Last weekend I flew to Barcelona for a seminar and meetings with Dr. Parvathi Kumar. Robert, a friend of mine, picked me up at the airport and I stayed one day in his home. Friday early afternoon we went to the airport for a welcome to Sri Kumar – and several Spanish friends also had assembled there. It was very nice to meet them again – and all were thrilled when Sri Kumar, his wife and travel companions came out of the “arrival” doors. There was some improvised lunch in an airport café and afterwards we drove to the place of the seminar, at the Hotel Campus of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona outside the city, surrounded by forests.

There was a big “hello” at the reception – so many known and unknown faces – and my memory struggled hard to bring faces and names together.

The topic of the seminar was “The Externalisation of Hierarchy”. Although themes of it had appeared in previous teachings, it was the first time that Sri Kumar spoke about this topic – and for me it was very fascinating. He said:

“The book relating to the Externalisation of Hierarchy was dictated to Alice Bailey in 1934, after the First World War and before the Second World War. … This information is only meant to be taken into practice. From 1934 to 2015, it is 81 years, 81 is a sacred number. It is 9 times 9. We spoke on so many themes of wisdom but never this was dealt with. The “Externalisation of Hierarchy” is given for the first time in the 81^st year of the book. The importance of the year is, three times three times three. … The theme came to be 81 years after the book has come. It is significant to this group who have come in large number to listen to this externalisation.”

At first I thought the themes are familiar to me but I soon discovered that new, fascinating facets were given:

“There is a hope of externalisation of Hierarchy, all the new groups around the world would like the Hierarchy to externalise but all the groups, they are the obstruction. We say to the Hierarchy please come, but we stand at the door and obstruct the door. The aspirants work counter-productive to what is planned…. The whole theme relating to externalisation of Hierarchy is the theme related to activation of the throat centre of humanity. Each one has to do it by himself or herself to ensure that all we express through our throat is one of love, of good will and of service. These are the principles of the soul, but the throat centre forgets to speak light all the time. We interpret, manipulate and say things we don’t need and say other things and behave badly…. Every time I speak with conflict we are spoiling the throat and the throat in turn destroys the personality. Therefore it is an age-old teaching: Speak the truth, do not speak truth that hurts others. If you speak the truth that hurts, better speak in a way that does not hurt. … Personality can be transformed through right speech. Through wrong speech the entire personality can be polluted. …

The attitude is very important to be on the path of ascent and to be eventually an outpost for Hierarchy to express: I do what I have to do; I care not what others have to do. When I care to do what I have to do and I care not what others do, you are tending to be the king of your life. That is how all the Masters have been the king of kings because they need nothing from the surroundings. They care for the vertical activity. That should be the attitude of an aspirant aspiring to be a disciple. If he continues to expect is like a crying child. Crying children, we have so many crying children, meaning the humanity, always crying for another chocolate. How can Hierarchy externalise? It is the humans to express. For the higher beings humanity is the personality. We want to join them as the personality of the Hierarchy. The Hierarchy expresses through them. …

Let the energy into you be being a unit of service and when you make the vertical invocation and alignment, the knowledge and will to descend. Then if each one of us can get to this state, we enable the externalisation of Hierarchy. If we are with our personal life all the time nothing will happen. We set our personality before us and that is our problem. The soul would like to be utilised by the higher soul. Kindly think of it when you are more and more related to the higher.

You stand as a personality for the Hierarchy to express into the world the divine Plan. For all that we start with daily alignment in the hours of meditation and daily doing anything and everything as an act of offering….

We have the responsibility to make the earth very beautiful. We are the means for Hierarchy to beautify the planet, the plants, animals and humans. We have destroyed; we haven’t done well with the animals. We haven’t behaved well with the matter, water, fire, air on earth; we have to set it to order. If we vacate the hotel room we should restore it to order. We should not only restore order but beautify it.”

After the seminar a part of the group came for a visit to the house of Rosa and Miquel, where Sri Kumar always comes at the end of a seminar in Spain and where 2 years ago he had inaugurated a beautiful statue of Krishna.

