The last weeks my wife and I reflected about several situations and one’s own projections. The way you see a story is coloured by your emotions and past experiences. You project your understanding upon others and upon the related situations, and mostly you aren’t even aware that it is just your personal perspective which gives you the way you experience. “How it is for me” I see as the truth but it can greatly differ from how it is for others. The different facets of interpreting lead to very different ways of experiencing. Especially when emotional wounds or convictions are involved the view gets strongly impregnated.

My wife is doing a coach formation in the Tipping method of Radical Foregiveness, and they work with understanding one’s projections. It is astonishing to see that when you overcome your victimhood you also get out of the related pain. You start understanding the situation “as it is” and see it as different from what you have thought it to be.

The following is not a direct example of projection, but of misunderstanding out of the personal perspective out of the inability to recollect, but the effect is quite the same – two stories of Sri Kumar told at the seminar in Altheim / Heiligenberg, Germany last June:

“The ability to recollect is a facility the mind uses. In olden times when there was no recording system and when there is no pen and paper to write people registered what is said much better. Today the ability to recollect is very little. To recollect and to renarrate is not easy unless the mind has the required facility of remembering. What is recollected is generally a distortion of what is said. When there is an improper recollection what is left out is what is filled with ones wrong perceptions. Therefore when it is renarrated it comes out in a different manner. There has been an experiment in management students in relation to communication. In a group like this one student told another a small story and it goes from mouth to ear, and when it comes to the original it is totally distorted. When the original story was related to the heard, it comes at the end totally distorted. The danger of distortion comes from a wrong perception. Mind suffers from inability to recollect. It hears what is not said. The one who said says, I did not say so. Such is happening through mind.

A person asks another person, “Would you like to have a cup of coffee?” If he says, yes, the second persons tells the third person, he wants coffee. Liking is one attitude, wanting is another attitude. If I say, “I like this crystal”, it will come back as he wants that. There is a great difference between what you like and what you want. And what is received and given out with the speech is a distortion. Many times groups invite me to speak to them and what comes out is that I want to speak. This is related to an improper recollection to what is said. There are many things I like, but this does not mean that I want them. This is improper recollections to what we have received. Likewise there are improper inferences from events. I also have such experiences with even very educated persons. I give you two stories to give you the point.

I and my guide Krishnamacharya, we used to go every weekend to a remote place, since we had an idea to develop a model village. Almost regularly every weekend we were there, and later we heard in the city that the two go out to drink alcohol. They thought that others do the same what they do. In our group there was a good friend by name Jesus Diaz. Once I had to go to a group in the north of Spain, where there was one bed to sleep and we were two persons. The group members suggested to my friend Jesus to sleep at a place one kilometre distance to that. It was not practically convenient, so we decided to sleep together in one bed. Six months later I heard that we were gay boys.

How do you deal with that? Today we have so many media which keep on spreading such gossip. When two men sleep in the same bed they infer that they are gay. You develop the wrong logic relating to the two persons. All these inferences they have no basis, number one, and they are unnecessary. If you buy a cuckoo clock, they ask, did you buy it in Switzerland, but you can buy it in Spain or in Germany. These general inferences come when the mind is not clean…”

Mount Kailash, Tibet, reflected in the Manasarovar lake. Mount Kailash is a symbol of Spirit, Manasarovar a symbol of the planetary mind. The distortions of the mind give a distorted view of reality.

Yesterday morning the sun was rising behind the bushes in our garden, and quite a strong wind had swept away most of the leaves. I put a vase with amaryllis flowers onto the grass, to take a photo against the morning sun. However, the wind blew it down several times, so that I fixed the vase with a stone. Here you see the pics.

