Last week in a yoga group of my wife a friend, a muslim woman, said it is now Ramadan, but that she doesn’t follow the fasting. She feels too weak and gets dizzy when trying to fast. My wife said to her, “You certainly also get into Paradise without fasting.” The friend answered, she isn’t sure about that. A feeling of inadequacy caused by non-compliance to religious rules…

There are many such strong thought forms, not only created in the name of God and right behaviour. Mostly we adopt them unconsciously and let ourselves get conditioned by them. Trying to break out of the boundaries of tradition or concepts just creates new mental cages. Thoughts so easily get crystallised.

Yesterday evening in a meditation & study group we read the following passage of the book on Saraswathi by Dr. K. P. Kumar, which very aptly describes the situation:

“Normally we are caught in our own idea of work. Repeated functioning causes certain crystallization. We lose flexibility. We become rigid. Any changed situation is painful because it is not in tune with our crystallised pattern. We try to advocate only the pattern we know and insist on it. We resist other patterns and reject them. This is arising out of our habit-forming nature. We form a habit and we cannot come out of it….

This is the major problem of the modern man, we crystallize our patterns, insist on them, reject and even ridicule other patterns. In effect we are slaves of patterns developed by us. These patterns condition us, while they also enable us to anchor well, but we should not anchor knee deep or neck deep so that we cannot come out of it.

Our habit with the heating system in winter, cooling system in summer, make us weak inherently. Our habit of sitting in chairs disable us to squat. Eating with spoon and forks disable us to eat with hands.
Likewise, our habit binds us to a name and a form of God and also a mode of worship. We deny other names, other modes, other disciplines. Is this not the limitation that is sweeping humanity, causing bloodshed, discord, hate, and sustained enmity?

It is good to develop a rhythm and the related habit. But it is also equally recommended that we retain the ability to adopt to changing situations. Retain this freedom. Keep some space. Do not suffocate.”

The Acropolis in Athens – a thought form crystallised to a temple, kept alive by restauration

An Indian friend sent me today a beautiful powerpoint presentation (here as a PDF) about faith, from a text of Loren Cunningham. It is about a French acrobat , Charles Blondin (1824-1897), who crossed the Niagara Falls several times on a tightrope, with a wheelbarrow, blindfold, in a sack etc. Fascinating pictures of the Niagara Falls. The presentations compared the feat of Blondin with the firm faith in God, not faltering at any step. A good parable.

Charles Blondin, carrying his manager over the Niagara Falls (copyright expired)

Two weeks ago we were in Engelberg at a seminar. The meaning of Engelberg is Mountain of Angels, and throughout the village you could see angel sculptures like an invasion of beings from another sphere. The sculptures of the exposition were basically the same polyacrylic forms decorated in different ways – and thus reflecting different attitudes towards the sublime:

Some of the figures were ridiculising the idea of angels, some were playfully using them as decorations, some reflected a spark of the underlying mystery. A friend of mine sent me a photo CD with some of these angels – a good study, not so much about angels but more about man or the artist’s attitude. The angels are for sale… The titles under the pictures are given by me:

The Shopping-Angel with a sad look, his head being a black gift box – symbolic of man lost in commercialism.

The Fashion Angel, disguised in decoration, his light being the false light of a lamp and not from above.

What do you find inside the drawers? Spiritual inspiration or emptiness?

The Angel of a “beautiful apartment / nice dress dream” – instead of striving to the lofty spheres

The Angel of Time – reminding us of the good use of every moment for upliftment. It is also Chronos-Saturn, the Lord or Time, in green, related to the 3rd ray of Active Intelligence.

The Angel of Broken Mirrors – symbolic of broken dreams or of the many reflections of the One light in the dense spheres of the gross material world.

The Tourism Angel, inside three branches of a dead tree – looking for “higher experiences” in the mountains

The Angel of the integration of heart and hand, of loving action

The Angel of the Warm Heart, radiating silently his light at the corner of a shop, inspiring hope and strength

Today my wife and I had a talk on how difficult it sometimes is not to be able to tell a person what one would like to tell him or her. When the person is not ready to listen or doesn’t have an open mind, you come upon an invisible wall, even if there is a cordial relation. Often it is the question of an over-active mind: People are busy with their thoughts and concepts, which keep them tied down into a certain direction. The narrowed focus is shutting them off from other viewpoints, which might bring in a larger perspective.