Monday morning we met at the headquarters of WTT Spain in Sabadell for meditation and in the evening there was a meeting in the Casa della Espiritualidad, where Sri Kumar gave a talk on “Art and Spiritual Evolution of the Human Being”. He gave fascinating insights into the role of beauty and feminity:

“To be artistic is to be out of the box. We live in the box of our mind. We define the disciplined way of living; everything is strictly defined, according to order. Orderly way of life is a means to go beyond. Living a straight line and rectangles does not give you much joy. If the straight line has a curve it gives joy. You see the symbol there, of an arc. It is not only an arc, it is triangle. When it is a triangle it is different from an arc. A sphere is the same than a curb. A cube is not giving the beauty of rounding up. All things that are known have an impact in the way of living. Living in rectangles and lines gives you understanding but not experience. Life is beyond line. When you relate to beauty it is a joy forever. A thing of beauty is joy, you cannot explain because it is beyond mind, it enters into the realm of heart. An intellect may understand the surrounding with all the elements of understanding but the heart can go much beyond. Prose cannot communicate what poem can communicate. Life has become prose. There was much music in the past, now music is made to structured music and beats….

When you are trying to take away the beauty, take away art, you are taking away feminity from creation. A flowing hair is a sign of feminity. A cut hair is indication of masculinity. You tend to be more masculine by your attire, in everything you tend to be masculine. Likewise the masculine persons have to gain feminity by adopting to some art. You see how Jesus was growing flowing hair. He was considered a masculine person but when he grew his hair. The males cut hairs and females also take it away. In creation there has to be a balance between male and female. You should make sure to balance. If you are excessively female you add the male, if you are excessively male, you add female. At every plane the male-female has to be in balance….

Shiva and Shakti are in an eternal dance because they are very innovative in their dance; they don’t make copy in their dance. Radha and Krishna don’t dance according to convenience. Bring creativity into your life, that intent is called art. It requests deeper intent in your doing things, better perception. Just instead of saying, I have to do it, you say, I love to do it. This is the art attitude to life. You should have no monotony because every time it is fresh. It can start from brushing the teeth, relating to people. You say good morning with a smile. Tomorrow you smile, no need to say Good morning. That is how you have to bring the feminine aspect, the art aspect into life….”

He gave many more aspects – if you are interested you might ask for my notes. When next day Sri Kumar continued his tour to Valencia and other Spanish places, I sat again in the airplane heading back to Switzerland.

Here are some impressions from the visit in Barcelona.

Last week I was in Baerenthal, in the Northern Vosges, France for the May Call Day celebration. I have been following these celebrations since 1998, and they are always inspiring highlights. The last years the celebrations in the West were no longer directed by Sri Kumar, and so various groups started organising May Call meetings. The meeting in Baerenthal was an international group living with about 40 members from Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland.

The organizing committee already met last Tuesday for the last preparations. We had a look at the location and coordinated the activities of the next days. For the group living we had a beautiful gym with a huge window front to a meadow and the forest. And a second hall for slide shows etc. For me, it was also a beautiful occasion for presenting a number of my paintings along the wall of the gym. Preparing the hall demanded some creativity – the goals and the basketball baskets were transformed into parts of the decoration.

Wednesday afternoon I sat in the sun waiting for the group members to arrive and to distribute the room keys. There was a hearty welcome. Later we assembled in the garden of a friend’s house for a small garden party reception, before we started the meeting with the evening meditation.

As the opening of the group living I did an exercise with the group, “Visualisation of the Directions and the Planets” (: PDF) followed by a guided meditative journey in honour of the great teachers of humanity, which I accompanied by the sound of a singing bowl.

In the next days there was a rich program of QiGong sessions, group readings, lectures on spiritual astrology and the energies of time, healing work with the human aura, a sound ritual, musical presentations and slide-shows…, and, of course, beautiful group meditations. 29 May, the May Call Day, started with a fire ritual. Later we did a cake and candlelight ceremony. In the afternoon we saw a video about the energies of synthesis and a new DVD from a lecture of Master Kumar from last year’s conference in Paris, “A Meeting of Solar and Spiritual Astrology of East and West“.