Morning sun behind the vase with Amaryllis flowers

Red sunrise

A titmouse in the bush

Muri Castle behind the bushes

Withered sunflower in the pale sun light

A last rose in the pale morning light. The strong wind made it dance up and down. It needed a number of shots,

Sun reflection in the window of the living room

Today at my office I received a link about a very fascinating campaign which run in the City of Frankfurt / Main (Germany) from October 1st to 31st, 2010: FRANKFURT TEILT (:) (Frankfurt shares). The project with the motto “Sharing makes happy” encouraged citizens and business-people from Frankfurt to share part of their money, their ideas or their time with people in need. More than 100 corporates and thousands of people joined in. Every participant could decide himself what he wanted to share. A beverage company gave away a bottle to people in need in Romania and in German flood areas for every box of mineral water sold in Frankfurt, another citizen sold old things on a flea market and bought with the money nursing cushions and child’s seats for a child hospital in Frankfurt. Not only money was shared, One person offered to work for a week at a reforestation project in Switzerland.

On the website frankfurt-teilt.de, a blog Sharety.org (play on words with share and charity) with the motto:  “Sharety is the belief in Tomorrow” and “We love to share” as well as in social networks like Facebook everyone could make is commitment visible to others and thus encourage friends also to share something from their lives. On the website Spirit of Sharety.com there is an online book about “Spirit of Sharity. Eine neue Philosophie des Teilens” (Spirit of sharity. A New Philosophy of Sharing) – also with a “Register of the most important expressions”, explaining why sharing is a good means against egocentricity.

The campaign was very professionally organised and the organisers limited the project on a month. Thus they reduced the pressure for the participants not to bind themselves with long-term committments, and at the same time they increased the pressure for those who did not yet participate. This way the campaign became a discussion topic all over the city. Here you can read in German some lines about the project – making sharing visible.

Last week I received a nice spiritual story in Spanish containing a profound truth:

“At a remote place in the east there was once an ascetic who reached a high grade of spiritual discernment after long years of spiritual practice. He had a young pupil of 8 years.

One morning the ascetic looked at the pupil’s face and saw that in a few months the boy will die. He was sad about this circumstance and he told the pupil he should visit his parents during a certain time: “Don’t return soon. Stay with them some time.” the ascetic told him because he felt that the boy should be accompanied by his family in the moment of death.

His surprise was very great when after three months he saw the pupil returning. He looked into his face with intensity and he saw that the boy would live until an advanced age. Then he said to the boy, “Please tell me in detail all that happened to you while you were away. ”

The boy told him in all detail what had happened to him –  crossing towns, rivers, fields and mountains. “One day,” the pupil said “I arrived at a stream that was overflowing because of the strong rain in the mountains. While I tried to cross it carefully, I observed a colony of ants on a small mound amid the stream that was about to be swept away by the water. I felt compassion for them, I took a big branch of a tree and I made a bridge from the mound to the mainland, holding the branch strongly until all the ants had crossed. Then I continued my way.”

Then the old ascetic started to understand that this act of compassion was the reason why God had prolonged his pupil’s life.

Acts of compassion can change our destiny for the better, just like a disrespectful attitude towards the Universal Law can have an unfavorable impact on our destiny.”

Photo of a friend

At the right moment for Scorpio time: A friend sent me the link to a video with photos of a cobra in Kumbhakonam, slipping to a Siva Lingam and lifting its hood. This modern time miracle happened on January 15, 2010, the solar eclipse day. At the same time in the WTT-retreat centre in Visakhapatnam we had for several hours a very intense solar eclipse meditation with Sri Kumar.

Some more autumn impressions from a walk through the nearby park, this and last weekend. There is an art exposition along the river, a playful exchange between man and nature.

View over the trees to the Alps

A mobile in the trees

Small chairs for animals to observe the humans passing by 🙂

A smiling branch

Deep rooted

A mobile with a bridge in the background

Sculpture of a squirrel

The Aare river

The Bodenacker farm house

Who is living there?

