When looking back to the experiences of the last weeks, with the passing of my father and the changes going on in my family of origin, my wife and I were reflecting on what keeps people together and what makes them separate.

It seems that there is always a “third thing” or a “third force” holding together: At work, you collaborate with people to accomplish some job, or with clients, patients etc., who contact you because of some service. In a family you are together because of the relations in the family structure, and if the relation structure changes and there is no more common ground, the family falls apart. If there isn’t a third force, but only an emotional congruence, the relation won’t last. This might be the reason why many marriages fail.

“Birds of the same feather flock together” goes the saying, and this is true for religious people, bankers, disco-goers. People come to the yoga class of my wife not just because of her, but because of the yoga exercises. In our spiritual group people are attracted by the teachings and by the magnetism of the teacher. In my life, I have several times changed the the movement and teachings, and with it there has always been a change of the whole circle of acquaintances. So the relations weren’t on a person-to-person basis, as I had felt, but to a “third thing”, a common interest.

I met people complaining that others didn’t take real interest in them – was it because they didn’t take a real interest in the “third thing”? Some “third things” are of a fleeting character – you have an encounter just for a short time, maybe just once. Others are deep and long lasting. What “third thing” interests are there, going to the deepest core? Where you are meeting the inner centre, in yourself and in the others.

Watching a dawn together at Gemini Full Moon, Mount Rigi, Switzerland, May 99

For the funeral of my father about 150 people gathered in the church, where nearly 2 years ago the funeral ceremony for my mother had taken place. It was somehow familiar and at the same time strange to be among friends and relatives of the family which partly I hadn’t seen for many years and probably won’t see again. I felt outgrown of this world, a heavy feeling of past times, but nevertheless still related with me.

At the beginning of the mass, after an address of the priest, I made a short speech about the life and the guiding ideals of my father, focusing on the transformations which had taken place in his life. The words were meant to invoke the presence of the energies of light to pierce through the dense, heavy atmosphere prevailing at the funeral, and it was for me a very special experience.

The entire setting of the mass and the funeral was very traditional. After the coffin was lowered into the ground of the cemetery, many people came putting some earth and flowers on it and expressing their condolences to my sisters, brother and me. For many it seemed that my father was in the grave, though it was only the corpse. The ideas expressed about the “thereafter” by the clergyman or the people in their letters of condolence were so nebulous and vague as I had known from previous situations in the past. When will they come to realise that there is more to know and to experience about the immortality of the soul?

Later, when reflecting the day, it was like a tidal wave settling down, an energy field taking to another shape. Both parents having gone, the relations will change, giving rise to new constellations. What these new forms will be is still a seed sprouting in the future.

Reflections in a globe at the little pond in the family garden

On driving through the City of Münster, Germany, we saw a red stop sign at a crossroad, and on the bottom of the road sign somebody had written in white letters: Voldemort – “Stop Voldemort”. We had to laugh: The world of Harry Potter was invading the outer Muggle world.

News about the publication in “Der Bund”.

The morning of the publication of the 7th and last volume “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, I had bought two copies, in order to avoid family conflicts. It was a great dive through the book, I was fascinated not only by the dense, brilliant story, but also by the deep occult knowledge interwoven and hidden: The voluntary “death” of Harry and the description of the out-of-body experiences, the offering of his life to save his friends and the community, his dealing with enemies and friends will impregnate the minds of the readers with deep spiritual truths of a preparation for the inward path. Whether the author, Joanne K. Rowling, did it consciously or whether the series of 7 volumes was received by unconscious impression permeating her imaginative creativity doesn’t matter in this. There is a huge impact on the minds world-wide.

In his “Book of Rituals” – written 1967, published 1990 – Master EK (E. Krishnamacharya) wrote: “For this purpose (: a slow and proper understanding of the nature of the mysteries by greater masses of people) some novels will be written by certain induced minds of a Master or a disciple himself directly. Readers of the most materialistic levels will be allured and attracted by the sense of mystery and wonder that surround such plots. They read these books only as imaginary stories, positively disbelieving the truth of the existence of such a line. The impressions that are made upon their mind will work through their subconscious nature and bring the recollection of the past associations of these souls (many of them are necessarily Atlanteans) and prepare the path either in this life or the next. Thus there is a conscious well planned scheme on the line of literature and fine arts.”

A friend wrote me some days ago that he went through harsh moments, when he experienced strange things in his being. He had done intense spiritual practices and breathing exercises for long hours, experiencing an indescribable serenity, immense joy, and a long mental silence. It was as if he was united with the Supreme Consciousness. But then he had a boiling and pricking sensation in his body and a feeling of an unregulated upsurge of “something” like a swarm of impressions along his spinal column. The more he practised meditation the worse the situation was getting, up to the point where he rushed to a hospital. The treatment prescribed, however, did not relieve him conveniently.

