Beautiful autumn light is spreading over the country. The time of withdrawal prepares with many shades of colour. Some photo impressions of yesterday afternoon’s walk in the nearby countryside.

Into the country

The ringing of the big cow bells was resounding over the country

Old apple trees glowing with red and golden fruits

The river Aare with an old covered bridge in the mild afternoon light

Along the river, the pathway with soft waves made by the roots of the trees

The cows returning back to the farm for milking

Autumn elves in a garden center at the parking from where we started

I just read the latest issue of the Swiss “NZZ-folio” magazine the topic of which is “For Free – Business Model of the Future?“. Some articles show how people get blinded when they hear that they can get something for free – they forget that normally there is a catch in it. Free newspapers, free phones, free drinks,  – there are many ways of seducing and of capturing the attention.

Of course little value is often attached to things which are given for free or for half the price, and on the web it is nearly taken for granted that you get content or a lot of software for free. The motives of doing so vary – personal satisfaction, making a name for oneself, getting people attracted to some other offer… There are enterprises engaged in philanthropic activities, where there is no financial “return on investment”, but a gain in reputation. But the self-related motives remain, though they might not be visible at the first sight.

There are people doing service activities with a selfless motive, or even without a motive at all. This way of acting is not catchy. But the thing is that by receiving benefits you remain in a receptive mood and get into passivity. You have to give something so that the flow of energy doesn’t get stuck with you.  You might like to read more about the power of giving in the issue on Giving and Taking of the Good Will in Action. And you might be interested in our free distribution of wisdom books or our free newsletter –  this kind of “hooking” isn’t dangerous 🙂

Wisdom is flowing for free, for those who are really seeking it from the right sources and use it for the right purposes.

When you just receive without giving in one way or the other you create attachment and remain a beggar. Photo by a friend, India 07.

Today I came across a beautiful video on YouTube about “The 12 Keys of Spiritual Activism” by Humanity Healing Network. You find the text of the 12 Keys also on their site. The purpose of their activities is:

Humanity Healing was started to combine Healing with Spiritual growth to offer a more complete healing to those in need. We believe that true Lightworking consists of service to others. We believe that we are all connected and that by helping another, we help ourselves. This is especially true in the areas of Healing and Spiritual growth.

Globally, there are many people and regions in crisis. The principles of Altruism and the Brotherhood of Man have declined in importance as individuals, nations and religions focus on the differences between each other instead of the similarities within our shared Humanity.

We believe that with Compassion, Education and Volunteerism through Spiritual Activism, this can be changed. Each individual can make a Commitment to reach out. Each individual can make a Commitment to work towards the Common Good. As individuals, our personal contributions may be small, but when United in Common Cause, we can Change the World.” (from the website of Humanity Healing”.

Have a look at the 12 keys, they are really fundamental for the spiritual path, they have sprung from sources of eternal wisdom

Passioflora – photo from Iguazu, Argentina, May 08 – a deep symbol for the healing of humanity.

A friend from Canada sent me today a link to a page of The Boston Globe with 38 beautiful photos of an exposition called Earth from Above, by the photographer Yann Arhus-Bertrand. With his pictures he wants to inspire people to think globally about sustainable living. Next year May 1 to June 28 there will be an outdoor exposition of 150 large photographs in New York City and 2010 in California. Awe-inspiring impressions of Mother Earth!

The Earth seen from above – but not from the exposition. Photo of the Mont Blanc in the setting sun, Sept. 2007.

I yesterday saw a small video with a talk by Paul Hawken about his book “Blessed Unrest. How the largest movement of the world came into being and why no one saw it coming.” I was deeply touched by the way he presents the global development of hundreds of thousands of grassroots organizations that address social and environmental justice.

“Paul Hawken has spent over a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location, and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media. Like nature itself, it is organizing from the bottom up, in every city, town, and culture. and is emerging to be an extraordinary and creative expression of people’s needs worldwide.

Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of the movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and hidden history, which date back many centuries. A culmination of Hawken’s many years of leadership in the environmental and social justice fields, it will inspire and delight any and all who despair of the world’s fate, and its conclusions will surprise even those within the movement itself. Fundamentally, it is a description of humanity’s collective genius, and the unstoppable movement to reimagine our relationship to the environment and one another.”

Paul Hawken is giving voice to the phonomenon of global good will expressing through very many people everywhere in the world. See also his website.

Some days ago I came across a news about a brain stimulating thinking cap. I first thought it was a hoax, for there were so many quotes in blogs and online magazines of the gossip type. And when I found the website of the scientist of Sydney university (Center for the Mind), it still didn’t look like inspiring confidence at the first sight. Nevertheless, thoug the professor Allan Snyder seems to be a bit grumpy, he has done a lot of research and publications on “What Makes a Champion” or a genius.