Sculpture in front of a house

A friend sent me the following photos of a little miracle Rishi Agastya made some days ago (1st september 10). Rishi Agastya is a sage being with the earth since times immemorial. The first photo shows a poster of Rishi Agastya in the home of seven young devotees:

In the second picture taken during prayers Agastya is then captured opening his right eye:

My friend wrote: “He keeps an eye upon his devotees…” A rishi, being a “seer” looks inside, and from the inside out …

You might read a bit about Agastya in the book by Sri K. Parvathi Kumar: “The Aquarian Master“, which is about Master CVV, being from the ashram of Agastya. Agastya is also called Master Jupiter, the eldest member of Hierarchy, and there is some thing about him also in the book about “Jupiter“, where it says:

“The Master Jupiter is the Avatar of Synthesis who presides over the Aquarian Age. He conducts himself with the triangular force of Neptune, Mercury and Jupiter. He is called the Master of the Nilagiri Hills (Blue Mountains) in the Theosophical Society. He is called the great Sage Agastya in the Vedic tradition. He is the Master whose abode is in Sirius, whose functioning place for our earth is the Blue Mountains of South India. Agastya is the great sage and is the counterpart of the 7 seers of the Great Bear.”

Last week I came across a transcription of a seminar given by Sri Kumar in the Nilagiri Hills in 1996 about Agastya, Master Jupiter. He said that Agastya is very different in profile and in appearance from the other Masters of Wisdom: Whereas Lord Maitreya or Master Morya and Master Kuthumi are described as being of a tall stature, having long hair and a beard, Agastya is small and a bit round, radiating smile, of a golden-yellow complexion, bald-headed without any hair (unlike the presentation on the poster…), being dressed scarcely with a lungi, never wearing anything else. He has great, round eyes, is often traveling with his disciples and loves to cook and to serve. Through serving food he likes to spread himself into the people and thus to adjust any imbalances in the mental, emotional, and physical bodies. In his spiritual activities he never treads any trodden paths, but gives new trends and directions, being full of freshness. His live is always accompanied by will, spreading be-ness and presence. He is very humorous and his teachings are very powerful, but nevertheless humorous, thus uplifting the people.

In the scriptures there is the story that once a group of disciples in the Himalaya had the questions who is the one fasting most, and Maitreya told them, “It is Agastya, he never eats.” They wanted to see Agastya and went to him. Agastya said: „Observe me for three days.”
They were very surprised to see him cooking, eating and serving. He was not missing any meal, and every meal was from our standpoint very excessive in its quantity. After three days the group asked: „We have not understood your way of fasting.” He answered: „Insofar as you don’t feel that you are eating, it is fasting.” He does not think he is eating. He lives in tune with the universal consciousness and in such a tune-up the food is given to all the elementals around him with himself as the channel.

A friend sent me this most beautiful Islamo-Christian composition that was created as a song to religious co-existence by a Christian female Lebanese singer named Tania Kassis, accompanied by two Muslin male singers, Mohammad Shaar and Maen Zakaria who, in addition, frequently sing Christian songs at the mosques and in front of the Sheiks. The arrangement is inspired of an Ave Maria accompanied by the Adhan “Allah Akbar”.

A friend sent tonight a nice text in Spanish. I translated it with the help of a translation software and some “polishing”:

There was once a student who asked his teacher: “Where should I look for enlightenment?”
Teacher: “Here”.
Student: “And when will it take place?”
Teacher: “It is taking place right now.”
Student: “Then, why don’t I get it?”
Teacher: “Because you don’t look.”
Student: “And in what should I look for it?”
Teacher: “In anything. You simply look.”
Student: “To look what?”
Teacher: “Anything where you settle your eyes.”
Student: “And should I look somehow special?”
Teacher: “No. It will be enough the way you usually look.”
Student: “But don’t I always look usually?”
Teacher: “No.”
Student: “Why?”
Teacher: “Because to look you have to be here and now, and there you ‘are’ hardly ever.”

To meditate is to be aware of what is happening at each instant, without judging it, with a total acceptance of each present moment. It is to learn how to see that that “it is” as it is, simply. We don’t realize, but when we look to the world, we don’t see it such and as it is really, what we see is what “we think” of it.

Reflection of the sun in water. Our mind is reflecting the reality and so we don’t see it as it is, but as we perceive it with the mind.

Some time ago I came across the Poem of the Soul series of the French painter and poet Louis Janmot (1814–1892). It is a cycle of 18 paintings and 16 drawings, with verse and it occupied him for 40 years. In the series there is a number of pictures with angels and hovering souls. Here are three nice paintings from the Poem of the Soul.

The Ideal

The Flight of the Soul

The Golden Ladder