I just got an extremely beautiful powerpoint presentation in Spanish (4 MB) about Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”. I made a quick translation of the intro with the help of automatic translation. Enjoy.

Photo of a friend

A friend today sent me this pictures (c) unknown, showing beautifully the relations between the size of our earth and the cosmos and giving a humble feeling of the immense vastness of creation. Wait a moment to see:

The United Nations have just officially announced the “University of the People” launched in April 09. It is a new online university, which for the moment is still free, but later will charge some modest study fees to maintain the university. The  UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development (GAID) wants to show how an online university can improve the formation situation world-wide with modern information and communication technology, as the German online magazine Heise.de writes.

While up to now many people on the planet cannot attend a university, the Web 2.0-technologies now allow students to study at home, using open source technologies and open course material as well as e-learning methods and methods of peer  to peer teaching. They offer classes with 15 – 20 students each with one lecture per week and a weekly work and learning schedule of at least 8 hours.

Up to now they have about 200 students from 52 countries in computer science and economics. For the first semester they don’t take more than 300 students. In the course of 4 years they want to extend it to 15’000 students. The final exam will correspond to that of a Bachelor for the moment, they hope to be accredited as a full university in the next years.

A very inspiring development.

Info-kiosk in front of the Swiss Federal Palace during renovation

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

I got the following story from an Indian friend:

A saint asked his disciples, ‘Why do we shout in anger? Why do people shout at each other when they are upset?’

The disciples thought for a while, one of them said, ‘Because we lose our calm, we shout for that.’

‘But, why to shout when the other person is just next to you?’ asked the saint. ‘Isn’t it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you shout at a person when you’re angry?’

The disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the saint. Finally he explained, ‘When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other through that great distance.’

Then the saint asked, ‘What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, why? Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small…’ The saint continued, ‘When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.’

When you argue, do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other more, else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return.

Two loudspeakers, showing into different directions

There are quite a lot of electronic gifts showing up at the moment. Here are some link miscellanea:

1. A friend from Houston Theosophical Society sent the link to a new page of the site of Theosophy Watch, where you find a number of photos of new crop circles from 2009, and a “Crop Circle Documentary 2009” video, from YouTube:

2. The photographer and environmental artist Chris Jordan does a fascinating work of sensitizing people for environmental concerns in a very aesthetic way (I have already before blogged about Chris’ work). You find new series of photo mandalas about “Portraits of Global Mass Culture” (-> Running the Numbers, 1 & II) and a new large scale mandala. It is depicting the names of one million organizations around the world that are devoted to peace, environmental stewardship, social justice, and the preservation of diverse and indigenous culture. He has taken the names from Paul Hawken’s “Blessed Unrest” project. The mandala is called “E Pluribus Unum”, meaning “The Many become One”.

Have a look at these other websites:

3. Freydoun Rassouli: a beautiful flash intro to the fascinating paintings of the Iranian artist living in California. There are some e-cards of him on the Good-Will website.

4. And another interesting flash on “Awaken Visions” by Daniel B. Holeman. On his site you find a section about animated art.

Iris – Photo of a friend

Today I came across two beautiful videos about the majestic beauty of the Himalayas. The first is showing impressions of a flight over an unaccessible mountain range with a sublime music (3:00):

(Press here if the picture doesn’t show)

The second (2:50) is about “Himalaya – The Live God”. Though you don’t understand the text (it is, I suppose, in Hindi), you will understand the pictures – giving short impressions of saints and sacred places.

(Press here if the picture doesn’t show)

And here is a short story playing in the Himalayas, by Master EK, from the end of the book “Occult Anatomy”:

“In the Tantra books, it opens like this: Siva and Sakti sit on the high cliffs of the mountains of the Himalayas. Always, it starts like this. There is no one in the vicinity, proximity. They can talk nonsense, they want. (Master said this as a joke, to the laugh of the students). Siva was a bit grim, serious. Sakti looked at Him and smiled. Then Siva smiled, because He is also a male fellow, tempted by female. (Laugh). His smile was captured as reflection in the eyes of the Mother-Goddess. This created the whole world. That means creation came as the solar energy called Siva reflects on the moon and comes down as the Moon’s Light called the smile. Then Siva said, “My darling”, (because there were two fellows. There was no third fellow). He said, “Some people in the creation worship you and get liberation. Some people worship Me and get liberation. So let us divide the worship into two, so that there may not be any disputes. The disciples may be divided into two”. He said these words. So there are two types of devotees. Some are the devotees who worship God as ‘You’ and some others are the devotees who worship God as ‘I AM’. So some people meditate ‘ I AM’ and some people meditate “You are”. So with this conversation, the wonderful fellow Siva started the Creation, when Himself and His darling were lonely. That is how the Tantra books start. So may these two parents bless you in every way, before we meet again and even after. “

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.