Entrance of the site of the Center of the Mind, Sydney.

They have established a state of the art mind laboratory (MindLab), with magnetic pulse stimulation (TMS) and brainwave sensing (EEG) apparatus. Therer they have developed a device that works with magnetic impulses, which by swifting on and of over or under-active parts of the brain, thereby unlocking its hidden potential. Wearing the hairnet-like cap for a few minutes is said to have improved artistic ability and proofreading skills. Once perfected, the device could be marketed as a cap slipped on to boost creativity and intellectual capacity.

No wonder that all the media is crazy about it. The professor was in many TV shows, won famous prizes for his study with autistic savants and geniuses, and he even had talks, together with the Dalai Lama and many others… In Bejing, during the Olympics, they helt a What Makes A Champion? forum which was opened by former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair and other celebrities, and they got a global media coverage.

In spite of all the publicity the hope seems to be a bit airy – to discover the magic wand in order to open up the hidden genius of man. No tedious exercises for spiritual evolution, but just a magnetic cap, and then the brain functions at its optimum. Inner transformation work for refining the brain, to reflect the soul? No need, materialistic science dreams of finding the clue. The only thing they forget that there is no shortcut way on the path of evolution. Transformation work needs refining the personality through culturing the character. If you don’t tackle the fundamentals, the development will stand of feet of clay.

Man’s potential cannot be unfolded through a technical trick. Even a crystal skull isn’t enlightened but from an outer source of light. Photo of a friend from an exposition in Paris.

For most of us it is so normal to have electricity coming out of the wall outlet that we hardly can imagine living without. But for people living far away from the network of technical industrialization it does not at all go without saying. In third world countries, especially in rural areas, having access to electricity is often great step ahead – and be it just to charge a mobile.

A group of African Harvard undergraduates and university scientists, have created a social enterprise working in off-grid energy delivery and lighting technology in Tanzania. They call it “Lebônê“, pronounced [La – bo – ney], a Northern Sotho word for light, lamp, or candle.

They “combine efficient lighting technology with a simple energy source readily available to all Africans in the form of microbial fuel cells. These inexpensive fuel cells run on animal and plant waste and naturally occurring soil microbes, and are framed around a flexible substrate (wood, steel, etc) that can vary by geographic availability. This is truly electricity right out of the ground. These fuel cells are used to charge a battery or cheap supercapacitor, which in turn will be used to power a high-efficiency efficient LED or PLED lamp.”

To reach the target group of people they combine their innovative technologies with an innovative implementation strategy that will promote local entrepreneurship and youth involvement.

Another very innovative approach is the initiatve of a retired Swiss journalist in Kenia, Peter Baumgartner. He has realised a magazine for sustainable agriculture called “The Organic Farmer“. They are publishing “relevant, reliable and ecologically sound information which is both, appropriate as well as applicable for farmers in Africa.” It is monthly magazine with 18’000 copies, distributed nation-wide in Kenya and reaches around 100’000 readers. The electronic version can be accessed free of charge and has been used so far by farmers and researchers in over 20 tropical countries. Since end of August 08 they are also on the radio in Kiswahili and they offer the programs as MP3-files. They are supported by different sponsors, among others the Swiss government and www.infonet-biovision.org, an information platform for ecological control of plant pests and disease transmitters.

Their initiative has a very strong resonance, with more than 150 e-mails, sms and phone calls after every emission. People are asking questions about pests or other kinds of information. They have a team of specialists. One strength of the magazine is the intelligent distribution structure via farmer groups, church organisations and schools. So they can spread the knowledge of a gentle biological farming with a minimum of chemicals. The journal with 8 to 12 pages per month has also spread to neighbour countries. Each copy is read by about 7 – 9 persons in the average.

A very inspiring initiative for supporting local farmers by sharing know-how – good will in action.

A meadow in Switzerland – biological farming is also an important factor here.

Some days ago I came across a video of National Geographics about a new generation of robots which “express themselves”: Developers have created robots that appear to make human expressions and show human-like emotions. There is a mechanism imitating the muscle movements of the human face – eye movements, smiles etc. What the cinema shows in films like Star Wars in perfection is a bit less perfect with these robots, but nevertheless creating a strange fascination for many: Making forms in their image and likeness.

Animatronics – employing electronics to animate motorized puppets – is quite a developed technology of the illusion-creating industry, as you see here with a human on the site of a Californian special-effect studio. They say: “We can replicate the likeness of virtually any character imaginable. We create realistic looking animals, creatures, and humans. These life-like creatures move, walk, talk, and simulate breathing.”

