Saturday morning after meditation, there was the final meeting of the big group.  Sri Kumar presented all the organisers of the group life – 13 couples, mostly the second generation of the WTT, had carried out the work:

“Their parents have been associated with either Master EK or me during the last 40 years. They grew up in a spirit of service, got married, secured their job and also have children. The Indians believe in greatest importance of education and to settle in society. Then they think of marriage and it is all carried out by 35 years’ time – the first cycle of Saturn. They do not set the cart before the horse; they make sure that they are good enough to pull the cart and then set out to enjoy the life in a good manner. They grew well in the presence of Master EK and later of me. They are very well oriented to service. They have the good luck of not being selfish from childhood because they have the touch of the hierarchical teachings and the hierarchical teacher. Whenever we relate to this 2^nd generation group, it is always full of the spirit of offering and service.”

Then the Master presented his entire family that had accompanied him on this journey.

As an expression of thanks, the group offered to the Master and his wife Kumari-garu as traditional gifts coconut and clothes. For the closure of the group life, Sri Kumar spoke the Group Invocation: “It is for the group protection, group sharing, group enlightenment and ensuring there is no malice between the members of the group.” A beautiful and profound group life thus came to a close.

Normally, with a superficial glance, you might think of such group livings as easy-going, but when writing these lines, some challenges and obstacles group members had encountered came to my mind:

A dear friend who had planned to come had to change plans and flew from the US to India because his father just had died at arrival in Kumbhakonam for May Call and my friend wanted to assist his mother. Another friend fell at Frankfort airport on a moving stairway, broke some bones and had to stop her journey. Another friend had to return home during May Call due to severe pain; some time before, she had broken a number of bones when during skiing she dashed into a tree instead of into her daughter. She nevertheless came but had to go to a hospital even during May Call. Many caught a cold or even fever during the group life or on the journey back. Another person, when helping with cooking for group members burnt her hands in boiling oil. Some friends could not come from India because the American embassy did not give them a visa. Many had to struggle to overcome financial or private difficulties before the journey. And many group members did great sacrifices to help making the May Call celebration successful.
Such group livings can ignite profound spiritual aspiration; they give strength and determination for continuing the Path.

One group member, a dear friend aged 85, wrote me that he will stay at Mount Shasta until mid-August – he is determined to climb to the top of the mount ( 4,322 m) and is training hard. He just wrote, “I was today at over 3000 m”. Strive to the top!

Friday 31 May morning Sri Kumar spoke about the importance of attuning to time and time cycles – it was already his last discourse of this group living. Some extracts of my notes:

“The whole creation is carried out in tune with the time plan. Time holds the key to involution and evolution, to the law of alternation, pulsation, periodicity, the law of expansion and contraction, emergence of life and mergence of life into itself. All laws are contained in time and therefore time is the ultimate remainder which remains after and is before creation. The birth, growth, completion, regression and conclusion of a creation are in tune with time. There is a time plan to every being, to the planet, to the solar system and to the creators of solar systems, the Prajapatis, to the cosmos. All happens according to time, time is the ultimate terminator… Nature cooperates with those who cooperate with nature; time cooperates with those who cooperate with time. Normally we expect cooperation instead of extending cooperation. Cooperation is the most cherished value in hierarchy; it is the fundamental spirit of brotherhood…”

While parts of the group were going on another excursion to Mount Shasta, we later in the morning had a short meeting of the Executive Board of WTT-Global with Sri Kumar followed by a meeting of the Board of Advisors – discussing topics concerning the development of the WTT. And after the evening meditation there was the annual General Assembly of WTT Global.

Sri Kumar: “The World Teacher Trust groups all over the globe constitute the soul of the World Teacher Trust, and the organisation stands as a personality for the expression of the activity of the World Teacher and his team of teachers. The work is carried out in the organisation with least rules and regulations. Much freedom is ensured for the soul while personality is kept flexible in the sense that the personality shall not condition the soul and the soul has a free play with the personality which is the essence of the teachings of the Hierarchy.”

In the hotel where I was staying, the McCloud Hotel, there was a room where Guy Ballard (pen name “Godfré Ray King”) lived in 1930. He is the founder of the “I AM” movement. In his book “Unveiled Mysteries, Vol. 1″ (Download PDF from this page) he describes how he met another hiker who identified himself as the Count of St. Germain.

