Last week I went to North Germany, for a seminar with my spiritual teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar and his wife, Kumari-Garu. For 2 weeks they had been on a tour visiting all groups of the World Teacher Trust in Germany, and the WTT-Group of Bünde, North-Rhine Wesphalia, had invited me to come to the meeting with the Master at their. They had worked a lot to beautifully prepare the house and the garden. In the evening of June 18th, Sri Kumar and Kumari Garu arrived, travelling from Berlin via Hamburg and Bielefeld.

After a hearty welcome we had dinner together. Next morning after meditation there was a question and answer session with the Master.

One question was about healing: “We want to work with healing, at the beginning we decide to first heal ourselves before working with others.”
Sri Kumar answered: “First healing ourselves and then healing others doesn’t have to be like that. In our effort to heal others we are healed. You can think of difficult situations on the globe where people are suffering, that can be our patient, where there is suffering on the globe. That is the object for healing. Then you feel that the healing energy is all around. That is the truth. There is the healing energy and then you are there, you can receive into you and transmit to the object of healing through the triangle. In this we don’t use any name, so it can be given to the people also. We relate to the God energy, healing energy. God is omnipotent, so healing is also omnipotent. You can call it healing energy or healing nature or God, whatever. That can enter into you with the view to receive. So you receive into your heart, you transmit it to the object of healing and also link it up to the healing energy. So it gets into you, the energy is transmitted to the object of healing and he is also connected to the healing energy. You can connect to the triangle. With every inhalation you receive, with every exhalation you transmit the energy, and in the gap before you breathe in again, it leads the energy . Like that you can do it 12, 18, 24 times, and later you can link it to the energy and come out.”

After breakfast the Master and Kumari Garu conducted a fire ritual on the terrace of the house. At the end the fire was brought around the house as a blessing. Later the Master gave some consultations, and in the afternoon we departed to Bad Essen, where the summer solstice seminar was taking place.

The group living started with a beautiful candle ceremony, followed by a short lecture about summer solstice and evening meditation. Later in the evening a group member gave a jazz concert with his saxophone.

Next day and Sunday morning the lectures continued:
“What is the magic that happens around summer solstice? The magic is true to some, as true and tangible as our eating breakfast. To some it would be an illusion. These are the dreamers who dream that they have had breakfast. Every question carries its answer in it. Some put themselves into an imagination and feel the related relief, and then they feel much about themselves, but the one who as eaten know those others who have eaten, because they are all around. When the dreamer says, I have eaten breakfast, those who all had breakfast know that he hasn’t eaten breakfast, but is dreaming. Imagination can lead to illusion, when there is no activity of service.
So there are those who experience it really, there are those who experience it through their own imagination and those who carry it as information into their head. They only speak of it to others. Let us experience the visit of the solar Lord in the heart. By tomorrow this time the solstice is around a quarter to 8 European time. This preparation should lead us to re-orient firstly to service, to help the suffering humanity even in a very small way….”

It was a heart-thrilling encounter, with many good exchanges. Filled with inspiration and joy we afterwards returned back home.

One week ago a beautiful thrilling seminar with our spiritual teacher, K. Parvathi Kumar, ended. About 500 group members from many countries all over the world assembled in the beautiful village of Engelberg (Angel Mountains) for the celebration of the 100th May Call Day (see the blogpost about the preparation). Nearly 130 members had come from India, most of them for the first time leaving their country.

For four days there were celebrations, lectures, concerts and presentations, and of course a lot of talks with friends. The common meditations created a strong energy field uplifting all. It was astonishing how smooth everything went. Our team of organizers at first had not thought that so many people would come, and more and more hotels had to be included. We had transformed a huge curling hall into the seminar place, so that there were no problems having enough space for all.

