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

A friend who started meditating some time ago and is now discovering this new dimension for herself just wrote me: “You know, my husband says to me, ‘I don’t understand what you speak about a light and about spirituality. Are you already a special person?’ But nevertheless he is interested in knowing about it.”

I answered her that in general men have more difficulties approaching spirituality than women, and that this is quite normal. Women are often more receptive and susceptible to the psychic world or to subtle dimensions than men, who are more oriented towards the outside, and often more intellectualizing and sceptic. It is my experience that in spiritual groups there are generally much more women than men. I have come across several couples where conflicts arose when the wife started discovering the subtle dimensions and where the husband didn’t understand what was going on and he felt irritated and went into opposition. I know some couples who thus divorced due to their differences in views and attitudes or where there is a certain constant tension.

Even if a husband doesn’t have access to the spiritual dimension or to a meditation practice , when he is open-minded and accepts that his wife is engaged in spiritual matters, it works. If both practice together, it’s fine – though no guarantee for no crises -, if not, there has to be on both sides a certain open-mindedness to accept the different ways and paces of development.
You might like to read the Lunar Messenger about Woman and Man.

Dollhouse Café Scene

Some days ago I got an e-mail from a friend living in another part of the globe. She wrote me that since she began meditating regularly a few months ago some strange things started happening in her house which were irritating her a bit: water taps started running, her daughter started hearing some strange voices via the mobile and a few other phenomena happened, which were disturbing her. She asked if she is doing something wrong and ended by writing that people in her country say: “These things exist…”

I answered her that there are beings living on the lower planes of the subtle worlds, which might feel stimulated when somebody is approaching their realms. Normally the inner light emerging in meditation, especially through the intonation of mantric sounds creates an energy field which makes these beings depart. It is good not to counteract any such experiences, but just to notice them and stay neutral. These beings can be found more often at places where something not very good had happened in the past. It isn’t necessary to know about it. It is enough to light a light in order to make the shadows go away.

She replied that she thinks the same way and feels encouraged that she isn’t doing something wrong because of these things happening. It might be souls from the so-called purgatory which come for a visit. Her daughters, however, have fear to go to sleep and think that something could happen to them. She asked if there was something more she could read about.

I answered her she could tell her children that these things are o.k., there is no need of having fear. It is probable that what they are experiencing are “wandering souls”, which haven’t detached themselves enough from the material world. They could say “hello” to them, with a positive feeling, to help them find their way to more luminous planes. But we shouldn’t pay too much attention to these phenomena, because this might be distracting for us and for them. It is good to know about these things, but not to go into details with reading more about it, and better do something else. If her daughters experience fear before sleep, they could speak some prayer to the inner Master, to Christ or to some other great being, this would help creating a protective field.

We had been in touch the last weeks with a situation a bit similar, where according to medical people it was a case of a mental disease. As per the phenomena it could be very well understood as an intrusion from the dense layers of the subtle world through an unduely open channel in the inner system of the person. Stabilising one’s life through a righteous, pure way of living and work for the general welfare creates a protection towards these and other shady influences.

“Wandering Souls” – people walking along a lake in Senegal

A friend of mine sent me yesterday some lines describing an experience with the healing power of OM and mantrams:

“One Sunday early morning in May this year, my wife experienced the power of the Word or Song. OM and the Gayatri song didn’t appeal to her the first time I played them. She woke up complaining about a terrible bellyache. She could not move easily, so she stayed up in bed groaning. While getting ready to go the hospital, something happened.

It dawned on me to play the Om and Gayatri song from the CD I got from you while preparing a glass of water for her to drink. Meanwhile I told her to close her eyes and listen to the lyrics and the utterance of sacred sound. Almost 45 minutes or more later she fell asleep and when she woke up the pain had gone. Then she was able to do some chores at home: cleaning, washing up.

She recognised that the sounds she listened to have some power in them. Even my sister-in-law who knows nothing about Sanskrit can’t sometimes refrain from chanting OM, Guru, Shanti… as if it was automatic. Both my wife and sister-in-law said these words have found their way into their memories.
Very often at home I let the music on with OM sound pervading our household and the surrounding.

It is not in my habit of speaking of my experiences, but I deemed it fit to tell you just this. It ain’t no jest!”

You might be interested in reading more about the power of sound in the book on “Mantrams” by Sri K. Parvathi Kumar or Basics of Spiritual Life on “Working with Sound“.

In India, in the Planetary Healing Centre near Visakhapatnam, there is a constant reverberation of OM to purify the entire surrounding.

Last weeks the children have developed a skill to “slip away” from their responsibilities in the household. They tend to leave their schoolbags, skateboards or instruments on the floor right at the entrance. Used plates stay on the table, packing garbage doesn’t find its way into the bin. When asked to clear their mess away, they tend to say, “Yes, I’ll do it in a minute” – and nothing happens. Computer games are much more fascinating than homework, and the latter are started late in the night.

Two days ago my wife felt tired of the Don Quichottean fight, the feeling of running against rubber walls. So she decided to go on strike as per the service in the “Hotel Mom”. She packed the dirty clothes of the children into their room and told them to do their laundry themselves. And she stopped preparing food for them. So yesterday we had breakfast, lunch and a cake – but not for the children. They stayed at first “cool” and were out most of the day.

In the evening the younger one (14) made a “charm offensive” and said, o.k., he’ll clean up his mess and help preparing the dinner. We had a dinner with three – the elder one didn’t yet come back. But my wife didn’t react on the younger one’s demands for preparing some extra wishes. The youngest found this “antisocial”, but tried not to come into the front line. And he did the clean-up of the kitchen.

The other one (16) is living at “minimum effort level” in highschool and at home. He yesterday said he would come home at 8.30 pm, however, it turned out to be 2 hours later, totally wet from rain. At the moment he is still blocking and somehow organising his meals. If “mom on strike” is stronger or his “strategy of freedom” – the outcome is still open…

A friend sent me the following comment: “There were some articles recently in Swedish newspapers on teenagers and empathy. Twelve year olds have great empathy. Then it disappears totally, and re-appears around 18-20. So there is some light in the end of the tunnel :-)”

In puberty the inner roads sometimes seem to be blocked because of reconstruction work.