Once Buddha showed a flower to his disciples and asked them to say something about that beautiful flower.
For a while the disciples observed the miracle of nature in silence. Then one of them gave a whole philosophy lecture on the flower. Another one recited a poem about the flower. A third one gave a metaphor for this flower. Each of them tried to surpass the others with his eloquence. The youngest of them, however, looked at the flower; he smiled and said nothing.
Only he had seen it.
Buddha Padmapani holding a flower – from Ajanta Caves, India
We have just entered into the full moon phase of Taurus, which culminates tomorrow at 05:36 CEST. This full moon is considered to be of a particular importance in spiritual circles, being called the Vaisakh (Wesak) Full Moon of Buddha Purnima, the full moon, where Buddha found enlightenment. It is also worshipped as the full moon of Spiritual Hierarchy, the Masters of Wisdom, which are the guiding Light for humanity. I tried to illustrate these central ideas in a painting I did last year, called “Taurus – Receiving the Milk of Wisdom”:
In the Vedas Taurus, the Bull, represents the sound principle. Creation is also called the roar of the bull whose sound fertilises consciousness.The roar, the influx of energy into our system, is coming from Rohini or Aldebaran in Taurus. The bull thus also symbolises the Divine Word which is received by Spiritual Hierarchy in the month of Taurus as the Plan for the year. Allegorically the bull is represented as Nandi, the vehicle of Lord Shiva. Incessantly he looks at Lord Shiva who sits there in the form of a lingam.
So for the picture I took a photo of the constellation of Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus, then placed the head of the bull, from an Indian temple, in the upper centre and on the head of the Bull a picture of Buddha. I made a photo of a lingam and arranged a waterfall on it. Then I placed around it many pictures of the great Masters of Wisdom, with Lord Maitreya, the head of the Hierarchy, and his team of co-workers in the middle. All is done on the background of deep blue, symbolising the energy of Love and Wisdom. The cosmic wisdom is regarded as the milk of the Divine Cow, the universe, and here it is flowing down from the cosmic heights.
You can read hear some inspiring texts from Sri Kumar about the Vaisakh Festival, as a help for your full moon meditation. And the following video shows scenes of the festival in a valley near Mount Kailash, where it is celebrated since times immemorial. So it substantiates that it is not, as has been supposed for a long time, a fanciful idea of esotericists.
If you want to read more about the spiritual significance of Taurus, see here the Letters on Spiritual Astrology. You can also download here the painting in a high resolution.
If you would like to see some outstanding magical performances, have a look at the following videos from Dynamo, a British magician. Excellent, how he performs them at the outside.
But at the same you might realise how they differ from “miracles” done by Masters like Master CVV resurrecting people from death etc. The magical show is just showing phenomena, but the real miracle is the transformation and upliftment of other souls.
In the first video you see Dynamo walking on water and the people are looking aghast. When miracles happened with Jesus, the people told him, you are God. But he used to tell them that he is not God, but a son of God, and that all the people are sons of God. The priests were very much scared and angry about him… The people gathered to see his miracles but not to experiencing his love and his teachings – just very few were interested in the essence. Master CVV said, “Expect not miracles from me. Accept patience and work out every step.”
About 2 weeks ago I started publishing the “Images of Synthesis” on Facebook and Flickr, commenting how they were done (you find them on the Good-Will website up to the recent month, I try to keep a rhythm of publish one new picture per month).
These images started in November 2009, after a painting pause of 19 years, after the end of the “Early Paintings” in 1990, where I thought I would never paint again. You can read here how the Images of Synthesis started from out of an inner opening during a deep crisis. I will go on re-publishing the pictures on Flickr and Facebook with comments over the next months.
“The Hidden Flower – Born Nine Months Later”, 18 Dec. 2009. You can read here and here more about the origin of this painting.
Last week Sri Kumar invited me to meet him on his stop-over from the seminar in Miami back to India. So last Sunday I went to Hergiswil at the Lake of Lucerne. There is now the new location of the seat of WTT-Global at the new apartment of a friend. I took the route via a mountain pass to enjoy beautiful views of the Alps. And the apartment was at a location with a fantastic panorama over the lake surrounded by mountains. The house is still a bit under construction – the door bell wasn’t yet working. I luckily had my mobile with me.
Sri Kumar had just arrived from the airport a few hours ago. I asked him if he was tired and he said, it’s ok – the others were sleeping. After some exchanges I showed him my albums with photos of the paintings I had done in the 80ies and recently digitally restored. With great interest he went through all the pictures and took much time for it. I was very happy about it – at a moment 9 years ago he had saved the photos. And now he said that such gifts of light should never be destroyed but given free.
Looking at the photos
We later turned to administrative questions I wanted to clarify – while the other members of the Executive Board dropped in. It wasn’t planned like this, but it turned out to be a good organisational meeting.
At the end Sri Kumar spoke some inspiring words about relating to each other through communication. I quickly took some notes – they are not literal:
“It is good to stay in a regular contact. It can be a phone call. It should not just be a mental relation, but expressing on the physical plane. When it stays in the mental it can easily become the illusion of a contact.
All we do to the others is done as an offering. Through this a chemistry in the psyche happens, an adjustment. Unless you go through this process there is no transformation. If you escape from it, that chemistry stops.