There was a special highlight at the end of the seminar Sunday morning:  We went to the European Parliament in Strasbourg and did a meditation on European Unity in the very centre of the inner court of the Parliament building, speaking the invocation “We the citizens of Europe strive to stand united” and the Great Invocation. It was a very sublime moment, and then sunlight reflected from the windows into the court. As a close of the group meeting we had lunch outside a restaurant in the old town of Strasbourg.

Here you find some impressions of the meeting.

Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the Greek Hermes; he is the Lord of Speech. Gemini is related to the vocal cords and Visuddhi, the throat chakra. Through the vocal cords, the air connects the inner with the outer space. The word is expressed through our breath by the messenger, symbolized by Mercury. In meditation, the throat centre is also the entrance into the element of space called Akasha in the East.

The doorway of Gemini is symbolized by the two pillars of the sign representing the polarity of seeming opposites or the dual nature of the mind. The colour of the Gemini and the throat chakra is described as a shade of green which produces blue; it has a great healing effect. The crystals of copper sulphate give an idea of this colour.

In this image, you see Mercury standing between two bluish pillars. There is an influx of yellow-green light from above. Mercury wears a hat with two wings, which are depicted partly concrete, partly etheric – symbol of the Messenger of the Gods or the Light; it radiates through his eyes. His face is half light blue, half golden yellow, representing the dual nature of the mind and of the Buddhic plane. His throat centre of bluish-green colour radiates into space.

I created its colour with the help of a photo of crystals of copper sulphate. And Mercury with the help of a plaster bust of Mercury by the French artist François Rude.

24 February 2015, pencils and photo work

A week ago, I discovered the sublime paintings of an artist couple from Moldavia. The visionary painters Evdokia Fidel’skaya and Grigoriy Kabachnyi (born in 1932) work in co-authorship under the pseudonym Grev Kafi. They have created a huge oeuvre of incredibly subtle and luminous paintings, inspired by theosophy and the sacred teachings of East and West.

I took the following information (partly translated with Google Translator) from a Russian website about their paintings with a beautiful slideshow, from a Russian website about Grev Kafi, and from the Grev Kafi Museum project in Chisinau. Thanks to the artists Grev Kafi for allowing me to publish this blogpost and and thus help spreading their paintings.

After graduating from a University of Fine Arts in 1963, the artist couple lived 15 years in Tian Shan Mountains located between China and Kyrgyzstan. They met there the monumental work of Blavatsky and it changed their lives. Later, the acquaintance with the Agni Yoga Teachings (“Living Ethics”, Nicholas and Helena Roerich) gave them another profound inspiration.

However, for a long time, they had to work in secrecy, and the creative efforts of their work was not understood nor accepted, but they continued to work intensively. They lived very humbly, and all the money was spent on the canvas, paints, books, travel.

At the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of the Moldavian government in 1978, the artists moved to Chisinau. Their house is a creative workshop in Chisinau, a real island of harmony which is constantly visited by people from all over the world.

In the late eighties the painters’ art received a rising success, and they began to participate in Moldavian and Russian exhibitions and organised exhibitions of their own. Their creations can be found in many cities of the world and at the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India.

But the real success came when they created a series of paintings on the theme of “The Secret Doctrine”, H.P Blavatsky, the “Living Ethics” and the phenomena of the subtle world, and they recreated the 22 Great Arcana Tarot.

To give an impression of their work, I created a powerpoint presentation (28 MB), here as a PDF (4.8 MB). When I searched today on the web, I found many more paintings of Grev Kafi on a website in Russian dedicated to their paintings, just click on the links in the centre or on the left navigation, and also in the slideshow mentioned above. They are not included in powerpoint.

Many paintings are stored in a old dilapidated storage facility. For their salvation and safety, it is planned to build the “Grev Kafi Museum” in Chisinau, Republic of Moldavia. If you want to support this important Museum project with financial aid or other help, please find more information /bank account details on the website. On their website, you also find a number of videos. Here is the YouTube channel of Grev Kafi and here a collection on Google+.