I told him that he might have got an “overdose” of vital energy and that it is important to integrate the exercises one does into a continuous routine and normally not do them over too long a period. Otherwise it is like playing with a fire that can cause serious damages to one’s subtle bodies for a long time. H.P. Blavatsky compared it with jumping into a pond full of crocodiles. I gave him some hints how the fire might come down and the energy re-establish a normal, natural flow.

He then answered that actually he overdid things and that now the “hurricane” has gone over, he feels as comfortable as before. He described the practices he had been doing and said he has now followed my advices, cut down some of his practices and took a lot of fresh water. It was not his first experience in which he tried to catapult himself towards a higher plane, in his eagerness to consciously align with his Higher Self to be a good channel for the Divine.

His eagerness of striving for inner experiences, to align with the higher self, is very understandable. However, on a sound spiritual path it is absolutely necessary to establish a regulated, normal routine of life and not to try to “shoot up” into the higher worlds, to unite with the Divine – at all costs. The orientation should be to train oneself to acquire skills and competences in order to be of good use for a work of service and good will. Personal experiences are regarded as “secondary by-products”, but not as the primary focus. Therefore it is of great importance to balance one’s life and also one’s practices, to have a stable stand in the world and reach out for others. The thing is, you realise the side-effects of unhealthy practices often only years later, when they have done damages. In the positive or less positive way meditation exercises are powerful tools for transformation.

My wife says, the fiery striving is like a big summer fire, which has to be reduced and put into a small oven to be of use for cooking. The big fire would only burn oneself and the others. Spiritual progress is not done by “fireworks” of catapulting oneself towards higher planes, but a work of slow and steady integrating the different fields of life.

Picture of a fire ritual

A friend from the southernmost part of Chile, at the Strait of Magellan, who started some months ago to meditate, wrote to me last week:

“You know, during the morning meditations something marvellous is happening. I can recognise the sound of my self, like a heartbeat, like the blood circulation, the different kinds of respirations which I might have. I became aware of the importance that a bit of silence during the daily activities can have. I feel already that this experience is necessary during the day. I can only say that it is magical in every sense, and the most extraordinary is, that you don’t have to look for it neither in the shops nor in the internet nor with friends, for the experience is unique, individual.”

This is a beautiful description of the effect the regular experience of silence starts opening in us. You cannot describe it with words, you have to experience: “Silence is the source of the soul!” (K.P. Kumar, On Silence).

By the way, while we are enjoying summer, in Patagonia it is now very cold and full of snow. A week ago my friend had been with a plane in an area more to the north – Puerto Montt / Los Lagos, which had been colonized 150 years ago by Germans and Swiss – the way of life is said to be still quite European -� and it looks beautiful.

User participation is the big credo in the new online-development called Web2.0. But there are only a few who are actively participating or expressing their opinions.

This week I read an article of Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, (Nielsen is a world-famous researcher on usability, the� user-friendliness of the web, and Alertbox is his bi-weekly column) where he writes about “Participation Inequality“:

“All large-scale, multi-user communities and online social networks that rely on users to contribute content or build services share one property: most users don’t participate very much. Often, they simply lurk in the background. In contrast, a tiny minority of users usually accounts for a disproportionately large amount of the content and other system activity….

User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:

• 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute).
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they’re commenting on occurs….

The problem is that the overall system is not representative of Web users. On any given user-participation site, you almost always hear from the same 1% of users, who almost certainly differ from the 90% you never hear from… Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident in the 90-9-1 rule that characterizes most online communities. With blogs, the rule is more like 95-5-0.1.”

This participation inequality is a general situation in life: in a school class few pupils are really committed, the same it true in a local community, in politics, in environmental groups – or in a spiritual movement. They set the tone and give shape to a group or a trend.

There is always a big group of passers-by or of onlookers – that’s like things are. They might be interested, but don’t take up any commitment. On the spiritual path people who are just interested stagnate, active commitment is the way to progress: “In every way engagement in duty to the fellow beings fulfils the one in all ways and always.” (K. Parvathi Kumar)

See also the blogpost on “A Child Appealing to the UN to save the Future” as an example for committed action.

Passers-by, City of Berne, April 07

Yoga is in – at least doing physical exercises for training the body. The consumer magazine of the Swiss store chain Migros published in their latest number a photo of “New Yoga York” – Silence in the chaos – over 800 people practising yoga on the Times Square to realise inner silence in midst of cars and staring passengers:

And Swissmilk, the marketing organisation of the Swiss milk producers has just launched a summer campaign: “Swiss Yoga“, about wellness and enjoyment with the cow “Lovely” doing yoga exercises and thus promoting “milk gives you strong bones”…

(More pictures, also as screen-backgrounds you find here.)

