Two days ago in the evening my eldest son came back from a ski camp and yesterday he had a strong cold with fever, so that this night he was sleeping in my bed together with my wife and I slept in his bed. In the night I woke up from a dream of which the last fragments I remembered were about Harry Potter and packing books to go to school. Did I pick up thoughts hanging around the corner of this bed?

I sometimes feel like picking up thoughts, impressions or feelings which pop in but don’t belong to me. They seem to come from another person or a situation, and they fade away again when the person is out of “sight”. It’s not just with physical encounters, but also via a phone call, a letter or an e-mail. There is a taste of a quality of the person – it might be joy or sorrow, anger, desire or some power play. Sometimes I mistake these “visitors” as belonging to me, sometimes their echo goes on for a bit longer before dissipating again. If I remain an observer, it helps neutralising the influence. Otherwise I get lost in it for a moment.

I just read in the booklet “On Change”: “Observing change is the means to stay afloat. Non-observation of change drowns you.”

I experienced an anger with an e-mail I received two days ago. In a subtle way the anger was with me until my wife and I spoke about it that the ordering tone in the e-mail had made me protest. There were complex feelings related with it, which, when observed, faded away, and I realised that, without excusing myself, the problem was not with me but with the other person. The feeling then faded away.

In the wisdom teachings the mind is described as the moon reflecting the impressions on its surface. For this you might read the Lunar Messenger on The Play of Illusions. The picture with the reflecting moon is from Tamariu beach, Spain.

Back from a deep and soul-stirring time in India at the group living of the WTT the last 3 weeks. Though I returned already last Friday night, it still takes time to digest all the many deep impressions and also the “change of levels” between very different worlds. It’s hard to describe to “outsiders” experiences from inward and outward processes and events. Just some short extracts from the “Impressions” I wrote for the people who had participated in the meeting, to give you some taste of the ambience:
Early morning the sounds of the nearby temple – wooden trombones, cymbals singing of mantrams – mingled with the counterpoint of barking dogs – created the unique familiar melody of morning awakening….

From the visit of the Simhachalam temple: The bus stopped at the place where nearby a huge banyan tree is spreading its branches and roots over a little sanctuary at the end of the stairway coming up from the valley. Then the stairs lead us through rows of colourful shops with all kinds of devotional articles, along rows of beggars, to the entrance of the temple. We were admitted through the great main entrance and went through the yard into the inner temple. There the atmosphere was filled with the vibrations of age-old recitations of mantrams and of rituals. We approached the innermost of the temple, where a lingam is worshiped, symbol of the creative power of God….

First the road lead us through the immense city of Hyderabad, along mosques, colourful ad-posters of all kind and busy life in the streets, then through a landscape with strangely formed rocks, standing and lying in unlikely positions, like remnants of ancient cities of giants. Then we came through an area with hills and macchia-like shrubs. We had lunch at a little shrine on the wayside where monkeys tried to snap bananas and other food. Finally we saw Sri Sailam lying on a hill, but had to go nearly for one more hour down into the valley and around a dam of the river Krishna.

… After breakfast we mounted an old bus, which slowly climbed up the road for a place about 5 km away. We were told not to take any food or cameras etc. with us so as not to attract stealing monkeys – though this time none showed up. We descended a stair for about 300 meters to a most sublime and picturesque place: There was a shrine with a statue of Adi Sankara, who is said to have meditated here and anchored a great spiritual energy at the place. In earlier times also Lord Maitreya had meditated at this place. A little waterfall came out of a rock wall of about 70-100 m height, protecting the place. At the side of the paved place, directly near the water, there was a huge, old banyan tree with several stems and many air roots hanging down. … From time to time pilgrims came to have a look or Sadhus to take a bath at the waterfall. … The sounds of the mantrams reverberated in the air, uplifting all, purifying the inner. In an exhilarated mood we afterwards mounted up the stairs to the bus bringing us back to the pilgrims’ centre…

Two days ago I got an e-mail from a friend from Minnesota, USA. She is a graduate student in the English program of St. Cloud State University studying creative writing. Since several months she is doing the English translations of the Good-Will “Lunar Messenger” and cooperating with the editing of the Paracelsus- Health and Healing magazine.
She now wrote that she is just celebrating her first publication as a managing editor with the Kaleidoscope, a literary arts publication with a multicultural theme It is annually published through the Write Place at St. Cloud State University, and now for the first time in print and hyper-text. Each year, a graduate student takes charge of the publication, and this year it was her turn. She has contributed some poems and the editorial.
Though German by birth, a few years ago she went to the States. Her shamanist affinity and her reflects her deep inner bond with nature and in part of her poems or the editorial – echos from previous incarnations?
She is an intense searcher and worker, striving towards a sensitive, soul-filled attitude in life. For a long time she has been working to overcome shadows of the past – this motives are also echoing in other poems. On the spiritual path, when the light of the soul is growing, these graffiti-like imprints on the walls of the inner nature are slowly being washed off, so that the pureness of the original state can start shining forth.