And below you find a little slideshow with some of the theosophical paintings of the artists and a video. Enjoy!

A visit at their home:

8 May is celebrated as the White Lotus Day, the day of the passing of Mme Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (HPB)  (1831-1891). A day to remember this great messenger of Light who opened the doors of the Aquarian age.

In her “Golden Stairs” she gave the basics of the spiritual path in a short but very profound way:

GOLDEN STAIRS

“A clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness for one’s co-disciple, a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction, a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher, a willing obedience to the behests of truth, a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the Secret Science depicts – these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom.”

Please find here an MP3 where Master EK recites “The Golden Stairs” with a group, first in English, then in Telugu (incomplete there). And there is also a book by Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar on “The Golden Stairs“, also as PDF.

In a lecture given at Munich and published in “Overseas Messages 2” (the book is now also available as a PDF), Master EK answered a question why a woman from Russia was chosen for the great work by the Masters. The answer shows his high esteem of her books “Isis Unveiled” and “Secret Doctrine”.

“Q: Why was a woman from Russia chosen to do this work when there were many Masters in India? Is there any reason?

A: For two reasons. One is from their point of view, there was only one humanity neither Occident nor Orient, and neither Russian nor Indian. And the psychological capabilities which she was having by birth made them pick her up to inaugurate once again a spiritual institution. So because of her very nature, which was favourable to get their work done, that they selected. That is what we understand. I can speak of only these two Masters and whether a person has background or not can only be known by the work he or she has done, unless we happen to be her parent or cousin or brother. As far as I am concerned I am related to Blavatsky only through her works and I find that it is the sufficient reason why they selected her, because she could reflect all that they transmitted upon the paper totally. That capability of having a consistency and continuity of purpose and losing one’s own existence for a higher cause, is the only thing that makes one fit to be picked up.

And when I was studying with my father the books Isis Unveiled and Secret Doctrine, at every step I found sufficient reason, why they selected her, because I could understand the scriptures in the present light of my understanding only by reading those two books with my father. That is my experience with her works.

Until I read her books I was a Hindu. But since the time I read those books with my father, I could understand the ancient wisdom of the scriptures as something different from any religion. And a little bit I could understand the human values different from religious values. If I am able to study by myself the original Indian scriptures it is because of my association with her works. And since the age of sixteen till today, I have been in repeated touch and continuous touch with her works. That is my experience. And I still find sufficient reason why they picked her up.”

Picture extracted from a book cover, on Wikimedia, reworked.

Taurus Full Moon is approaching, a time where abundant sublime energy is available if we attune to it. This full moon is celebrated as the Vaisakh (or Wesak) Full Moon, which is also commemorated as the day of Buddha’s enlightenment. People everywhere in the world celebrate this very special moment.

The exact time (Central European Summer Time – GMT+2) is on Monday, 4 May at 05:42 am. You might do an extra effort of alignment during this time or gather for group meditations during the 18 hours before the exact full moon time. You find some more information about the Vaisakh Festival here. United with many meditators world-wide, you might use the Great Invocation in your meditation.

The Lucis Trust has just published a beautiful video about the meaning of the Wesak Full Moon.

A vision of the Buddha blessing at Vaisakh Full Moon, picture from the video (c)

The Vaisakh Valley in Tibet, behind the Mount Kailash, picture from the video (c)

Dust seems to have an innate quality to expand if you don’t clean it away regularly. In December while we were at the Paracelsus Center in Einsiedeln for Winter Solstice celebration, we noticed that a thorough clean-house was necessary. So we met there again last Friday and Saturday for a spring-clean and for celebrating Aries full moon. I was reminded of the ancient monastic rule of “Ora et labora”, to live a balance of prayer and of work.

Mathilda and I started driving to Einsiedeln very early in the morning. Ice was on the car windows and frost immediately covered them again after scratching. The highway was partly covered with dense fog but we had a beautiful drive listening to the CDs of Yogananda’s “Autobiography of a Yogi” which a friend had borrowed me. In Biberbrugg we picked up Erika and Irmgard. A few kilometers before Einsiedeln the sun came out, and while we were driving the way down to the Paracelsus Center over a partly ice-covered road there was a magic light around the mist-covered hills. And there I noticed that I had left my camera at home… We later used Erika’s iPhone for some digital memories.

