On Monday our journey to the south continued. At noon we had a stop for a few ours in Reus at the apartment of a group member. It was a short, but very intense exchange.

A dancing Ganesha with his vehicle, the rat, at Reus

Later we continued our tour to Onda, a little town near Castellon. Since our navigation device didn’t find the street, Manolo waited at the entrance road and we followed him to their home, where he and Tere – and their dog – were giving us a warm welcome. I knew that 16 years ago Sri Kumar had installed a Krishna statue in their garden, which now greeted us at the entrance. The evening was filled with talks and a late dinner.

The magic of the early morning meditation

Venus sparkling in the early morning dawn

Next morning Manolo and Tere took us to a fountain in a nearby mountain area. The boot of the car was filled with cans which they wanted to fill at a fountain. We came to a small village, turned into a side-road and stopped in front of the source surrounded by a wall. Fresh water sprang forth out of five pipes and we started filling the cans. The water had a beautiful taste. On the rock above the source there was a ceramic picture of Mary as the protector of this source. When we were ready other people were already waiting to fill their cans. Afterwards we wanted to go for a walk, but the weather was too hot. So we sat at a resting place in the shade of some trees and listened to some stories of their lives and the music of the cicadas.

We had a beautiful evening meditation sitting in the shade at the Krishna statue. Later we saw a video of the installation of this statue and the first group livings there.

It was fascinating to see different members we knew how they looked like 16 years ago. At Onda they had prepared facilities with beds and kitchen for 20 – 30 persons and there had been quite a lot of group activities. However, in the last years the meetings had stopped and the physical connections had become rare. It seemed as if the distances had become longer. They are continuing with their inner and outer work and contribute to the group work. They are a group of souls living at different places but over all the years they stayed linked on their path.

I pondered on the many ways people work out their inner development and integrate it into daily life. Especially in the evening when we sat together for dinner with the 3 sons who all walk their own ways but at the same time are somehow impregnated by the energy.

Krishna on ceramics and the Aquarian water-pot in the garden – the flow of the waters of life

Yesterday around noon time we went with Dona and Aurora to see the locality of Buena Voluntad en Acción (Good Will in Action), an NGO inspired by the impulse of the World Teacher Trust. It was founded in 1997 and is dedicated to service of the needy (You can read more about its work on their website (Spanish) or (English) in the Annual Report 2011 of WTT-Global). They are doing a fantastic work which reaches over 1000 persons in need. Since 4 years Aurora is the president of the organisation.

Standing in front of the closed location in Calle Roser 99, we could not open the door because the lock had been changed a short while ago and the new key didn’t work – another person had to come with still another key. In the meanwhile Aurora told us the story of how the organisation came into being – inspired by a conference on service of Sri Kumar in Argentina – and how there had been a lot of work and intense crises of group cooperation until a smooth functioning had been set up. We peeped through the windows and saw a bit of the entrance.

The sign of Buena Voluntad in Acción

Aurora showed us the rooms and explained the many activities going on there: Case intake and clarifications done by a professional social worker employed by the NGO, food distribution, job-integration programs, emergency counseling, children programs – there are about 40 volunteers and 3 professionals working with a tremendous commitment, and formation and integration of volunteers is quite a task. They now receive quite a lot of support from official institutions, because their work is more effective than the one of the institutions and it is being recognised by the Mayor of the city; they even received a number of awards, lately over 55’000 Euro, which they use entirely for the help of the needy. They organize concerts with famous artists and again all the intake is given to the work. Nevertheless, Aurora told us that the work is more for them, the volunteers, than for those who receive help, they receive so much, and she strongly feels the presence of the energy of the spiritual helpers behind the scene.

Aurora explaining the work done at Buena Voluntad En Acción

We were deeply impressed by the efficiency and efficacy all this work is being organised by a group of deeply devoted people, the major part of them not being members of the WTT. Lately a high school inquired about their work and now the students are planning a number of  activities to support the work. They were so much enthused when they saw what was going on there. In the first years the help had mainly been addressed to immigrants, but with the economic crisis in Spain more and more Spanish people come to receive help, with changed needs which have to be coped.