On 30 May, the group made an excursion to Crater Lake in Oregon, about 260 km from McCloud. The lake formed in the caldera of Mount Mazama after a huge eruption about 7700 years ago. It is one of the deepest lakes of the world (about 650 m) and there are no rivers flowing into or out of the lake.

In three buses and a number of cars we drove through a beautiful, spacious landscape. My roommate Mark took me and the two friends from Denmark in his car and we enjoyed the sprightly conversation.

The roads along Crater Lake were mostly closed because of snow but the access from the West was open. We walked a bit along the rim of the crater surrounded by steep slopes and looking a bit like a huge chalice where heaven and earth meet. Although people were talking and busily taking pictures you could feel a profound silence and sanctity in the atmosphere. The buses arrived a bit later – the group had brought picknick for all of us.

When on the way back approaching the Mount Shasta area, there was a short and intense hailstorm. We stopped for some time at the side of the highway for evening meditation. Afterwards, a beautiful rainbow formed over Mount Shasta like a bridge to heaven. I couldn’t take a photo – the battery of my camera was down… But here is a beautiful one by Mathilda seen from Shastina – Mount Shasta would be in the centre.

McCloud is a small town in the south of Mount Shasta, and its dancing hall had been transformed into the venue for this year’s May Call Day celebration, the 110th one since Master CVV received the energy of synthesis in 1910 and started distributing it. And all of us had followed the call. About 350 group members had come from different parts of the globe, from India, Europe, and the Americas; many of them had been accommodated at different places in the surroundings and were transported by busses to the hall.

It had been quite a challenge for the California group to organise the event – its members are mainly IT specialists from India living around Silicon Valley, about 300 km away. A tent had been set up as a dining hall and in another tent was the kitchen – everything was well organised and run smoothly, with Indian and Western style food…

Tuesday morning the May Call group living started with the morning prayer at 9 am followed by some welcome greetings and the first discourse of Sri Kumar. Here is a short extract from his second discourse on May Call day:

“Master CVV is a Master of contraries; if you want one way it will be the other way. ‘I want it this way’ – immediately he says thank you; it will never be the way you want it but it will happen. You go with your very narrow understanding. Keep the mind open and look at the input. Newcomers come and find themselves highly in confusion because they think it should be like this. The Master said, why should it be like that?

Expect the unexpected, is the message of the Master. You wish a beautiful ambiance here to experience the ambiance of Mount Shasta. For how much time? There will be dark clouds, heavy snow. I will get messages: ‘They are presenting to me an Alfred Hitchcock movie’ and they think, the Master is like this. I told my family, it is mostly warm there in May; the Master said, ah, is it? I bought the warm clothes in a mall and the moment I bought the clothes the weather became warm. This happens with the Master. To him May Call is more important; the weather is not so important. We had so many May Calls with so many weathers. He wants us to become friendly with the elements by presenting the contraries to you. The first thing is, your life gets into a crisis. Touch the Master and get the crisis.”

Afterwards, there was a group excursion. First, we visited the Sacramento River headwaters. On a nearby meadow, we formed a huge circle and sung some mantrams. Beautiful sunshine shone on the place and for some moments, a white seagull came and flew very low inside the circle, like a messenger from above.

Later, the group went to a place at the foot of Mount Shasta to enjoy the presence of the mount and take some group pictures.

Afterwards, we drove to the upper, middle and lower falls of the McCloud Falls. I got a ride with my room-mate Mark and two friends from Denmark. We did a little excursion down to the river and sat for a while at a beautiful place at the confluence of two rivers.

In the afternoon, there were some book releases and distribution of gifts brought by group members. There were two new books with lectures of Master EK, a book with teachings of Master Kumar on the Secret Doctrine by Mme Blavatsky and the second volume with teachings by Master Kumar on Occult Healing, in German language.

I was particularly happy about the release of the English version of the biography of Sripada Srivallabha, an avatar of Lord Dattatreya. It had been a long way of several years to prepare this English version, after the German translation.

