise there is no mightier hell than the earthly infections of the spirit. To affirm purgatory on Earth as a beginning leading to the Subtle and Fiery Worlds is a problem of the purification of consciousness. All strivings of humanity for knowledge of the Invisible World should impel the consciousness to take up the thought of purification, which will continue the earthly path to the Fiery World. Only the concept of oneness of the path will impel people to live in beauty, and to depart this life as wayfarers continuing their journey. When the World will apprehend this indissoluble bond with the Subtle World, purgatory will then take its rightful place in Eternal Truth.”

Picture of a Fire Ritual, Delphi, Greece, May 2005. Fire rituals have a purifying effect on the subtle bodies, see the book on Agni – The Symbolism and the Fire Ritual“.

My wife yesterday said that she had observed something like a “love leakage” with several persons: They seemed to be unable to go into a nearness to a friend or a partner, and it seems that it had to do with a feeling of not being accepted themselves. With some there was a problem with their father or mother in the past and one didn’t have a father. Though many years since their childhood had passed they tried to avoid closeness or expressing affection. This strategy of avoiding somehow spills over into different areas of life.

My wife described how some “miraculous” changes happened, as soon as they started establishing a conscious contact with their soul, the higher self: On very deep levels there were transformations happening, and they started coming into a flow. In one case the changes were quite dramatic. Psychiatrists and psychologist who had been involved in a related crisis hadn’t been able to reach to the point. The “magic” of the soul, however did.

It needed accompanying and guiding the persons to themselves, to get confidence into their own inner essence. The problems couldn’t be changed from outside, but from within.

Master EK says in his Spiritual Psychology Meditations: ““Have a friend in yourself, be a friend to others.” And Master KPK beautifully describes the power of love, which is the power of the soul, in his booklet On Love: “Love heals. It needs no intellectual techniques… Love transforms… Love is the sleeping energy in every being. When Love awakens, there is no self-control! The SELF flows…”

White-waters in the Pochtenschlucht in Kiental, Switzerland