Unpacking the cleaning material, a short meditative aligment, then discussing the plan for the day… Erika had very well planned all the work to be accomplished: windows, curtains, kitchen and carpets – and the furniture and pictures… I started cleaning the pictures of the Masters, and discovered they had a layer of soot, from previous fire rituals… In one of the corners, there was a cuckoo clock which after cleaning and some moving started running again, after a few years of pause.

After 6 hours of work the center was shining again – and when we sat down for evening meditation we felt tired but happy.

We spent the night in a nearby hotel on the Etzel pass and went again down to the center in the dark of early morning rain. The Aries full moon celebration started with the morning meditation at the end of which we did an inner fire ritual with the outer “help” of some tea lights. Later after breakfast I picked up a friend at Einsiedeln station.

We later joined again with a small candle ceremony and singing a RAM mantram, RAM being a mantram linked to fire and Aries. I then guided the group through the “Meditative Journey through Life” about which I blogged last week, again a profound experience. At noon we met with another friend in Einsiedeln for lunch and a small rain-walk around the famous monastery.

The afternoon quickly went by with a visualisation exercise and exchange. Meinrad joined us for evening meditation plus water ritual. Before we left again we stood on the Devil’s Bridge next to the Paracelsus Center and threw some flowers and twigs into the roaring Sihl river putting some good thoughts into the river of life.

At the CVV Sharing meeting beginning of Aries I did an experiment with the group guiding it on a meditative journey through life.

Archetypally, our life-span unfolds in a certain rhythmical pattern following cycles of 7 years. In his book on “Uranus“, Dr. Kumar explains: “There is a 7-year cycle with the humans with a grand cycle of 84 years. A life lived for 84 years is considered to be a full life, a fulfilled life.” This is “due to the fact that Uranus functions with the periodicity of 7, for the simple reason that every 7 years he transits a zodiacal sign and completes the zodiacal circle in 84 years.”

Thus, the first 7-year cycle of our life is the Aries period of entering into a new life and starting our self-expression. And the last cycle, from 77 to 84 years, is the Pisces period of completion and preparation for the transition. If you continue after 84, it is regarded as carrying on your journey into a higher turn of the spiral.

Following an impulse received in a meditation some months ago, I outlined a structure for the meditative journey through life, which you can download here in English or in German (PDF). The movement is going back from the Pisces period through the different septennial cycles to the Aries period and then a little bit beyond, to the time of descent into the uterus and of planning the incarnation. Then, we turn around at the point of birth and visualise the unfolding of our life up to the present moment and further beyond, what might still wait for blossoming. Afterwards, we go to the present moment, which is an Aries-point of new beginning, and which was the first day of Aries, when the group experiment was done. From there, we would visualise the seed of the new cycle and the path through the next 12 months. Then we would come back to the present moment and open our eyes.

I invited the group members to relax and close their eyes. For the periods before and after their conscious experience they might intuitively visualise the quality of these cycles, for which I read out a short keynote.

As an expression of the rhythmical heart-beat of life and the undercurrent sound of creation, OM, I kept on intoning a singing bowl, creating a specific “ding” sound when changing to the next cycle. For each cycle I took about 1.5 minutes. The whole exercise took 30 minutes, followed by an exchange in small groups of 3 persons about what period in their lives occupied them most.

It was a very intense experience. While conducting the group, I suddenly started noticing that there was a change in the quality of the atmosphere with every septennial cycle / zodiacal sign, especially when it came to the pre-natal phases.

Several members afterwards came to me expressing that they had been deeply moved by this journey through their lives and especially the moment of touching the pre-natal phases. 2 persons told me that images of a moment of preparing the incarnation came, with a feeling of the plan of their life.

Since it was a a meditative group process, I left it to the members to integrate the experiences of the process into their lives.