Friday morning the sky was clear and there was a majestic dawn over Mount Shasta. After morning meditation first sunrays painted the snow on the mount with rose colours. And with the rising sun the mount put on a light scarf of white clouds…

Later we drove via Medford airport through wooded areas to Crescent City at the Pacific, where we stayed for two nights at the hotel Lighthouse Inn near the harbour. The Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in the north-west corner of California is preserving several groves of old growth Redwood trees. When walking along these giants, we felt in a dream-like state – I was reminded of the Lothlórien (meaning “the dream flower”) of Tolkien’s land of the elves of the “Lord of the Rings”.

Saturday morning, I had a walk along the harbour, where some sea lions were resting on swimming pontoons. Later, we went to the historic Battery Point Lighthouse. It was just low tide and so we could walk over by feet.

We then drove along the rocky coast and saw more impressive redwood forests and some moose on “Elk Meadow”.

Sunday morning, we returned to Shastina, relaxing in Chuck’s house. The others of our travel group would stay there during the May Call seminar; I went to the McCloud hotel with Marc on Monday afternoon. He was my room-mate during the seminar. Marc is from Seattle Theosophical Society and we had intense exchanges during our stay.

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The hall was now well decorated, ready for the May Call celebration. And by and by group members arrived – many hugs and warm welcome greetings. Very intense days were about to start.

Wednesday morning we enjoyed seeing some deer on the terrace of Chuck’s home. Also many birds enjoyed the birdfeed.

After shopping in the nearby town of Yreka we drove to McCloud. We had a look at the empty dancing hall – much work would need to be done to transform it to the May Call venue a week later.

Afterwards, we went way up to the “Bunny Flat” at Mount Shasta. The road ended there in high snow. And the mount was hidden behind clouds.

At Mt Shasta City, you find old hippies and new age people… We had a good lunch in the Berryvale Grocery – natural foods. Then we stopped at Soul Connections (“a golden age emporium” with lots of esoteric pictures, statues, crystals and other material). While walking through the store, we were surprised to meet Srikanth and Murali – they just brought new books of the WTT to the shop and were on their way to McCloud for preparing the hall of the May Call celebration.

The next day after some errands in Shasta City, we went to the Sacramento Headwaters, a strong source in a little forest where the water from Mount Shasta gushes forth.

Later, we saw the middle falls of the McCloud Falls. There, an old gentleman told us to go and see the Burney Falls, a little farther away.

We did a walk along the falls and the river – impressive beauty of nature. Later in the afternoon we drove up to Castle Lake, which was still partly covered by ice and snow.

Next morning, 19 May, after breakfast we said goodbye to Murali and his parents and started the journey to Yosemite park. It was raining – a rare thing during this time of the year.

The hills along the wayside were shining in yellow colour – the grass was dried out. We passed along huge farmland – long kilometres of trees, all artificially irrigated: almonds, olives, apples, strawberries in plastic packing… The extensive farming seemed to quench every possible profit from out of the soil.

Slowly the Sierra Nevada was approaching. The road was climbing up. We passed through forests and hills with skeletons of trees left over from forest fires. At noon time we made a stop in Mariposa, an old gold mining town, for lunch. It was cold and raining and the ladies did some pullover shopping.

In the early afternoon we reached the place of our stay for the next two nights at the Yosemite View Lodge at the Merced River near the El Portal entrance to the Yosemite National Park. The weather had cleared up and so we did our first tour into the park. The steep cliff of El Capitan, a tall granite monolith, was partly veiled by clouds. The awe-inspiring Bridalveil Fall seemed to gush down from heaven. We stood for a while in its spray. The meadows along the Merced River seemed to be a magic playground for elves and gnomes.

Early next morning, after prayer and breakfast, we started our second tour to the park. Although the park rangers warned of snow on the higher roads (the roads were free), we set out to Wawona and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias.

Free shuttle busses were transporting the visitors inside the sequoia forest area. It was breath-taking to walk along the huge trees which are upto 3000 years old and have withstood the vicissitudes of time – cold winters, hot summers, forest fires – and the times of woodcutters before the area was transformed into a park. The majestic trees radiated a sacred ambiance; deer and grey squirrels moved through the fresh green still partly covered with snow and a radiant sun shone from a blue sky.

Next morning, however, it was again grey and raining, and so we decided to make a short visit to the Visitor Centre and the nearby Yosemite Falls and then start the long journey northwards to Mount Shasta.