In spiritual matters I observe this very often: It takes so long, often years, for a right and deep understanding to grow. People are straying at the periphery, not coming to the center, the essence of their being or the path. For many it is very difficult to get into a regular practice, and it seems it is even more difficult to pick up some selfless service activity – not just some goodwill activity, but an intelligent activity done with responsibility over a long time, in cooperation in a team. There are so many obstacles on the way – other interests, the so-called “having no time”-syndrome, which mostly is a missing focus in life. In spirituality there are many who consent, but only few who apply.

At the seminar on the occasion of 25 years of WTT-Global of last week Dr. Kumar mentioned that Master EK made long 4 tours from India to the West in the 70ies (1972-1977) without getting any right contacts. People seemed not to be open enough to assimilate the teachings he wanted to give. He waited 4 more years before taking up again his tours to the West in 1981, and then slowly he met people with whom the work could start.

At the jubilee celebration a book was published, where Dr. Kumar’s (Master KPK) work of group-building over 27 years was outlined. There was a section with the titles of all his lectures – several hundred ! – he gave on most different topics all over the globe during nearly 50 international tours. It gave me a frisson to see the tremendous work and how slowly and steadily it proceeded. It is not a big and quick foam, but a silent, focused persistence.

How long it takes to get people into a rhythm of group work, overcoming the personality barriers! There is a saying by Master Morya that consciousness grows slower than grass.

Candles at the seminar in the form of white lotuses – symbols of unfoldment and purity

Some days ago a friend sent me a beautiful powerpoint-story called “Such a beautiful story” (3.5 MB), about two men in a hospital and how the power of imagination can give inspiration even at times of hardship. I transformed it also into a pdf-file, for quick viewing, though without music… Enjoy

Installation with Japanese umbrellas in the Elfenau-park, summer 07

A Spanish friend, a doctor I met at the seminar, told me he and his wife would go in November to a conference in Santa Fee, New Mexico, the “Third International Sound Healing Conference“. They are advertising the conference with the following words: “Come and join the leading-edge researchers, practitioners, scientists, composers, musicians and recording artists in the fascinating and fast-growing fields of sound healing, vibrational medicine, music therapy and body/mind/brain/spirit research.”… It is a small world: The conference is in the same hotel, the La Fonda where I was at an esoteric conference 13 years ago…

Working with sound is most important in spiritual healing. There is an interesting book by K. Parvathi Kumar on “Sound – The Key and its Application“, and even an online edition of the book. There is also a good caption on healing with sound in his book “On Healing“.

Healing through sounds: My wife and a friend playing last Sunday at the seminar in Engelberg, giving joy to the group

The last six days I was on a seminar and celebration of 25 Years World Teacher Trust-Global, with our spiritual teacher, Dr. Kumar. About 170 people from different countries of Europe, the USA and India had come for the meeting in Engelberg, a beautiful village surrounded by high mountains in the center of Switzerland.

It was a very intense time with a lot of exchanges and networking – and of course the seminar. It was again excellent, with very subtle topics, though partly too complex to give here in the blog an adequate understanding.

The theme of the seminar was “Service and the Law of Liberation”. Here is short extract from my notes of a talk of Sri Kumar, from a caption on inner and outer freedom, with the example of Sri Aurobindo. The text is a bit adapted for the blog:

“Freedom outside is political freedom without freedom. The freedom has to come from within. That is why there is not much demonstration on the roads by those who are working for inner freedom. Sri Aurobindo is a good example for someone first working for the political freedom and later working for the freedom of personality. Sri Aurobindo was working for political freedom, then he was thrown into prison. There he prayed to the divine, “When I was working for the freedom, why have you imprisoned me?” The divine said, “I have built an outer prison, so that you continue to work with the inner freedom.”

Before he was imprisoned he received a message in which he was warned that it would be better for him to fight inside for inner freedom than to fight outside for political freedom. He saw a beautiful form appearing to him, while he was constructing a bomb against the British. He received a dream in which Master KH appeared and said, “This is not the freedom to work out. The inner freedom is more important.”

