We had a beautiful autumn equinox seminar with Sri Kumar in Kandersteg last Tuesday to Thursday, with about 85 persons from Germany, Spain and Switzerland. It was a very familiar meeting with profound lectures, nice exchanges and clear autumn weather over the mountains.

View from the hotel window

Here is a short extract from Wednesday’s morning lecture about the energies of Libra:

“Living in balance and also giving that balance to others enables us to receive the grace of the Most High. You cannot give the balance, you can only give the know-how to work it out. That has to be done without exception if you stand balanced in every aspect of life. Even an act of goodwill can become a glamour. If you get excessively connected to the books without the related action you become a bookworm, they don’t give you the balance. You can also get the habit of listening to teachings without practicing, it is also a grip, People can be obsessed with book reading and writing or seminars. Obsession is not desirable in any aspect of life. The law of alternation brings you back to balance.

If you are excessively obsessed with money you lose it, if you are excessively obsessed with health you get sick. If you are excessively obsessed with slim it supplies energies to the weight. Obsessions are avoidable, that is a law. Too many healthy habits can land you in sickness – be moderate. Moderation is strongly recommended. Excess is avoidable everywhere, in every aspect of life.

Don’t be excessive, be moderate, when you are moderate you tend to be nearer to the centre. Balance is in the centre. Centre gives you unfoldment. Only when there is unfoldment you call it a centre. Be in the centre and relate to the circumference. The centre of your being is I AM. You move into the surrounding through your personality with the help of your body. Do not lose the help of the centre. When the centre and circumference stand connected that is when you are in action you are conscious of your action, your speech, your movement. When you are centred in consciousness and move into objectivity there is a retaining the centre-circumference relation, that is wisdom.”

Libra Full Moon, Wednesday night

Fire ritual, Thursday morning

Today at noon Master KPK (Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar) and his son Sekhar came to our house for lunch, together with some group members. We had a very nice time together. I was again fascinated to observe how he spoke with the group members, giving his full attention and uplifting presence. After the meal we took some group picture in the garden and sat for a while in the sun. A little later they left again to go to Zermatt, where they wanted to pass the night at the foot of the Matterhorn.

Half an hour later we got a phone call: A bag with some belongings had remained in our living room; so I took the car and went off. I met them again in Spiez  and joined them for a cup of tea at beautiful place on the board of the lake Thun. We said good-bye, but only for a short moment: Next Tuesday will start the group living for autumn equinox in Kandersteg. Friday I had already been there to bring the flowers for the altar to the hotel.

Showing a map of a project.

Sometimes time seems to open a door for just a short moment,where you can walk through and meet a special constellation. If you are awake you can use it and experience the gift of that situation. This week I had this experience 2-3 times where things took an interesting turn, offering once an opportunity for growth in a very short time frame I could use well, once a surprising encounter and once  a fulfilling meeting. These situations come up unexpectedly and leave a mark in the general flow of events.

Impressions of today’s morning walk with a friend through a nearby park illustrate this unexpected opening of surprising vistas in life.

You might not notice that there is a door to another sphere of experience opening.

Suddenly a window opens: A green frame as a work of art at a pond.

The situation shows up just like the two passing swans disappearing again some seconds later.

You discover surprising views into unexpected situations, like this tree house made of coloured plexiglass.

Flowerbed forming a colourful road of changing impressions

At the moment there is an art exhibition in our village along the Aare river called Art at the Water (Kunst am Wasser). Over a distance of about 20 km there are different art installations. (The photo book about the Aare has also been realised in the context of this project.) Here are some impressions from this afternoon.

The Aare has plenty of water at the moment

On the old wooden bridge in the background there are some posters with poems

A mobile of driftwood at a waterfall next to the river

A red “lotus” in a pond

The magic flower

Some bubble installation in a pond

Metal tubes floating above a river producing sound with the wind

The floating tubes

Visitors of the exhibition

Quotations from a poet on straw bales along the river

A beautiful little restaurant, “Jägerheim”, where we had a cup of tea

A well at the river

Thistle flowers

Last weekend a new painting came, called “Lotus of the Soul”. You can download here the high-resolution version or see it in the gallery “Images of Synthesis”.

The symbol in the middle is Sanskrit for OM, the primordial sound. The picture is inspired by lines of Sri Kumar from The Teacher, N°. 46:

“In the previous attribute the spiritual permanent atom was spoken of. It is the centre of the electric blue beyond which there is the seeming nothingness which expresses as the subtlest point. This subtlest deep blue point expresses like an electrical blue. Beyond this is the Absolute Existence and this blue point is the primary emergence. A Self-realized one anchors in this point and remains blue. Sound and light remain its attributes. This is the threshold between seeming nothingness and apparent something. It is the point of emergence of Existence as awareness. It is the trill, the first spur that emerges from which all apparent existence comes through. In scriptural terminology this is called the cosmic centre. It is from this centre, from out of the deep blue, other manifestations happen. After this blue there is the manifestation of red and yellow. As explained earlier when man enters into subtle fields he first encounters the golden-yellow light followed by orange and later aquamarine and then blue.
All this can be experienced in the heart lotus which is four-layered. The heart lotus is but four triangles placed one above the other in different directions. It appears like a twelve-petalled lotus. The four triangles appear with their angles as a twelve-petalled lotus. The outermost triangle carries the light of golden hue. The one interior to it carries the light of aquamarine. The next interior triangle shines forth with the colour of blue. The finer, the most interior triangle carries the colour of deep blue.
All these four triangles are connected through the centre like a rosary. Through the centre of the final triangle it leads to seeming nothingness which is everything. Through the central channel the energy beyond flows and takes to different sound notes and colour notes.
When one enters into this central channel he listens a naturally vibrating sound which is like OM. It is OM unuttered (Anahata). Uttering OM is only to orient to the unuttered OM. The culmination of all utterances is into deep silence, and in that deep silence the eternal sound is to be heard.”

Yesterday I came across a very beautiful contemplation on Buddha – photos and photo-collages by H. Koppdelaney: My View of Buddha. And I also saw a nice collection of photos from a Thai person, entitled “Shangri-La”. Enjoy.

Tibetan relief of Buddha – photo of a friend.

Since some months I am in contact with a serious seeker. He is asking profound questions concerning the teachings, and I have sent him several books of the WTT. He recently wrote:

“Reading through the books I have had to put them down for now, I simply cannot follow the eastern way of life, as a parent and with my duties, whilst not impossible, I could not follow to the letter, nor would it be practical to carry round an orange book all day (as suggested by Master EK in Spiritual Psychology)! I think I have to accept for now, it’s not practical to even consider following the suggestions. If I got up at 4.30 am for a start it would cause problems for the rest of the house. …
So I have to really rule these things out. The book on ‘Healing‘ is much in the same vein of ‘you should be doing this and that’ – again: Simply not possible.
It’s a shame there is no teaching school in England I could attend, It would be great to learn and practice many of the mantras and live that way of life. Even if briefly. I would like to meet the master in person, but this is out of my hands.”

I replied: “I had to smile when reading your lines, about ‘I cannot follow the eastern way of life’, and all the regulations … Neither can I nor do I know anyone who can follow all this bunch of regulations – it would simply be an overkill.

When going to a supermarket, you don’t eat all the stuff you see there. So it is also with the ‘you should do’s’ in the books and the teachings – these are suggestions, proposals. There is very little being the very core of the teaching: The morning and evening invocations, observing the silence afterwards (or better: just staying inside, when there is no inner silence  🙂 ) and doing good will activities, trying to see the One in all.

The rest are ‘tools’, guidelines, aids on the way. So don’t overeat, it will cause indigestion: ‘Keep it simple and stupid.’

As per the orange book, I keep it at my meditation place, and when some thoughts come, I try to put them down. Sri Kumar has it in his briefcase. He once showed it to me at Zurich airport and read out a dialog he had written into it in the morning:
“Master, why is it always raining when I come to Switzerland? – It is because there are so many emotions to be cleared”…. 🙂

Wherever you connect with the Master and the teachings, you are in the teaching school, wherever it is. Sri Kumar calls it “mobile ashrams”. It is not a physical structure. These are old-way concepts thinking of schools to go there, learn a lot and practice there…. Your house is your teaching and learning school.

Of course, it is very great and uplifting, when you get the occasion to meet the master physically, but when it’s not possible, what’s worthwhile grieving, it doesn’t help. Better be practical and make an inner ‘phone call’ to THE MASTER, asking him. When the answer does not come from the channel you expect it look out if the answer comes via other channels from the cosmic inner-net or other outside sources. What is inside and what is outside? What is not the Master’s channel?”

“Enlightenment”

A beautiful video by “Iran Hope” – floral images arranged with human bodies – obviously done by Iranians in exile, using for their channel the old Persian flag with the Lion. One blog says: “…fantastic visual garden where the flowers are people.”

The last two days we visited friends in a village near Einsiedeln, who just have moved into the house of family members who are out of the country for a while. The beautiful villa is lying on a mountain crest overlooking the lake Sihlsee with a fantastic panorama. Here are some photos from yesterday’s morning mood of the rising day.

From the road over the mountain crest called “Storm Height” you can look into both valleys, on the one side the village of Egg and on the other the lake with Einsiedeln and the famous abbey on the other:

The village of Egg

Dawn over the lake

The Einsiedeln Abbey on the other side of the lake in the middle of the picture
A little later after sunrise

With a rowing boat on the lake, the sun’s reflection dancing on the water

A little spiral near the window

Lilies in the living room

An Indian friend sent me this nice story about the importance of helping others in need:

“A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered – he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but  there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house — like the  sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.
The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember — when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one  another.

One of the best things to hold onto in this world is a friend.”

Rats at at feet of a Ganesha statue. The Rat, symbol of the clever mind, is the vehicle for Ganesha, symbol of wisdom, using the mind for its expression.