Recently a friend remarked, “Why are there only few people interested in the wisdom teachings and in group meetings? Why don’t you do some activity in the public to attract more people?” Some time later, another person asked, “Do you do any get-to-know events or meditation retreats?”

I knew that behind the answers I spontaneously gave there is much more than some short remarks can explain. It is about discovering your path. And about understanding what is your inner urge and that of others.

I told the first person, “Spreading the wisdom teachings cannot be done by propagating them but by way of one’s own inner transformation. And to talk about it, there has to be a searching soul showing a deeper intent.”  Curiosity might be a starter but it needs perseverance.
The second person I wrote about some possibilities of coming into contact, and there was no further reaction. There are many such ephemeral contacts. Opening doors for non-entrants?

For a long time, I thought that it is mainly a matter of informing people to arouse an interest so that they find “the spiritual path”. And with my enthusiasm for the path I was going I wanted to get others interested in it. I identified the path with the movements I was associated with for a while. And in a way I thought  that this path I was going was the right direction also for others. However, quite a number of times I discovered after a while that I needed to change my course and left movements.  With each change, temporary co-walkers stayed behind and new ones came.

It took a long time until I really deeply realised that “the path of the soul” and “the teachings I feel associated with” are two different things. And shifts in my inner orientation need not cause, from my side, shifts in outer associations. On the other hand, changes with the path of friends or close ones need not result in shifts in my inner orientation. This realisation caused some profound changes in me. It happened about 3-4 years ago. Now, when people come to me complaining about things – in society, with others, with the teachings – I inwardly check, does it touch my association with what I am doing or my path? I can respond in a friendly way without taking their viewpoints – and without feeling a need of explaining mine.

The wisdom teachings help me understand myself and clarify my understanding of others and of the greater nature. But if I don’t relate them to myself they are like straw and not corn. Trying to “market wisdom” is like distributing straw or giving food to people who don’t want to “eat”. And what is food for others might not be the same for me.

It needs lot of discrimination to realise what is nourishing for your soul and what you better leave off. And not to leave off the right thing because of what others think. It does not matter whether there are many people interested in the things that are good for me, or for you.

Eastern wisdom knows seven sensitive points, the seven chakras, along the vertebral column and in the head. They are compared to Lord Krishna’s flute with which he is enchanting the fellow-beings. The seven centres are again contained in the region between the throat centre and a point just above the Ajna-centre called the birthplace of Indra. There are seven other centres above the neck, the area governed by Taurus. On the solar-cosmic level, these centres are related to the seven stars of the constellation of Pleiades. The secretions of the glands in that region of the body are called the spiritual foods with which Pleiades feeds the disciple. According to ‘Spiritual Astrology’, the Pleiades are described as the wives of the seven great seers forming the constellation of the Great Bear. They establish a link between the seven stars of the Great Bear and the seven centres above the neck of the disciple.

To visualise these relations I created a subtle form of the head as two oval fields of light. I placed Krishna’s flute as the vertebral column in diagonal, which I created by fusing and transforming pictures of a bamboo and a brass flute and by adding seven white points. I created the macro-cosmic centres of the Pleiades and of the Great Bear connected with rays of light to the head, where you can see the microcosmic counterparts. The seven centres above the neck are symbolised by seven stars linked with rainbow colours to the head.
With the help of a photo of a lingam I created the symbolic representation of the different layers of consciousness and placed them below the flute and above a peacock feather, symbol of Lord Krishna, which forms the background.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Taurus paintings.

29 January 2017, pencils and photo work

Last week I drove to North Germany. An ancient manor surrounded by forests, fields and meadows – for the third time, the seminar centre “Lichtblick” (bright spot) near Hude in the region of Bremen was the scene for the CVV Sharing, a group meeting inspired by the yoga of Synthesis of Master CVV. “Join the blue sky, relating to CVV. / In sky we commune to Be. / To Be One in Consciousness! / Master CVV Namaskaram.” This was the motto given by Master Kumar for the 8th annual reunion, and the weather matched with it – a brilliant sun shone from a blue sky. 19 persons from different parts of Germany, from Denmark and Switzerland gathered for a weekend of meditation and of living together as a group to reinforce the inner connection through the contact with the Master energy.