Our working is semi-physical, semi-etheric. Striving is working beyond what you think you can work. Unless you stretch, you don’t create the fire. Striving is important. Striving, striving, striving. The mind says, I can’t do it. To say I can’t do is refusing transformation. I can do as much as I can do. We have to strive as long as we have breath. To say, it is not possible, is very easy.
Keep contact with each other. It is the easiest thing. If we don’t keep contact, we unconsciously build strong walls around us. Asking, Who should communicate with whom? is ego. To communicate with the others is an act of good will, of expressing love.
Two weeks ago I visited friends near the Lake of Constance. They had organised a seminar with Anton Styger on working with a biotensor, a kind of working with a pendulum, but more balanced. I have been using a biotensor from time to time as a means to amplify the inner sense and for testing the digestibility of food. My wife is more sophisticated in this work; it is of a good help, if you use it with discrimination and in a non-manipulative way. It is a way of interacting with the subtle energies emanating from objects, be they physical, emotional or mental “objects”.
There were about 35 persons at the seminar. We had brought different foodstuff or remedies for testing. Anton explained the differences between a physical or mental use of the biotensor. At first we learned how to calibrate the biotensor and how to prepare oneself. There are quite some things for which you should not use this instrument in order not to get caught in the cobweb of illusion. Best you start by aligning to your soul or the divine through a prayer and work with an attitude of observation.
It was an intense instruction with the help of a script. First we tested the foodstuff – the results were quite definite and with a few surprises for me. Then we learned how to text minerals and vitamins, whether there were shortages, and a lot of different health factors. Then we went into more subtle topics of energetic encumbrances.
In the afternoon we went outside to test zones of geopathic stress, also with the help of dowsing. I’m not at all a specialist in this, but the results were quite obvious. It was interesting to observe that others tested the same way. The seminar gave me a more differentiated way of working with these energies.
But this was just the one half of my journey, the other was the visit of my friends, in whose house Anton also lived. We had a beautiful time together, with deep talks and an evening walk along the Lake of Constance.
Anton explaining the use of the biotensor for outside use
A superb video!! Read by Thich Nath Hanh, chanted by brother Phap Niem. Let the sounds and images transport you to another dimension…. You can download the audio here as MP3.
On Saturday December 11th, 2010 over 1,000,000 children gathered at Dhammakaya Temple, in Thailand, and sang a song, “Let’s come together to change the world”. At this occasion the children took a pledge to do good deeds and to be virtuous leaders. The gathering was in the context of a project for the moral revival of the world was created and initiated by Phrarajbhavanavisudh, the abbot of Wat Phradhamakaya. An impressive assembly. A real good will initiative.
For over 3 months I had been publishing the 106 pictures I did from 1981 to 1990, about one picture a day. I restored them from photos, since the originals had nearly all been dissolved in 1997. Artefacts of the scans had to be removed, the faded greyish colours of the photos revived and some other little mistakes corrected. Now they look fine, as good as possible.
I wrote comments for each picture, explaining the symbolism of the painting and sometimes also in which situation it was created. For me the editing was quite an adventure. Many inner pictures rose up; I again saw situations like through a telescope. And with this long distance I could much better put into words what I had expressed 25 to 30 years ago.
I sometimes hesitated before publishing certain images, they still were very close to me, and to unclose them by publishing was like opening inner windows into parts of my life hitherto hidden. The presentations in Flickr and in Facebook reminded me of an Advent calendar with many little doors into subtle worlds.
It was also very nice to see the “likes” in Facebook that “friends” took notice of the pictures; some were regular visitors or gave comments, which was very encouraging. Thank you, also for the mails. A quote from one of the mails a friend from California wrote me: “I tell students we must praise and appreciate everyone’s gifts (which helps everyone evolve) and we must bring forth our gifts into the Light. It takes courage and it takes Love to do this.” And: “Your paintings are an expression of deepest Love & revelation. This is not given as a compliment. Your essence is in the paintings. Thank you for showing them to the world.”
The story of these paintings has now been told and they are “set free to sail to distant horizons”. I think I will soon begin to tell also the story of the new paintings which started in 2009 and reveal a bit of the backgrounds. It is still an ongoing story.
Part of the “Flickr Advent Calendar” with the Early Paintings.
I would like to share a short personal-impersonal group experience.
Each year when I go to India I order books of the WTT to replenish what has been going out during the previous year with the free book distribution. This year I am traveling along and two days ago the balance of a friend showed that the weight of my exceeded by far the luggage limits.
I listened inside what to do and then informed yesterday morning the group about it. I said, whosoever wants to help taking books and bringing / giving them for May Call in Switzerland in May could come to my room, even if if it is just for one or 2 books. Although all also had full suitcases, many came and took a few books. Now many of the books are traveling different ways and my luggage is again well within the limits… And I feel thankful about this experience.
The theme of the seminar was The Pythagorean Decad – the Cosmic Person in relation to us as the microcosm – I didn’t mention it in the blog, might be too specific of most readers… This morning I had to think of a paper artwork I did autumn 1990. It was about the manifestation of the cosmic person and the macro-micorcosm relation. The work was done with transparent paper glued on the glass of a door and I dissolved it when we left that apartment in April 1992. It shows how from the One the Three come out, then the 5 and man, the microcosm, surrounded by the 5 elements. You can see it as a little visual summary of the seminar. I haven’t published it elsewhere up to now – it’s a primer 🙂
So like the first post on my journey to India started with a painting this last post also concludes with a little work of art. I’ll depart this afternoon and might visit a friend during the stop in Hyderabad.