We afterwards drove to the house of two friends, a couple living in the countryside, where some other old group members had assembled. The husband is a gardener and both are linked to the WTT since many years. We had lunch together and talked a bit. The lady then showed us their garden and the house, which is one of the oldest in the surroundings and dates from the times when the Moors were living there.

An old olive tree in front of the window

When my wife and I had a nap in the bed room of the couple we felt the presence of some deceased souls and my wife went to call the lady. She explained that she also sometimes feels it and that there are regularly coming some noises from out of an old wardrobe. My wife and I conducted a little ritual to address the souls, and it was a bit difficult, because part of them seemed to be there since long times and dozing in a sleep-like state. And there were other astral elements around. After the ritual it seemed that the ambiance felt lighter.

We then joined the others for a short evening meditation in the yard before we drove back to Matadepera for some other talks – about beliefs and how to overcome them – till late in the night.

An improvised altar in the yard

Saturday around noon time some group members with their children came for lunch, and a big paella was prepared in the garden.

In the later afternoon we went with a smaller group to Montserrat – a mountain with a spectacular formation and very holy energetic centre with an old Benedictine monastery and a cathedral. Our friends told us that they had been there several times with Sri Kumar who had explained that there is an etheric ashram on the top of the mountains. And when we approached we sensed the sublime presence around.

But when we approached the cathedral I felt a bit weird – the statues and the catholic ambiance reminded me too much of my very mixed experiences. of the past. But Dona then told me, “Forget about the past, open yourself to the subtle realms. You can only approach an etheric ashram when you are ready to leave back the material and go into the subtle realms, and there is no longer this heaviness of the past.” So I left my “clouds” behind when we entered the inner churchyard and saw the towering front of the cathedral surmounted by the steep rocks of the mountains. One rock formation looked like a giant “muscle man”.

In the centre of the churchyard there is a big mosaic, and from the centre fiery tongues are coming out of 4 pots, like flames of a fire ritual.

Inside the cathedral there was some worship service going on; a group of mainly old Benedictine monks were singing, accompanied by organ music. We sat down and meditated for a while. I felt like the doors of heaven opening andbeing uplifted to magnificent heights. I sat there for a while enjoying the profound experience. Through the beauty of the experience I could reconcile with the past and look through the crystallized outer forms of the church structures to see the inner light and the many souls striving in these church forms to find their link to the divine. So I went with Dona lighting a candle near the picture of the World Mother in the form of Mother Mary carrying the infant Jesus.

Our little group sat together for a while in the churchyard and then decided to also see the statue of the Mother in the back of the church and the room of silence. And it was a good decision – I enjoyed the many statues of angels; the artists must have been immersed in the experience of their presence.

An alabaster angel

A group of angels playing music

Little angels guarding a lamp

Huge angels towering over the vaults

Angels and the “Holy Spirit” in form of a dove hovering over the statue of the Black Madonna

The Black Madonna

The Arch-Angel Michael fighting with the dragon – the souls fallen / descended into matter

A fire angel outside the cathedral

When we descended to our car we saw some eagles flying over the rocks and Dona said, “The appearance of the eagles indicates that the work to be done has been achieved.” And we saw huge pillar-like rocks with faces like giant trolls of guardians and in the background a little monastery reminding me of pictures of monasteries in the Himalayas.

Two eagles hovering over the rocks

The trolls and the mountain monastery

And when we drove back there were huge black clouds building up over the mountains and we thought that there would be a thunderstorm bringing rain. But all kept dry.

Thursday evening Dona showed us pictures from her tour to Rishikesh and the Kumbha Mela 2010, a great meeting of saints and sages which takes place every 12 years in Hardwar, India. It was very impressive to see these holy men who often live very secluded in the Himalayas. And next morning I was taken on a photo-tour to Mount Kailash and Manasarovar in Tibet where she had been the year before on a pilgrimage tour – very touching impressions.