But he did not listen and was imprisoned by the British. In prison he prayed, then again he saw and he heard: “You are forewarned to work for inner freedom, not for outer freedom, it is more important. We have organized the imprisonment for you to protect you.”

And then Sri Aurobindo continued his contemplation while in prison, and he reached the state of consciousness, where he could see within and without the same consciousness. He could join Krishna consciousness, divine consciousness, Christ consciousness, naming is not the problem.
We put so many labels everywhere. Somehow the labels are of more interest to us than the content. He could see the One Divine within. When he saw the guardian of the prison as Krishna, his attitude changed so much. There are so many barriers that the personality builds inside, to such an extend that one gets distasteful of the divine energy. That means the sickness is complete, the imprisonment is complete. Something has to happen.

In many cases a strong event has to happen to solve the imprisonment. Service is the solution. If you start service, gradually the inner freedom comes and the outer shackles go. You feel so free. That is why all great workers for political freedom, when they gained inner freedom, they also gave the knowledge to others freedom workers…. You see the simplicity of Mahatma Gandhi, highly respected for his knowledge, of high qualification. This simplicity comes through service…

Be joyful while you serve. For this reason many times I say, the old way of saying is, I have to do this. The new way is, I like to do it, I love to do it. If you turn the “I have” to the “I love to do it”, you are much more in tune with the doing. A joyful way of doing.”

Lake Truebsee near Engelberg – photo of a friend

In the last days I got several mails about warnings of a World War 3. One is referring to his information from star visitors contacts with humankind and warns of an impending world war before November 4th, another (“Indian Daily”) says that “Remote viewing Tibetan monks sees Extra Terrestrial powers saving the World from destroying itself in 2012“:

“Between 2010 and 2012, the whole world will get polarized and prepare for the ultimate dooms day. Heavy political maneuvers and negotiations will take place with little progress. In 2012, the world will start plunging into a total destructive nuclear war. And at that time something remarkable will happen, says, Buddhist monk of Tibet. Supernatural divine powers will intervene. The destiny of the world is not to self-destruct at this time…. Beyond 2012, out technologies will take a different direction.  People will learn the essence of spirituality, the relation between body and the soul, the reincarnation and the fact we are connected with each other are all part of “God”.”…

There are a lot of expectations around the magic date of 2012, some kind of a hype especially with esotericists. Of course the actual political situation gives enough stuff to get concerned about the craze of partisanship in Eastern Europe or elsewhere. And somehow prophesies have a magic attraction, like a spell-charm. It seems they are tickling curiosity together with a shudder.

However, expectations are clouding the sense of discrimination and making us live more in future fantasies than in the needs of the present. In his book “Spiritual Astrology” Master EK (Dr. Ekkirala Krishnamacharya) warns of prophesies, here in the context of astrological prophesies:

“Trying to learn anything about his own future or the future of others should be strictly avoided. One should remember that one’s future is moulded by oneself and the moulding deity (the false conception of fate) is locked up within oneself by one’s own limitation and self conditioning. The future of man is always veiled by the curtain of the alternatives that are worked out by his own hesitation, doubt, miscalculation and overdoing. Knowing the future through astrology as prophecy is utterly false. Astrology gives the past, present and future of the whole universe and the higher forces that are working in it. Nature always maintains certain secret workings in the plan and there is always an element of variability and uncertainty to the mind of man with regard to details. Moreover, a man on this earth is too tiny to have the details of life worked out so prominently in nature as to be deciphered by him.

When man gets the prediction of a good incident on the mundane plane, immediately a new thought-wave starts in him from the time of his expectation. From time to time, it produces a set of thought-forms by way of repeated anticipations. They accumulate in his memory and stimulate his desire body towards the anticipation. This necessarily creates a stir in the astral body above and the etheric double below. Thus the thought-forms are slowly galvanized into active karma. This change manifests its fruit of fore-knowledge periodically upon his environment. … This creates a big world of confused thought-forms around him…” Spiritual Astrology P. 207f)

So keep an open mind and a positive attitude. Discrimination helps dealing with doomsday prophesies.