There were dramatic cloud formations over the Sacramento River valley and it was getting already dark when we picked up Chuck’s car from Redding airport. When we approached the Mount Shasta area the mountain was deeply veiled with clouds. At it was already night when we arrived at the home of Chuck at Shastina.

Today three weeks ago, my journey to California and to the May Call Day celebration at Mount Shasta started. In a few blogposts, I would like to share some impressions of this intense time. It was a pilgrimage to sacred places and sanctuaries of nature and above all to an inspiring group living with about 350 members from various places around the globe.

I could not participate in the mid-May group living with Sri Kumar in Miami followed by a sightseeing tour organised by WTT America.
However, Chuck, an American friend and a retired professor of psychology, had invited three friends and me for a tour through Northern California.

On 17 May, I flew with Mathilda from Zurich to San Francisco; Birke and Astrid came from Frankfort, and Chuck picked us up at San Francisco Airport.
They way through the customs went faster than we had expected, just 2 hours. Soon we were driving southward on the freeway 101.

The sun was already setting with a beautiful Taurus full moon shining over the hills when we arrived at the estate of Anu and Murali in Morgan Hill – a spacious garden with flower terraces and lots of roses and a beautiful huge villa on a hill.
Anu had invited us to come to their home although she was at the seminar with Sri Kumar in Miami. But her husband Murali and his parents, who had come from Visakhapatnam, gave us a warm welcome. And slowly a long day of 33 hours came to an end.

It was the night of the Vaisakh festival, and so we tuned into the energies with a profound morning meditation.

Later in the morning, our travel group set out to Monterey. I avidly absorbed the impressions of the beautiful landscape. In Monterey we made a stop at the harbour. It was an open day of the national Marine Sanctuaries. We had a look at a ship of the coast-guard which was surrounded by seals and seagulls.

Later we drove along the coast and walked a while through the wet sand of the bay. Old wind-torn cypress trees overlooking the rocky coast decorated impressive views over the Pacific Ocean.

After lunch in a huge whole foods market, we drove to a nearby mountain. A winding road led through lush vegetation until we arrived at a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery hidden in a forest next to Mount Madonna County Park (Kim Son Monastery 574 Summit Rd, Watsonville, CA 95076). Clouds were hanging deep and created a mystic ambiance. A retreat was going on in the monastery and so we could not have a look inside. At the parking there was an enclosed depot with huge statues of Buddha, Quan Yin and other saints – east meets west.

On the way back we stopped at a huge old tree standing in the middle of a crossroad and tuned into the energy of this old messenger of the plant kingdom.

Three weeks ago, I returned from this year’s journey to India. It started already six weeks ago, at Christmas. This time, I did not write any blogposts – I was still a bit groggy from my time in hospital and a heavy cold I caught in Bengaluru. However, it was a beautiful time with profound teachings and rituals, interesting exchanges with group members and some excursions into the surroundings.
It started with the December Call celebration in Bengaluru. End of December we flew to Visakhapatnam for the seminar with members from the West. It started on 1 January and ended on 9 January. This year’s topic was “The Ashwins – Healing Devas”. About 70 members from various countries of the West participated.
There were two excursions, one to Hamsavanam / Ramadri, an environmental development area with a school for poor children, a garden with sacred trees, and a meditation centre amidst small temples. The other to the Annavaram temple, which is located south of Visakhapatnam.
Before the start of the Guru Puja celebration we visited, like in the previous years, the Simhachalam temple, this time accompanied by Master Kumar. It is a spiritually very vibrant temple on a hill above Simhachalam. Then followed the 3.5 days of the Guru Puja celebration, which are always very intense, filled with rituals, presentations and exchanges. The days were long and the nights were short. It is a kind of intense inner cleaning and charging of the batteries.
When on 14th, 15th January we set out for our journey’s home, we all felt filled with profound experiences.

From 5 to 8 July, the 4th group life of Sri Kumar 64th tour to the West took place at Platja d’Aro at the Costa Brava in Spain. After Iguazu and Rio, I joined again the tour. At Barcelona airport a friend picked me up, together with another friend from Hamburg. The seminar hotel was located on the tops of rocks with a fantastic view over the coast. (For me it was a special souvenir – in October 1972, when I was 18, I went with a friend in an old Volkswagen to Spain, two weeks before I started studying at the university. We had no idea where we would land; it was the camping site next to the hotel where now the group life took place.)