A naked saint covered with ashes at the Kumbha Mela

Friday the sun didn’t come out so easily from his bed behind the clouds, but when we were taking an early morning bath he finally radiated its whitish light over the waters.

Though there was no wind the seas was agitated and the waves were rolling against the rocks. A statue of Jonathan Livingston Seagull was reminding of the “real seagull within each one of us”. our soul.

In the afternoon we departed together with Dona to our next stage, Barcelona, where we wanted to meet Valentin at the Plaça Catalunya in the centre of the city. At a red traffic light three bike riders appeared behind our car. One was tapping on the roof of the car and gesticulating, pointing to the right back tyre. Dona looked out and there was something wrong. A fourth bike rider, who seemed not to belong to the other 3 told her that there is a tyre repair shop nearby and indicated to take the next street on the right side. The lights turned green. He then disappeared quickly, but stopped again and pointed to the street at the right. I drove on, the other three quickly disappeared. The car started wobbling a bit and I felt that the air was going out of the tyre. When I turned into the next bigger street I had to stop, for we were driving on the rims. At that moment we discovered that we had stopped directly in front of a small tyre shop on the other side of the street which otherwise we would not have seen. I drove in. All the air was out of the tyre.

The mechanic in the shop told us that the tyre had been pierced several times with a knife and that some criminals are attacking tourists like this. They create a situation of confusion and use it to steel things from out of the car. They have to deal with 3-4 such cases per week. We had to buy a new tyre, and while it was replaced we took a cup of tea in a nearby cafe.

Our car with the new back tyre

There were 3 holes in the old tyre. We were absolutely amazed about the inner guidance leading us to this place, how well we were protected and how fast things were arranging themselves again. Just before the “accident” we had been talking about trust and guidance and now we experienced an incredible series of “co-incidences”. I jokingly said, I must have been a street robber in a past life and now experience the bad karma of these times, but is a very soft way.

We then met Valentin and went into a nice restaurant in the Music Hall.

The entrance of the music hall

Valentin is a very loving person who is linked to the WTT-Spain since the beginnings. He now is the responsible of Ediciones Dhanishta and we had a very lively discussion about how they arrange the work – all done by volunteers – of the many publications they are realising. The work has grown a lot and includes now a team of about 40 members. I wanted to know more how they manage to integrate all these persons in the work, and Valentin showed me their way of working. Dona helped as a translator.

Later we drove to another part of the city to see the centre of the WTT-group of Vasantha. Pilar and Cristina were giving us a warm welcome. They showed us the rooms – therapy rooms, but one reserved to group work. We had a short meditation together and Pilar explained us a bit about the work they are doing there. They are conducting group meditations and study groups and are doing a profound, silent work there.

Buddha greeting the visitors at the entrance

We afternoon went to a nearby restaurant to have some pizzas – and afterwards we sat under plane-trees drinking horchata or eating ice-cream. It was already late when we left for Madatepera, about 30 km away. Aurora and her husband Josep had invited us to stay in their house and they just arrived half a minute before us – having doubled us on the way. Again a magic co-incidence of timing. A warm welcome, carrying the luggage to our room and then we dropped into sleep.

We originally wanted to spend just one night in Tossa but things worked out in a different way: After the swim of the evening before my wife got a severe rheumatic attack and could not move. So we decided to stay some more days, probably until Friday. In the morning my wife got an ayurvedic massage and in the afternoon it was my turn. I felt deeply relaxed and vitalised while quick hands were moving over the body and stimulating energy points to release crystallized patterns.

While outside the temperatures were rising to about 39 degrees we felt like in a sauna, but we had a very good time together.

The sun rise this morning, Thursday, Jupiter-Day, the sun seemed to take to the form of Jupiter while his golden rays were piercing through the clouds like the rings of Jupiter.

We decided to go to the beach to have a swim. The streets were still empty and there were only few people at the beach. Dona proposed to first visit the statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom overlooking the bay. in June they had done a meditation at her feet, together with Sri Kumar who had come to visit Dona’s house.

The water was still fresh and a curious seagull was inspecting us when we went into the sea.