Lighthouse at the coast of Costa Brava, Spain

I got several mails with links to websites fostering global cooperation through subjective meditational work:

One is the “Global Coherence Project“, which “is designed to help individuals and groups work together, synchronistically and strategically to increase the impact of their efforts to create positive global change.” The project “offers education and technology on how to increase individual heart coherence. As groups of people in the Global Coherence community intentionally send coherent love and care to the world, a more powerful heart-filled environment is created.” They want to scientifically observe changes in the earth’s magnetic field and test the hypothesis that the earth’s field is affected by mass human emotion, positive or negative. For this they want to use a method they call The Global Coherence Monitoring System.

Another effort along similar lines is “The Intention Experiment“. They say: “The Intention Experiment is a series of scientifically controlled, web-based experiments testing the power of intention to change the physical world. Thousands of volunteers from 30 countries around the world have participated in Intention Experiments thus far. …” They do a Peace Intention Experiment: “September 14, 2008 will see the first in a series of Peace Intention Experiments testing the power of group intention to lower violence in areas around the world. This could be the largest scientific study in history, with hundreds of thousands of participants sending an intention for peace under highly controlled scientific conditions.”
You can join the experiment, if you like.

A third initiative is “The Orion Project” for “developing clean energy solutions to empower the 21st century.” They want “to transform the current energy, environmental and social crisis into a world of sustainability and Enlightened Abundance.” One of their “goals is to support the research and development of new energy generation systems to benefit the environment, alleviate world poverty and decrease dependence on all forms of fossil fuels.” There are a lot of links and calls for donations (energy-input). The intentions  are certainly going into a good direction, while the output still seems to be vague.

The latest newsletter of the Aquarian Age Community, who are dedicated to supporting the UN from a spiritual side mentions: “Increasingly, voices such as that of HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal are seeking to establish a supportive global environment wherein “individual rights, states rights, and international rights must be seen as an indivisible and dynamic unity” and “not as a source of polarization and conflict. … Gradually, and seemingly ever so slowly, humanity’s new habits of enlightened self-interest, cooperation and human solidarity based on recognition of the interconnectedness of all life are becoming the compelling directives of our day.”

A globe of white roses, from a flower-exposition in Berne, May 08

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I went for our Sunday afternoon walk to a forest directly north of the city of Berne, the Bremgartenwald. She wanted to see the Glasbrunnen, a source in the midst of the forest said to be a power-spot. First I was a bit skeptical, for the ring highway goes along the forest and I also expected lots of city people going for a walk there.

Stone cat near the forester’s station

However, after having crossed the highway bridge the sounds of the cars soon faded away. We passed along a “duck pond” full of duck weeds, but without any ducks around (only a heron).

We crossed another parking for the larger part of the forest. At the entrance there was a signpost telling that this forest is now also a “peace forest”, a “Friedwald“: There is an initiative to create places in forests, where the authorities permit that you place the ashes from cremations. The foresters reserve part of the forest, and when you want they mark a tree for you where you can have a tree of your own to bury the ashes and have a memorial place. They guarantee that the place will be kept intact for several decades.

A very good idea, though not cheap, but they use the money for the forests. There are now 60 peace forests in Switzerland. Friends of mine had just buried the ashes of their father just in a “normal” forest, in an early morning ceremony…

On the way to the Glasbrunnen we saw people with bottles or jerrycans coming from the source. And the folks I had expected: Joggers or Nordic-walkers running with strained faces, i-pods in the ears to close out the silence of the forest. And cyclists on racing bikes, eyes straight ahead – using the forest as a substitute for a racetrack: “Sport is good for your health, sport is good for your health, sport…”

The source itself is located in a little vale with a brook running through. Children were playing at the creek and dogs were having a bath in the water trough, but jumped out when we came. There was a magic spell around the place, with the high trees and the murmuring well. Someone had put flowers over the spout, like from a little water ceremony:

We drank some water, it tasted very fresh and soft. We sat on a bench for a short meditation. The evening sun sprinkled spots of light through the trees, and sometimes there were steps from people filling their bottles with living water.