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”

The NASA has just published a timelapse video to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The video shows impressive highlights from the last five years of sun watching, or 1826 days in space. The observatory provides incredibly detailed images of the Sun 24 hours a day. You can see giant clouds of solar material hurled out into space, the dance of giant loops hovering in the corona, and huge sunspots growing and shrinking on the Sun’s surface.

By watching the sun in different wavelengths – and therefore different temperatures – scientists watch how material courses through the corona. They want to understand the clues to what causes eruptions on the sun, what heats the Sun’s atmosphere up to 1,000 times hotter than its surface, and why the Sun’s magnetic fields are constantly on the move.

Looking at the pulsating heart of our solar system, we also have to realise that this is only the outer aspect of the Sun which, according to the Eastern wisdom consists of three different dimensions. The physical Sun is like a lense giving expression to the heart or soul of the Sun, and to the spiritual sun. The new book of Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar about “SUN – THAT I AM” (PDF) gives a profound insight into these subtle dimensions:

“When we think of Sun we need to think of the very consciousness, which is the basis of our solar system. Each one of us is but a unit of consciousness. Each one of us is a micro Sun. The other name for this consciousness is ‘I AM’. When we speak of Sun we speak of I Am consciousness. In other words we are speaking of ourselves. The self in you and in me is no different from the self of the Solar Angel. It is but the same consciousness manifested in different dimensions and magnitudes. The essence of the Sun and us is but one and the same. We are no different from our Sun. Let us learn to see the Sun as no different from I Am. The Veda says, “The Sun I see and I Am are but one.”

Photo from the video (c) NASA

An Indian friend from the States, Vijay, sent me the link to an article of BBC News about new insights of science into the heart of our heart, its inner core. Vijay wrote:

“This is very similar to what we studied from Master EK’s Spiritual Psychology book few weeks ago. Master EK described that the earth used to have its north pole in the sun first and then it had a 90 degree shift and now has its north pole in the pole star. I thought it is interesting that this new research seems to align well with Master’s words.”

The article shows that researchers from the USA and China suggest that the innermost core of our planet has another, distinct region at its centre: The structure of the iron crystals seems to be different from those found in the outer part of the inner core. Since you cannot drill into the centre, which lies 5000 km beneath our feet, the scientists analysed echoes generated by earthquakes to see how they change as they travel through the different layers of our planet. “The seismic wave data suggests that crystals in the “inner inner core” are aligned in an east-to-west direction – flipped on their side, if you are looking down at our planet from high above the North Pole…. The core, which lies more than 5,000km down, started to solidify about a billion years ago – and it continues to grow about 0.5mm each year. ”

We read the book “Spiritual Psychology” in our English online study group. In the chapter “Poles on Earth” it says:

“When the Earth was in its child state, it had its upper pole in our Sun and the lower pole in the region of the then existing North pole. During that period, this Earth was only a half-globe with its one pole, i.e. the North pole. That pole was towards the Sun and the half-globe was going round the Sun with its circular base away from the Sun. At that time a group of intelligences descended upon our Earth from Venus and another group from Mars. Both of them worked out through love nature and those from Mars worked out the interactions of the material of the half-globe. By the time this process was complete, there was the birth of the second pole or South pole. By that time the Earth had undergone a tilt and the North pole deviated from our Sun to our Pole Star. From that time onwards the Earth began rotating with its equator facing the Sun. The tilt was about 90°. This change occurred also in every atom of this Earth globe. Every atom received the two poles.”

The layers of our earth. Source: Wikipedia

Illustration from the book “The Teachings of Kapila“, by Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar, giving the orientation of the earth in its etheric state to the Sun. Kapila is the ancient-most teacher on earth.