After the bath Dona invited me for a croissant to a nearby old café. We had hardly started eating when Anna Maria dropped in, a friend I knew from India, a doctor from Barcelona. She wanted to buy some croissants for her mother who lives in Tossa, and so we sat together for a chat.

After Anna Maria had left we still sat there for a while talking about “strange encounters” with the subtle world when you are open and not expecting anything.

The next stage of our journey brought us to Tossa de Mar, a small town at the Mediterranean coast. It wasn’t easy to find the house with the of our friend Dona, which was built on the slope of a mountain. Small crooked alleyways full of parked cars were mounting like serpents – and we had to go backward a distance out of a dead end to finally find the location. Dona gave us a small welcome and showed us the apartment. A gorgeous view opened – the bay with the little harbour and an old church and castle opened before us.

For over 2 years Dona was now living at this place in former holiday house of her family, having left behind her old life. She had been a lawyer and had gone through a profound zero point, starting then a “new incarnation”. She now is an Ayurvedic massage specialist, a homoeopath and a healer.

Bottles of massage oils

I know her now for a decade; mostly we met at the seminars of the WTT in India. Sitting at the lunch table on the terrace  we had a long and fascinating talk together. Last year she had done a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and in 2010 another to the Kumbha Mela, a big gathering of pilgrims and saints in Hardwar, and she told us about her experiences.

Kailash and a seagull in the living room

Buddha blessing us from the book shelf

Dona said to us that her Indian homoeopathic teacher, Dr. Rao from Visakhapatnam, with whom she is in regular contact, just told her that today they celebrate Ganesha’s birthday. So we enjoyed seeing a Ganesha ceramic in the form of a swastika on the balcony.

The temperature was suffocating, about 38 degrees – normally it should be colder in August, but a warm wind is bringing these temperature from the Sahara desert. We all the more enjoyed a fresh bath in the Mediterranean after the evening meditation. And at the dinner tables our fascinating talks continued.

The night was short, and after the morning meditation we got the present of a magnificent sunrise where the colours were continuously changing.Dona later showed me pictures of sunrises she did on the days of spiritual festivals – an incredible display of Mother Nature’s beautiful veils. Due to some changes in the plans of our journey which we came to know we will stay a bit longer here in this serene atmosphere.

Sunrise this morning over the harbour of Tossa

Yesterday morning we departed from Banyoles. On the way we stopped to see again the magical little park of Les Estunes with the crevices in the earth. Then our journey continued to Olot, a town in an area full of extinct volcanoes. The last time we had been there 4 years ago we had seen some of them. Now there is no time – but our friend Rafael presented to us a “bomba volcanica” – a volcanic “bomb” – an egg-shaped stone formed under the pressure of an eruption eons ago.

A little “bomba volcanica”

The weather was very warm and heavy when we walked over the the home of Karla, the head of the WTT centre in Olot called Chandra, Healing Centre. Karla is an experienced naturopath and a homoeopathic doctor since nearly 2 decades. In the room of her practice about a dozen persons assembled for meditation in the afternoon. Some minutes after the start of meditation a sudden cloudburst started. After a long time of draught finally nature was pouring water on the dry meadows.

A Ganesha picture at the house of Karla

After the meditation Karla explained to me a little bit of her work. She is giving treatments and consultations, and the therapies are for her a way to guide people on the path of spiritual progress. Every Thursday they are doing a healing meditation where the names of persons to be healed are written on papers which later are burned in a little ritual.

After the meeting we went to Joanna, who is living in the same street. Some month ago she had opened a vegetarian restaurant and take-away, the only one in Olot. For a long time she had been cooking for people in her home, but now they have separate rooms. A hard work of setting up the location was lying behind them. They called it “a place of consciousness”. Her daughter-in-law joined us, and she was very fluent in English –  a good help for us.

They were just finishing the summer pause and Joanna showed us the kitchen and the storage rooms.

Joanna in the storage room

I was surprised to see here a picture I had done 2 years ago – a friend had done a card from it with a food blessing on the backside and distributed it to the group members.