The seminar centre “Lichtblick”

The meeting around Spring Equinox was prepared and guided by a committee of five members, and various participants took over some parts. The rhythm of a meditational alignment every three hours alternating with group sessions contributed to a vibrant spiritual ambiance. In smaller and bigger groups we discussed our experiences of the thread of life and of building the inner temple. In this, we followed a structured method of speaking and listening, which helped to quickly establish profound exchanges.
There were also inputs about Greek mythology and the astrological qualities of the time, and we discussed how we are dealing with the present challenges in our lives, maintaining a spiritual focus.

Saturday evening there were some inspirational contributions – a video clip on “Aries – Permeation”, some guitar pieces, poetic thoughts. The days concluded with the prayer of Mystic Mantrams, “Dip deep…”

Sharing experiences in the spirit of the yoga of Synthesis of Master CVV

Sunday morning after meditation, the group gathered on the terrace for a fire ritual. Later, we intonated the sacred OM for about 10 minutes followed by thoughts about the annual “seed time”, from Aries new moon to full moon, and a group walk to a nearby forest lake. After the Global Peace Prayer, we exchanged about the future of the CVV Sharing meetings. The participants strongly expressed that these gatherings are very important. They give strength and inspiration and are most uplifting. The seminar centre “Lichtblick” has already been reserved for next year’s meeting, 23 – 25 March 2018. The team of the centre is very supportive and the atmosphere is ideal for our gatherings.

At the close of the group living, Frank, a music teacher from Berlin, improvised on his guitar the rhythm of the names of each group member, taking together names with the same rhythmic structure. It was fascinating to listen to the sounds expressing our names. And in a bright mood we then said good-bye until a next meeting.

Sunday morning fire ritual

The weather report had announced for yesterday sunny weather in Eastern Switzerland, esp. the area of Einsiedeln. But when we drove there to celebrate Spring Equinox at the Paracelsus Center of the WTT – located in a house at the birth place of the great initiate Paracelsus – the clouds were hanging low over the lake Sihlsee.

And the cats in front of the house were warming each other.

We were 5 persons from Switzerland and Austria who gathered for the celebration of this spiritually important time of equinox. We started with a small candlelight ceremony and singing of mantrams and then did a long Equinox meditation around the time of the entrance of the Sun into Aries at 11:28 am. And when we opened our eyes there was sunshine and a blue hole in the sky above the house. The dark clouds still were hanging around the surrounding hilltops.

In the afternoon we did a walk at the nearby Etzel pass of Saint Meinrad. Later we continued with some group exchange. And when at the time of evening meditation the sun set with golden light behind the mountains we all felt again the magic of this wonderful place.

Sebastián Rey Aristomuño, from Lipika Films in Buenos Aires, realized a video clip on the basis of my painting “Aries – Permeation”. Here you can read more about its symbolism:

The ancient Vedic seers described profound wisdom with the help of symbols. They saw the manifestation of a new creation as coming out of a Golden Egg and permeating the different dimensions of space. They visualised the beginning of a new cycle with the story of how the head of the proud Daksha was cut and replaced by the head of a ram, the symbol of Aries, the power of stepping forth and penetrating. They further took the horse as a symbol for the life force and they saw Aries as the head of the horse. The sunrays, the transmitter of life force, are called horses and the seven rays are seen as seven horses drawing the chariot of the sun. The sunrays are understood as permeating space, being at the same time present in the Sun, on Earth and in between.

The image slowly developed while meditating on these symbols and qualities for several days. I took the ram head from the photo of a fountain in the old city of Berne. I placed it into a circle of twelve suns and created a sphere with the seven spectral colours on a starry background of space. In the middle of the circle I placed an egg-shaped form out of which light permeates – a symbol for the Primordial Deep, Aditi, the Mother, which gives birth to the devas, beginning with the Sun-god.