The lectures of our teacher were very inspiring. The main celebration on May 29th was a gorgeous feast with many presents brought by groups for the groups, a mutual exchange of joy. Next day there were a number of musical presentations. In the evening I had a special highlight for which I had worked a long time. I had prepared a presentation, “The Song of Fire. A Journey through Macrocosm and Microcosm” (now also on the website), with texts from the wisdom teachings and pictures I had painted over 2 decades ago and later destroyed. I had recovered the pictures from photos and presented them for the first time to a public. I was deeply moved of this occasion. Many people afterwards told me that the presentation had profoundly touched them. Also after the seminar I got quite a lot of feedbacks. For me it was like crossing a threshold, though I don’t know yet where it is leading to.

Path of Light, March 1982

Dawn over Engelberg

A friend from Spain sent today the following wisdom thoughts in Spanish, which my automatic translation program got over into English, with a little manual polishing:

Although you don’t write books, you are the writer of your life.
Although you are not an artist, you can make of your life a work of art.
Although you don’t understand anything of cinema, your existence can become a successful and extraordinary film.
Although you sing out of tune, your existence can be a beautiful song.
Although you don’t understand music, your life can be a magnificent symphony.
Although you have not studied in a school of communications, your life can become a model report.
Although you don’t have great culture, you can end up being a great sage.
Although your work is humble, you can transform your day into a master teacher.
Although you have 40, 50 or 60 years, you can be as young as you want.
Although the wrinkles already mark your face, you can have an extraordinary interior beauty.
Although your feet bleed in the obstacles and stones of the road, your face can smile.
Although your hands conserve the scars of the problems and of incomprehensions, your lips can be grateful.

An old Mongolian man in his tent drinking tea. Photo of a friend, 2006

In Hamburg, Germany, there was just the 14th German Trend Day. The topic was: “Social Wealth. Share and win”. On the invitation it says:

” ‘Yes we can’ is a motto that heralds a new beginning – and not only in the USA: the “we” stands for hope right across the globe. The ego’s claim to sole power imploded along with the financial markets. The self-destructive desire for self-celebration has been paid for with the loss of personal, commercial and social equilibrium. And it isn’t only consumers and investors who are changing the way they think – companies and states are doing so as well. As the successful chapter of “I” and “my” draws to a close, the search for the “we” is on.’ ”

This sounds very much what the wisdom teachings say, that satisfaction comes through sharing, not through egoistic dominance. A summary (in German) on Heise.de gives some thoughts of the talks: “You are what you share”, said Charles Leadbeater, “Social wealth comes from common interests, common communication, common action and common innovation,” Peter Wippermann explained. And David Bosshart of the Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Institut said that one way out of the lifestyle-crisis of the 20th century requires less consumption: “1. Eat less. 2. Consume less. 3. Throw less away.” And on the Social Wealth website the trend is summarized with the words of Keynote speaker  Lawrence Lessig who believes that, in future, the efficient handling of consumers’ creativity will be key to value creation. Lawrence Lessig is the inventor of the Creative Commons licence, a professor at Stanford Law School and founder of the Center for Internet and Society.

The future will need new forms of consumption, cooperation and living together. Have a look at “Good Will in Action“, No. 12 on Cooperation.

Living together is not just like sheep on a meadow, but focusing on the common ground.

Yesterday my wife and I were in Engelberg for preparatory works for the seminar and celebrations on the 100th May Call, which will start in 10 days. We met there with 3 friends of the WTT, who were already busy in the huge curling hall in the sporting centre to transform it into a seminar hall.

Over 450 people from all over the world will come to the meeting with our spiritual teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar. Since several months there is quite some preparatory work going on, and many details have to be arranged. Most of the work is done by 3 persons, and not much of it seen from the outside.

We had quite a good time preparing the hall. There is a pleasant anticipation around thrilling all involved.

In the mirror at the end of the curling hall.

Cows right in front of the hall enjoying the sunshine in the meadow. The sound of cow-bells was ringing through the air.

I today got the link to the short YouTube-video “Bodhisattva in Metro“. It is a fantistic film without words, showing the contagious influence of a radiant good mood. Enjoy!

From the video

Some time ago I had the experience of a deep, sublime encounter with someone, where I felt a profound touch with my soul. It was a very uplifting time of a flow of exchange.