The dream is old, like with the creation of Pinocchio by the woodcarver Geppetto, or Frankenstein, or, a bit older, of Prometheus, who brought the divine fire of understanding to mankind, or the biblical creation of man out of clay. The modern robots are in the same tradition. There is a certain hybris hidden behind the hopes of technical betterment of man’s living conditions. Robots, however, have become a part of modern life, be it in automobile production or in surgery.

So have a look at the Salvator DaBot, the portraitist robot. He “recognizes human faces in its surroundings and extracts relevant characteristics from them. By using its uncanny artistic talent, it then draws portraits of the participants from the captured images by converting them into vector art and by using inverse kinematics to control the robot’s arm.”

The woodcarver Gepetto creating Pinocchio. Scene from a doll’s house in Berne

The present US finance crisis also spills over into e-mail requests to sign petitions like that of AVAAZ making a call to act now.  A friend asked me what I think of such initiatives.

AVAAZ says: “The global financial crisis is spilling over into our lives, threatening jobs, savings, pensions and public services everywhere — worldwide recession could be next, while the public bears the cost. It’s time for citizens around the world to raise our voices and demand that the fundamental causes of this crisis are addressed — we need tough rules to stop the financiers’ folly, and a new framework that better serves the public interest.”
They address European, US and world leaders: “We urge you to take a lead in fixing the fundamental flaws and loopholes which made the global financial crisis possible, including basic problems of debt and risk, incentives and transparency.” – and then they ask you to sign the petition with a click.

I’m not judging about the necessity of measures counter-acting excessive greed and its consequences… But  I normally keep a distance to these click-collection campaigns. I had participated once in one of the AVAAZ campaigns, for Tibet. and there I saw that you are per default registered into their mailing list (from which you later can resign), so they are a bit enforcing participation.

For me these click-collections are kind of a show. The idea is fascinating – a click from the desktop, like in a computer-game – and then you feel that you have done something against global crises. But changing the world cannot be done with a quick click.

Of course coordinated actions are powerfull, courageous commitment for the well-being of ones fellow-humans or nature is of a great value. And also an englightened public opinion.

Action is generally understood as a means for change. Much less, however, the value of a silent, inner work of transformation. It is much more effective to change oneself first and thus create a change in the world. This inner work is not showy, it demands patience and endurance. It is not a quick-click activity or an online-game.

The global crises are the results of collective past actions, called Karma. When people are ensuring a high standard of living on the basis of bank-depts, and the banks speculating with hot air, it is no wonder that the card-house of illusionary values collapses. It looks like magic to witness hundred billions of dollars just disappearing into the void. Was there any real value before? What is a value and the quality of money? You might like to read the Good Will in Action on “Money and Good Will“.

We are in the month of Libra, and in the East they are worshiping now the Goddess Durga, who is creating the illusions of matter and its impenetrability. She is depicted as sitting on a lion or a tiger, symbolizing the wild, untamed personality instincts. The gambling of the banks reminds of such a “ride on a tiger” – but of people with blind-folded eyes.

Durga-statue in the house of a friend.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from an Argentinean friend living in Southern Spain. He announced that he had just started a bi-lingual blog called “The Universal Nation – La Nación Universal“. His keynote starts with the words:

“The abolition of the system of nations as independent sovereign states is the present’s paradigm, and the greatest global need, and the solution to many of the major problems of modern humankind, all at once….
Today’s paradigm –21(st) century’s paradigm– is not nationalism, nor regionalism, nor continental integrations but, directly Universalization: a so-called Universal Nation – or the social habitat of World Citizens.”

It is a topic he has been pondering upon since long. In a chat with me last Sunday he wrote that the thoughts he intends to express through the blog are the synthesis of his experiences in this life, to be a good service to some extent…

Though he isn’t talking in the blog about personal experiences, just expressing his thoughts about the basic need of overcoming the separation of national borders and barriers, it is still a topic of a very intense nature concerning his life: Some years ago I had a talk with him while he was still living in Germany and trying to get a permission to stay. The authorities gave him a hard time and in the end he left Germany – an end of a cycle, as he said. He is an artist, a dancer and philosopher. I appreciate very much his energetic, kind and open-minded nature. (You might read here a blog-note about his father.)

The problem of nationality and borders is limiting the free movements more and more. The fear of strangers taking away jobs and over-flooding the cultural settings of a country is very strong – and the walls are getting tighter. The national personalities are developing…

Master Morya says: “I wish to see you moving over the face of the world when all national boundaries, because of their multitude, will be erased. How can we fly when pinned by a small nail! Reflect upon the need of travel for humanity.” (Agni Yoga – Community in the New Age § 93)

Separativity will break the unity of the world into many pieces. A very symbolic sculpture in front of the UN-building in New York.

World Union – overcoming division and seeing the inter-connectedness of all life. A statue in Berne erected on the occasion of the founding of the World Postal Union