At the group life, we were about 160 participants, mainly from different parts of Spain, but also from the USA, Germany and Switzerland. It was again like a “family gathering” with many friends and intense exchanges, and of course the discourses of the Master. The topic was “From Devotion to Synthesis”. Here is an excerpt of one of his lectures:

“We emerged from One. This unity is regained by those who are tired of seeing the diversity. When you keep on seeing the details – on the way you get perplexed and lost. This idea of getting back is what is making humanity to think of synthesis. In earlier times a physician had a good knowledge of the entire body.
Today there are specialists due to knowledge of different parts of the body. There are doctors of eyes; they do not care for the nose. There are doctors for the nose, for ear, nose and throat, for nervous depressions, for human psychology, for children – every limb is taken care of by a doctor but no doctor knows the whole human. If you have heart problems you go to a cardiologist. If you have other problems, he sends you to another doctor. Go to ear doctor. If you have some problems with the nervous system, you to a neurologist. No one deals with the entire human being. They are not worried about the entire body. The say if you have heart problem, go to a cardiologist. The science of health has gone so far that no doctor is able for diagnosing one problem that detailed into many problems.
The analysis has brought us out of unity. It is so in every field. If you go to finance field, there are many specialists, the same with accountants. No one has a complete view. We have only viewpoints but not vision. Analysis can know but losing the basis of synthesis, lands you in a complex, very confused situation. From generals to particulars is more important than to try to get from particulars to generals. In ancient times they tried to go from the seed to understand the whole tree, not from the leaves. It is one seed that sprouts, develops a trunk and gives many branches and gives out many sub-branches, leaves and flowers. If you cannot see the one unity of the entire tree you lose sight of the basic knowledge.
Therefore there is the need to devote ourselves to see the One in all. Unless you devotedly see, you cannot see the One in all. Devotion is an attitude, not an emotion. If you are devoted you can see everything. Then you find the One in a different seed. The same seed we see in a different seed. There is only one water – call it Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, but it is only one water. It is all one but for an understanding of the mind we have done divisions. The apparent is seen as real and the real got obscured.
When you start accepting the apparent as real, the real gets hidden. Even if we see the sun we don’t see the source from which the light is coming through the sun. The sun is the form through which the light is coming. It is an illumined globe through which the light is coming. The eye does not see; it is you and me that see. The eye is the window, the window cannot see, the window enables the sight. Who is seeing? The inner being. It is his eye that comes through the eyes.
That is what we have to see when we see the people. We see the eyes of the people, not the other parts of the body. Don’t look to the lower torso. People see not the other person. Oh, you lost your hair, you look a bit older. The inner being neither grows out nor thins down. We say, may the light in me be the light before me, but we don’t see. That is our problem.
When the One is lost, what is it? The One is the basis for all.”

From inside the hotel you could go down 4 storeys to reach a public path along the rocks. In a distance of about 100 metres there was a beautiful little bay and next to it the beach of Platja d’Aro. There were breath-taking sunrises later transforming into resplendent light transforming the water into multiple shades of turquoise. In the morning, before the beaches filled with sunbathers, I went for a swim in the crystal-clear water with some friends. With the goggles of a friend I felt like flying over silent underwater landscapes, where groups silvery fishes were looking for their breakfast. And when the day slowly cooled down again, we went for another swim.

Sunday morning, the group life ended with a question-answer session followed by a marriage ceremony of an elderly couple and the blessing of children. And then, some gifts were presented to the Master and the accompanying team. From a dissolved activity at WTT-Global, I had brought a small bag with crystals from all over the world as a present to the group. The Master presented them to the group: “Let the stone select you.” It was a very special situation for me to let all members take out a stone from the sack, without knowing what stone it would be – and then looks of joy and surprise. And thus, I looked into the eyes of most of them.

It had been planned that after the seminar I would visit a friend for 3 days, together with another friend. However, due to a private situation popping up on Sunday morning, this was not possible. So we decided to stay at the hotel for 3 more nights, together with some other friends who had planned their stay. This way, we had a beautiful conclusion of the group life with some more swims, meditations and exchanges. Then, Wednesday very early morning, a shuttle took us to Barcelona airport. Flying back to Switzerland, I felt deeply grateful for having been able to participate in three group lives of Sri Kumar’s 64th tour to the West.