At the lower part of the image I created a fiery sphere around the Sun and I placed seven white horseheads and I added to their heads flames in the colours of the seven rays. I created the horseheads with the help of a Wikipedia photo by “Aleph” showing the Brandenburg Gate Quadriga in Berlin at night.

The painting has been done with the inspiration of “Spiritual Astrology” by Dr. E. Krishnamacharya (Master EK). Sebastián brought the different layers of the image into movement and thus shows the  various dimensions of it. He had already done the clip “The Aquarian Zodiac“.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Aries paintings.

12 December 2016, pencils and photo work

For the completion of his last mission on earth, Master EK chose Pisces full moon day, 17 March 1984, to leave his physical sheath.

Whereas ordinary people tend to get forgotten soon after their departure, the work of incarnations of truth continues to spread. This we can clearly see with the unfoldment of the impact of Master EK inspiring many people all around the globe.

The following links lead you to collections of photos mainly from Master EKs tours to the West: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

As a little souvenir of Master EK’s teachings you find below a short extract from a lecture of Master EK on “To Die is Not to Die” published in “Know Thyself. Overseas Messages Vol. 3.” And two pictures, one of a collage on a card and another of the Master EK memorial room in Radhamadhavam, Visakhapatnam, India.

And here you find the PDF of the new book “Spiritual Constitution” (Overseas Messages 4) with talks of Master EK.

To Die is Not to Die

First of all, understand that there is a continuity of life passing through birth and death just as a string passing through the pearls. Understand yourself as the continuous string of consciousness and compare the bodies with the pearls. The more you begin to establish in yourself, the more birth and death become false. They are only formalities like our sleep and awakening. Every death is given as a renewal of life. Just as every night we sleep only to begin the work afresh the next day. If we fail to do something today, tomorrow we begin to try once again and succeed.

Life is given to us, it is never proposed by us and we have no right to fear death because this body is not ours, it is not gained by ourselves. It is given to us as an institution, as a school, to gain experience and to progress in evolution. We are permitted to live in it. We are not the owners of it. Even our parents are not its owners. The owner is nature and the indweller is the ego who is called ‘the permanent atom’ in the spiritual science. And He has a beautiful story of man which He has to narrate himself through births and rebirths, and which He has to enact, as a drama at the same time enjoying as the audience of the drama also. Others form the drama to Him and Himself is the audience. This drama is enacted. When the drama is completed, all the emotional and intellectual inequalities and animalism are eliminated from us. Then there is what is called ‘divine life’ which gives us the births and deaths. We do not die when we leave the body; we are not born when the body is born. We live with such a continuous consciousness and go on doing the same work from birth to birth. This is the purpose of death. And as the evolution permits us to understand the significance of death, we will have a more scientific and less emotional understanding of death. This is something about the function of death.

Pisces represents the dissolution of an old state followed by a gap and the beginning of a new cycle. The stories of smaller and bigger deluges correspond to the monthly cycles of new moon and full moon or the ending and beginning of the solar year. The Wisdom Teachings explain that the Earth, the solar system and also the universe go through such cycles. There are periodical dissolutions called Pralayas. The seeds of the previous creation are preserved through the “flood” in a vehicle symbolised by a ship, and the Lord in the form of a Great Fish takes the seeds to the new creation.

I visualised the cycle by a circle with a central point, symbol of the Sun. At the same time the central point is also like a Sun from where a stream comes forth. The water of the flood is partly submerging the circle. To this transition point the Great Fish has drawn the boat with the Manus, the seeds of the new creation. The depiction of the Manus was created based on an old Mahabharata illustration of Ramanarayanadatta Astri.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Pisces paintings.

It had been a short night when the bus started to Visakhapatnam airport at 5:30 am on Monday morning 16 January. Some group members directly began their journey home. We were nine persons who, before returning home early the next morning, wanted to make a trip to Kuruvapur, an island in the Krishna River where Sripada Srivallabha had passed the second half of his life, from about 1336 until his disappearance in 1350. We took the first morning flight to Hyderabad.