The marketeers of course want to promote their milk – but do a humorous promotion for yoga as well. And people might not only get to the wellness aspect of yoga as some trendy body culture, but find a way to the inner world. For yoga means union – experiences the oneness with the Divine, the eternal existence. Thus practising yoga is an inner technique of alignment to the higher self and thus for transformation of one’s life. You may like to read more in “Yoga – the Path of Synthesis” of “Basics of Spiritual Life“.

Yesterday a friend from Canada sent me a powerpoint presentation about the extraordinary story of Shelley Yates and her son. I found it very inspiring. Since the presentation was in French, I inserted the English text from her website. You can download it here, or, as a PDF without music.

Shelley Yates and her son had an aquaplaning accident and drowned in a flooded marsh. She and her son were “dead” for fifteen minutes. During that time she was told by beings of light how to save herself and her 4 years old son. And she was given a message on how to heal the Earth.

On the suggestion of the beings of light she is making a appeal for a global healing meditation on July 17, 2007, at 11.11 Greenwich Mean Time, to come together to be as One and heal the planet just as her son had been brought back to life.

She says about this excellent initiative:

“The time has been set for July 17, 2007 at 11:11 Greenwich Mean Time. I have been given no indication about why this date and time have been chosen, but this date has been told to me over and over again. I have been asked to bring together as many humans as possible, throughout the world from every corner of the globe, to simply sit and pray or meditate for one hour during that time. Hopefully, with your help, we will amass a union of humans, such as the world has never seen. Loving humans with one intention – to heal our planet and awaken our souls to our true propose to become one with our Source of Light.

The light beings use the term “fire the grid” when they speak of the energizing of humanity with divine power, on July 17, 2007. They say firing the grid will accomplish two things. First, it will pulse healing energy into the center of the earth and second, regenerate the core, or the heart of the planet. This planned sitting of the people of earth will demonstrate the love and faith we feel for the goodness of our world and her inhabitants. We are the catalyst to the healing of earth. A true believer has the power of ten fold, so if you only think you may believe, know that the faith of the others will boost your own faith and the power will be intensified.”

You can also read the story and more on her website, which has been translated into many languages. Or you can see some videos with her telling her experiences on YouTube.

Some artists contributed beautiful meditation music (MP3) for free, and there are many groups world-wide who will join.

How big an initiative might be – the spiritual work of inner transformation is an ongoing effort and not limited to a unique occasion. A special occasion, however,� might give us inspiration for further aspiration and growth.

A friend just wrote me:

“I have experienced today something special and would like to share it with you. Our oldest son (he is 8 years old) is quite special, he is challenging us very much. … To some extend it can be very difficult with him. Yesterday was again a difficult day: He kept on quarrelling with his brothers, was teasing them all the time and didn’t feel like doing anything. I gave him a book with a short report about Gandhi and told him to copy it on a piece of paper and take it to school the next day.

After reading the content he started asking many profound questions. Today he took the paper to school and it was put on the wall of the classroom. Since then his disposition has totally changed, very strangely. In the evening I looked with him a short passage from the film “Gandhi“: He hardly could breathe because of his concentration: It was a beautiful sight. I will order the autobiography of Gandhi and read it with him every day during summer holidays. I never experienced something similarly with him. His intensity, his affection were nearly frightening. Tonight he nearly didn’t go to bed and wanted to keep on discussing about it.”

The lives of great men and women, especially of initiates like Gandhi, are inspiring examples, which can awake in the soul the aspiration towards the ideals they incarnated. Therefore it is good to read such biographies to give an orientation to the soul.

Statue of Gandhi in a seminar centre near Hyderabad, India, Jan. 2004

I today got a German powerpoint-presentation entitled “Reap as we sow”. When I had a look on the web to verify if there is an English source and if the content is genuine, I saw it had been posted in different versions on many sites since 2001, with and without comments and different titles. Here is one post from the BBC-website (“Where was God on September 11th?”, the text isn’t from the author mentioned there…). Though it is also not just genuinely the text of Anne Graham, the daughter of Bill Graham, as it is claimed, its worth reading. Here a small appetizer:

“For years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman that He is, I believe that He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand that He leave us alone?”

And where the text on the above site ends, it goes on in another post with:

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.”
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace. Are you laughing?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

(followed by “Pass it on…”)

Reap as we sow: Cacao fruits from a floral art exposition