Sign                      Phase    Quality
Pisces Time        84 – 77   Completion and preparation
Aquarius Time     77 – 70   Cheerful vastnesses, virgin territory
Capricorn Time    70 – 63   The peak of unfoldment, consolidation and distribution
Sagittarius Time  63 – 56    Sublime goals, implemention
Scorpio Time       56 – 49   Profound transformations
Libra Time           49 – 42  Connections, working together
Virgo Time          42 – 35   Reviewing, reorienting
Leo Time           35 – 28    Establishing one’s kingdom, ruling
Cancer Time       28 – 21   Building the house, preserving
Gemini Time        21 – 14   Equipping, trying out
Taurus Time       14 – 7     Feeling the power, moving forward
Aries Time          7 – 0      Entering into life, expressing

Review at the Threshold Point of Birth:
Pisces Time                     In the waters of the uterus
Aquarius Time                  In the etheric vicinity
Capricorn Time                 Preparation for the descent
Sagittarius Time               Idea and plan for the incarnation

Turning around and prospects at the Aries point of birth
The unfoldment of the flower of life

The Aries point in the Here and Now
Feeling the seed of the new cycle
Envisioning the path through the coming 12 months

• The text in English or in German (PDF)

Intoning the singing bowl

Last weekend on the journey home from the “CVV Sharing” meeting, I made an overnight stop at the home of Doris and Günter, which is also, up to now, the headquarters of WTT Germany in Wermelskirchen. Both friends had also been at the meeting, and since I arrived a bit earlier, I got the key of their home. The rays of a beautiful sunset shone through the windows, and so I took some “good-bye”-pics: They have sold their house and will move to a new apartment in Münster in about 2 months. I particularly love the Krishna statue in the garden – it has been inaugurated by Dr Kumar in 1997 – it was my first meeting with him. Scenes of this beautiful occasion came again to my mind.

Next morning during breakfast, a squirrel jumped around on the terrace eating from the bird fat balls. Then it stood for a while in front of the Krishna statue looking up like praying. I quickly took my camera and made a shot – just before it jumped away again.

I sent it to Tatyana, a friend. She posted it on Facebook and it collected a number of “likes”. An Indian friend, Krishna, asked me if I had more pictures of the statue – and I sent them. They also appeared on Facebook. And then he asked for pictures of the inauguration, which I just scanned. Here is the story behind:

In January 1997, Dr Kumar gave the Krishna statue to group members from Berlin to bring it to the headquarters of WTT Germany. So the statue stayed for a while in Berlin before it came to Wermelskirchen. From 22 to 27 August, 1997, there was a group living at the nearby seminar centre Grosse Ledder, where the Master spoke about “Music of the Soul“, and the magic of Krishna’s soul music. On the last day of the seminar the whole group of about 160 members was invited to participate in the inauguration of the Krishna statue. It was a radiant summer afternoon, and our children loved to jump around the many people in the garden. There was a little shrine in the middle of a small lotus pond with a beautiful crystal globe an the top. Several group members had helped to set it up. Now, everything was ready for a fire ritual, and Sri Kumar and his wife started singing mantrams – the whole group got into an ecstatic trance while we were singing “Klim Krishnaya …” for 1008 times. Then Laddus, Indian sweets, were distributed to all members and food was served – an incredible magic moment.

Soon the statue will travel to its new home near Münster. A young family will come to live at the old place and maybe feel something of the sublime vibrations which have been anchored here in space.

Several times I visited the place over the years I took again pictures of the Krishna statue. You can see them below, together with the photos of the inauguration.

I like singing the song to Lord Maitreya. I learnt it in the WTT about 18 years ago and I remember it took me some time learning it, with the all the Sanskrit wording. I didn’t know, however, where the song came from. A friend, who had asked Dr. Kumar about its origin, sent me the e-mail:

“The Maitreya song was conceived a hundred years ago by an old Theosophist in Mumbai. It remained neglected and dormant until 1985. I picked it up and propagated in our groups, since we are working for the World Teacher.”

You can download the song here (MP3, 9.2 MB) and read the text here. Singing the Maitreya song is a means to connect to his energies.

From the cover of the booklet “Lord Maitreya”