Afterwards we went into the city. My wife wanted to by chufas – “tiger nuts” for a Spanish drink called horchata. In a big health food store we found these dry nuts which need to be soaked and ground before being used…

Then we saw another health food store of group members in the old town where we talked with them for a while.

It was nice to see how the different group members integrated their way of living with their activities in society in a very casual way. So you could find some angel cards or feng shui articles between the health food and they were giving nutrition information to those who seek it. We had to smile when we saw a car with the initials of Master CVV in the road where we had parked ours:

A fountain in a little park in the centre of Olot

After dinner in the house of our friend Rafael we dropped into sleep.

Krishna playing his flute in the house of Rafael

Yesterday morning some friends had come for the morning meditation and breakfast, followed by sitting together and talking. In the later morning we went to a nearby village to the house of Teja, an artist whom I met in India in January. She wanted to show me her works – a world of angels and subtle energies, thought she doesn’t give explanations to her paintings, the speak their own language. So also no comments from my side. The photos, however, don’t give adequate presentations of the subtle shades of white, pink, violet and gold (leaves).

At noon other friends from the group of Olot arrived and the afternoon quickly passed by filled with talks.

In the evening after meditation Reyes, an engineer who also had been with us in India, invited me to come to his house. But first he wanted me to show Les Estones – an enchanted treasure of Nature. He told me that for him it is the most beautiful point of the whole area and filled with fairies, and though it was.

A fairy on an information board at the entrance of the Les Estunes forest

There are deep crevices in the ground created by natural processes, and trees are growing from out of the holes.

You can walk through the canyon-like crevices which partly are very small

Looking up to the forest above

The entrance of the ravine

A tree growing through a crevice

We meditated for a while, merging with the silence and the majesty of the place

Tree and rock fusing

An enchanted castle of light

A huge tree at the corner of the forest said to be a special power spot

Afterwards Reyes took me on a small mountain dedicated to St Martyrius, the patron of Banyoles – though it seemed to me that the church used an old ritual place and integrated it into their religious  framework. There were the foundation walls of an old chirch and a stone table like an altar on which 3 youngsters were sitting.

View to the Pre-Pyrenees

Old olive trees – and also almond trees where we took some fresh almonds

View over the Lake Estany where we had been swimming the day before

Finally Reyes took me to his home. After showing me the different rooms of the house we arrived in the prayer and treatment room in orange colour. He explained to me that he is doing some energy lattice calibration technique working with sound and if I would like to have a treatment. Of course I said yes and laid myself down of the floor. He took some tuning forks, set them to motion and moved them over my energy centres of the body, stimulating them with the sound vibrations. Then he starting creating sounds with huge glass bowls and intonated sounds. A powerful vibration filled the room creating a deep relaxing movement in my body. He said he felt some blockages in one part which he stimulated for removal.

Singing glass bowls

When he brought me back I still felt the vibration going on in my inner.

The others were just preparing dinner – late, as usual in Spain. And then I had a look at some horoscopes and we talked until the eyes were calling for sleep.

Yesterday morning after breakfast we started from Banyoles to Girona. We we wanted to meet friends at 11 in the centre of the city, at the Plaza Catalunya. We were some minutes too early, so I took some pictures of the river crossing the centre and the place.

In front of the house

Our friend Mar is a physician and a dentist and her husband Josep a nutritionist. A hearty welcome, and then we went up to see their practice. Mar is doing biological dentistry, her practice is the only one in Girona and she also uses some very modern techniques of pain relief, neuro-therapy. There were not just the elements of a doctor’s practice, but also a number of a bit hidden things of their spiritual work:

Angels playing silent music on the wall. The grand-father of Mar had been a sclupturor making these angels, and Mar’s mother had been painting the sculptures of her father.

Master EK besides the telephone

The hands of Master KPK doing a water ritual besides the dentist’s chair

Ganesha greeting the patients at the reception table – they told me that the trunk of Ganesha pointing to the right symbolises support for spiritual unfoldment, while at most statues the trunk of Ganesha points to the left, symbolising material growth.