At the exit of Hyderabad airport my friends Sridhar and Lakshmi with her son Pavan waited already for us. It was the first time I met Lakshmi although we had a lot of e-mail contacts in the past – it was she who brought me into contact with Sripada and proposed the translation of his biography to me. And there was Mr. Subramania Kumar, from a spiritual society related to Lord Dattatreya who would accompany us, for he was very familiar with the place where we were going.

With two taxis and Sridhar’s car we first went to his home to leave there our luggage. Sridhar and his wife offered us tea, coffee and some snacks and then we started – all together15 persons. It was a bit later than I had calculated. And the tour turned out to be long and went partly via bumpy roads. But the time flew quickly by – during the whole journey I had a lively conversation with Lakshmi.

Several mountains were like huge piles of giant pebbles

Sripada statue at the entrance of the Ashram

It was already past 3 pm when we arrived at Panchadev Pahad, a small settlement on the board of the Krishna River. We received a warm welcome at the “Sripada Chaya Ashramam”, where they offered us some food and a few devotional articles. In a huge hall with a shrine a fire ritual was going on. Around the hall there were beautiful new statues of incarnations of Lord Dattatreya and other saints. I urged the group to continue towards Kuruvapur: “We want to visit the island, the time till sunset is running short.”

Shrine inside the ashram hall

Statue of Sripada outside the ashram hall

Lakshmi with her son

Finally we arrived at the river. To my great surprise it was very large – the pictures my friend Robert had taken last year in January showed a shallow stream which they could cross by feet. We now had to take boats. There was a number of huge round coracles. We took two coracles (on the way back the whole group sat in a single coracle!). The ferryman skilfully manoeuvred the boat over the water surface which seemed to be without flow. For a while a water serpent was swimming beside us. The boats had to go through a passage between small uninhabited islands.

For me it was a solemn moment when we entered the island of Kuruvapur. We passed by a small shrine under a huge banyan tree. I heard that the tree was there already at the times of Sripada, in the 14^th century. Through a small gopuram (temple tower) we went into the inner courtyard of the temple. The women were allowed to enter in panjabis; the men had to change the western clothes to dothis, the traditional Indian dress worn by men. Then we were allowed into the innermost part of the temple, the place where Sripada had lived and meditated. All of us felt a strong spiritual presence. Some later described it as a permeating, warm and loving energy. It was very pleasant and stronger than what I had experienced at other places. We sat down for meditation. I quickly was absorbed in profound silence – the outside sounds came like from a great distance.

Small shrine under the old banyan tree

Gopuram, entrance of the temple

Putting on dothis

The statue of Sripada at the Sanctum

Flags on the temple top

Audumbara tree in the centre of the inner courtyard

Filled with this sublime experience, we returned to the river. I would have liked to stay a bit longer but the golden light of the evening sun was already over the waters while we were gliding back to the other riverside. Again some group photos, then back into the taxis and a short stop at the ashram.

Together with Sridhar in the coracle

Landing at Panchadev Pahad

The sun was already setting when the journey back started. 3.5 hours later we arrived at Sridhar’s home in Hyderabad. With warm hospitality, he and his wife offered us a dinner. Around midnight he drove us to the airport. When I finally sat in the plane, I was very tired but filled with a rich treasure of profound experiences. I felt very grateful.

The Wisdom Teachings describe the process of manifestation as a tunnel, where on one side there is the creation and on the other side there is a seeming vacuum, the potential space. This is illustrated by the symbol of the Aquarian pot. It has two openings: from one side you see a continuous downpour of water, but on the other side there is no water coming in. It seems that it is coming from out of nowhere and that some magic is giving birth to the creation.

The waves of the ocean of space are coming from that source in rhythmic, dancing-like movements. The Lord of this vibrating principle in creation is Shiva as the eternal dancer called Nataraja. If he concludes his dance, the creation comes to an end.

For the image, I took the photo of a statue of the dancing Shiva in my study room and created an Aquarian pot with streams of water pouring down. The pot is glowing in violet and blue – the colours of Aquarius. The surrounding arc of flames stands for the sphere into which the manifestation is happening. Shiva is dancing in the flow of waters which unfolds into the spectral colours. He is surrounded by serpent-like forms on a starry background symbolising the vibrations of space. The rhythmic pulsation of space is represented by his little drum on the left side. The globe in the lower background is representing the earth receiving the Aquarian energies.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Aquarius paintings.