Through some strange incidences the exchange was suddenly interrupted, leaving back a strong irritation, overshadowing the fine thread of the soul like with a dark cloud.

Last weekend my wife expressed in a drawing what seemed to have happened: She drew two butterflies, expressing the lightful, uplifting experience, and two angels, symbols of the souls. The sublime seemed to have evoked the uprise of a dark layer in us, with a conglomerate of fear, hurt and deception. My wife visualised it with two phantoms, overshadowing the previous experience in a way that even the reality of it seemed to be annihilated and the memory reversed into a poisoned contrary. The souvenir of it became fearful and full of suspicion.

My wife explained how she, in a similar experience, consciously built up again the contact with the quality the first experience had given, in all purity, and at the same time realising the dark side as the phantom without blocking it out.

This explanation helped me a lot. The knowledge of the mechanism of the phantoms gave a visual understanding of the overshadowing experience. It enabled me to come again into contact with the pristine quality of the sublime experience in me, which the first encounter had conveyed. The experience of the presence of the quality is not a souvenir of the past, but a quality present in me I can restore anytime. I enjoy the subtlety of experience, which is independent of the person and even of the first butterfly experience.

Thus the clouded veil got lifted up and the butterfly is flying again.

A butterfly and its shadow, Planetary Healing Centre, Visakhapatnam, India, 2008

Today, like in the previous years, I would like to remind of the great spiritual messenger, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, whose day of passing-over is celebrated as the White Lotus Day, the white lotus being a symbol of highest spiritual striving. The White Lotus Day coincides today with the Vaisakh Full Moon, which is commemorated as the day of birth and of enlightenment of Buddha. It is a good time to commemorate both of them in meditative alignment to the great Messengers of Light. So here are two poems, the first I got today from a friend, the English version of Rainer Maria Rilke‘s “Buddha in Glory”, and the second H.P. Blavatsky’s “Golden Stairs”.

Buddha in Glory

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

Buddha statue in the Planetary Healing Centre, Visakhapatnam, India, 2003

And these are the verses by H. P. Blavatsky

Golden Stairs

A clean life, an open mind,
A pure heart, an eager intellect,
An unveiled spiritual perception,
A brotherliness for all,

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,
Once we have placed our confidence in,
And believe that Teacher to be in possession of it;

A courageous endurance of personal injustice,
A brave declaration of principles,
A valiant defense 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.

H. P. Blavatsky (1831 – 1891)

I today got an e-mail from Spain with a link to a YouTube video about a lecture given by Hira Ratan Manek at Sant Vicens de Montalt in Spain (English with Spanish translation). Hira Ratan Manek (HRM) was born on 12th of September 1937 in Bodhavad, India, and since June 18th, 1995, HRM has and continues to live only on sun energy and water. He has been examined by medical teams in India and the States for very long periods. He explains that more than 3000 people world are subsisting on light. A friend of mine tried it for a while, but stopped again. I doubt whether I will go into that kind of a diet, but it is fascinating to see this demonstration of living with the energy of prana by sun gazing, leaving the materialistic scientists perplexed.

Sunrise, photo of a friend

A friend sent me some days ago an impressive video about a chameleon changing colours, which I also found on YouTube, tought the music there is not my style… I then came across the following passage of my spiritual teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar from a seminar last year in Iguazú, giving us a lesson of the chameleon:

“You may play the role of a human, but you are consciousness. Our real identity is that we are units of consciousness. Each one is a column of consciousness playing different roles. So many different roles, so many false identities. Your original identity is lost. We generally believe what we are not by repeated information and repeated action. That is identifying with an objective situation and becoming that, like a chameleon. Depending on the colours if the surrounding, it loses its colours. You have lost the original identity through the many modifications…. . The purpose of yoga is to gain original identity. That is what is called self-realisation. That is the purpose, and then there is a process of transformation from the present state. We have to transform many states to regain our original state of consciousness.”

Photo from the video (c)