On the bookshelves between scientific books some symbols of inner archetypes and the OM

Aswani – the name of the practice Sri Kumar had given, named after the Indian twin-gods and healers, the Aswins. They are represented with horse-heads, symbols of the life force. You discover it in the painting. The whole practice was breathing Aquarian energies of the future. But we were also talking about the impact of the presence, the economic crisis in Spain, which hits many persons here and forces qualified professionals to search for a living abroad. Stories of the drama of an entire country in the clutches of economic recession.

Afterwards we went to their home, which was just around the corner in a nearby street, next to the Savoy hotel. First they showed us the lobby rooms of the hotel, for their house and the hotel are in the locations of an ancient monastery and you still can see the vaults and arcs of the ancient halls and cells.

Looking up the wall. The first balcony is from the apartment of our friends

Old wrought-iron decoration on the entrance door to the house

When we went up to their apartment I had a strange sensation which I thought it must have to do with this place. We first had a look around in the different rooms and in the centre a beautiful small covered inner courtyard where there was the meditation room.

Floating pots of fern in the courtyard

Krishna playing his flute in the little flower jungle

There was the feeling of some locked energies around, and we had the impression of the presence of long departed souls who didn’t move on to higher spheres, stuck there since the times of the old monastery. When talking about it we all had the same sensation and we decided to do a little ritual we had learned from Anton Styger for liberating these stuck souls and a space clearing for the remains of low astral debris. This inner work quickly showed a relief and the energy of the place seemed to become lighter and less burdensome. Our friends told us of other experiences they had with the presence of departed souls, but they hadn’t known how to deal with them. And they explained that in the past Girona had been a place of a number of atrocities in the name of religion and persecution – and when the remains of the old energies aren’t cleared away they don’t dissolve just like that; even if many modern people don’t believe in their existence and don’t have a sensorium for these realities they aren’t less influencing.

Afterwards we walked through the old town of Girona to a small restaurant with Breton pancakes and later had some horchata, a typical Spanish drink made with Chufas tiger nuts), and then again we strolled through oldtown alleyways back to our car. Angels were accompanying our way.

A little angel on the top of an old church

A shop window full of angels

An alleyway on the old town of Girona

In the later afternoon we went back to Banyoles, where our friends took us for a beautiful swim in the lake with a golden sunset behind the mountains, followed by a dinner in the garden till dark night.

Yesterday early morning we departed for our tour to Spain. During 3 weeks we will visit  group members of the WTT at different places along the Mediterranean coast but also in Madrid. Aurora, the head of WTT Spain, has helped us arranging and I had been busily arranging dates and details the last weeks.

In the morning it was cold outside, fog was laying over the countryside creating beautiful sceneries from the moisture of the heavy rainfalls of the last night.

Ready for take-off: A jet engine as a sculpture on the first motorway service station where we stopped for a tyre control.

Our travel companion – a light reflection or some devas at work protecting us on the journey?

The more we came to the south the more the heat was going up, and around 2pm, when stopping at a service station it was nearly suffocating. Some kilometers before the Spanish border the air was full of  smoke – forest fires. Helicopters were transporting water, we were closing the ventilation of the car and just quickly opened the window for paying at the toll station of the highway. When we passed over the pass to Spain all the forests on both sides, directly up to the highway was burned – an eerie scene.

We finally arrived at Banyoles, a little town not far from the Pyrenees, where our friend lives. A hearty welcome, a quick shower and then we had our evening meditation together. Two friends joined us. It was a beautiful feeling of familiarity – we knew each other from India this January and now we were sitting here together intonating the OM, in a vibrant atmosphere.

The friend of one of our friends, an Austrian living in Spain, took us for an evening walk along the beautiful lake of Banyoles where there had been the canoing of the Olympic games some years ago – now a mystical sunset was lighting the scene, while we were walking along an alley of plane trees.

A duck family passing by

Afterwards we were sitting in the garden for dinner till late, talking about experiences of guardian angels and accompanying dying persons, about the growth of the inner  child and spiritual transformations. Though tired from the long journey the magic of this profound exchange filled us with joy until we slipped into sleep.