8 October 2016, pencils and photo work

Sunday morning 15 January around 5 am we went with a second group of 11 persons to Pithapuram, the birthplace of Sripada Srivallabha. There was not much traffic on the way and so we arrived already at 8 am. I wondered how this visit would be – the first one had stirred a lot of attention, with the presentation of the new German translation of the Sripada biography. This visit would certainly be much calmer…

The driver first stopped at the wrong place – the Kukkuteswara temple (I did not recognise it; two years ago, I had entered it from another gate). Some youth explained to the driver how to get to the Maha Samsthanam, the temple at the birthplace of Sripada.

We had to walk a bit – a motorbike driver showed us the direction. When we reached the entrance, a cow stood there looking with a profound glance. Inside the temple people were going around the sanctum or sitting in the centre or along the walls reading. We also circumambulated the shrine and then sat on benches at the side for meditation. We had no program and I wondered how the day would unfold.

The entrance to the temple at the birthplace of Sripada

A turtle in front of the temple – a profound symbolism

After half an hour a person came and asked us if we would like to participate in the Abhishekam ceremony – a ceremonial washing of the symbol of Sripada’s feet. We agreed. I went to the office to pay a small amount for the ceremony and then sat with the others in rows before the shrine. At 9 am some priests started reciting Vedic hymns and one priest inside the shrine started washing the feet with various liquid substances, mainly curd coloured with kurkuma or other herbs. Our foreheads were decorated with kumkum (red powder) and vibhuti (sacred ash) pastes. Later, we received some of the curd to drink as a blessing. While the ceremony was going on, a dog came and went along the lines – Dattatreya’s greetings.

After the ceremony a priest came and spoke with members of the group. He said he knew that we were coming and that he came because he knows English and wanted to welcome us. He explained us the ritual and a bit about the temple.

Group photo in front of the Audumbara tree with the statue of Sripada

Around 10 am Srinivas, my Indian friend from the States and his wife arrived – I had met him already in Bengaluru. He proposed to show us a place with an old book about Sripada and the Kukkuteswara temple. We followed him. As we were leaving the temple, the motorbike driver was again at the same place where we had left him two hours before. He took Srinivas on the backseat and showed us the way to our bus. Then the two headed the bus and guided us through small roads to a house. It its court there was a small shrine with a place for fire rituals. Inside the house a priest welcomed us and showed us some Sanskrit palm leave manuscripts. He had done a translation of a very old book about Sripada’s life from Sanskrit to Telugu. They showed us a box which contained the old manuscript, and also the Telugu book they recently had published. It was a special moment.

Palm leave manuscript

Showing the box with the old manuscript

Afterwards Srinivas and the motorbike driver guided us to the Kukkuteswara temple. There we saw a statue of the divine Mother, a very old Shiva lingam and the self-manifested statue of Dattatreya, which is frequently mentioned in the Sripada biography.

The portal to the Kukkuteswara temple

A group photo with students visiting the temple

Our group then left for Visakhapatnam. Srinivas had arranged a visit to a Dattatreya temple in Vannepudi, a village on the way back. We drove some small roads over the countryside and came to a village. We arrived at a pond with a statue in the centre. It turned out that this was a temple of the divine Mother. A priest explained to us that it was a very special, magnetic place with a unique figure of the mother standing erect in a fire. He conducted a small ritual and then there was the obligatory group photo.

The statue of the Mother in the pond

Entrance to the temple of the Mother and of Shiva

The priest in front of the statue of the Mother

Picture of an image of the Mother

On the way back we arrived at the Dattatreya temple which had already closed – it was past noontime. But when we went around the temple, some people came with the priest. They opened the temple for us and the priest conducted a ritual and gave us the blessing of fire and flowers.

Dattatreya statue on the outer wall of the temple

The priest conducting the ritual

Group photo in front of the temple

When we drove back to Vizag we all felt very happy about this auspicious day.