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.

Three days ago I got an e-mail from the webmaster of the site “Wicca & Esoteric Library“. He had seen the publications of the Circle of Good Will and asked if we would like to publish articles in his library: It is a “totally free resource and will stay so for as long as I can keep it online.”

I had a look at the site and thought, why not. Though there are quite a lot of “adds by Google” all around the published texts (clicking on them will cause costs for the advertisers and makes the cash tills ring with the site owner and with Google), but maybe this way some people will find the wisdom teachings which wouldn’t stumble across them otherwise.

I wrote to him, that I could contribute some articles, but since all of them are written on the basis of the wisdom teachings, especially those of Master KPK (Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar) and Master EK (Dr. Ekkirala Krishnamacharya), they should not go under my name, but under “Circle of Good Will”.

This wasn’t what they had designed: He answered, I could take one of the names of the Masters as the author, since for legal purposes he needs the name of the author. I replied that this isn’t possible either: I have reframed the texts, without changing the content, by taking parts from many publications, often unpublished notes. From a “worldly legal side” I might be considered to be the author, from a spiritual point of view, however, I’m not and I would never claim it to be, because it is not my content, even though I am entitled to use the texts.

Finally we found a way – that I accept the legal responsibility associated with publishing these articles on the site, by adding the related details in their admin-space. This information is not visible to the outside. As per the details under the general information, I can add something about the Circle of Good Will.

Having these points – and some others – cleared, I added a few articles to different sections of the library. Three of them have been reviewed and published by now, some others probably will follow soon. You might have a look here, here and here. But all these articles and many more you find in a better formatted form as pdfs on the Good-Will site.

“The Writer” in a doll’s house, after Carl Spitzweg’s famous painting “The Poor Poet“.

Some days ago a friend sent me the link to a German website named “Seniors’ Circle Active” (this way) about different topics concerning nature, art, culture, with the motto: “Who changes, remains”. The site is a bit aphoristically arranged, but there are beautiful photos and finds, for example about spirals: Spirals a a basic principle of nature, and a picture shows how the clockwise and anti-clockwise spiral together have a heart form in the middle: “The universal principle of movement ends in the form of the heart”.

So you find spirals in the forms of the DNA as well as in flowers, shells, fingerprints, water vortexes, tornadoes, galaxies (whirlpool galaxies. There is a link to the Phyllotaxis-website “An interactive Site for the Mathematical Study of Plant Pattern Formation”, with a lot of photos of spirals from the plant kingdom. There you also find an applet for the exploration of all possible spiral lattices and their organization.

The spiral is the symbol of time, of Kronos-Saturn, who limits us with the downward spiral when we go deeper and deeper into matter, and the upward spiral on the path of light, leading to ever lagers rounds until we get out of the binding circumscriptions.

Corinth, Greece: Symbol of the Divine Man in the centre of the spirals extending from the centre to the circumference, with a ring of waves – symbolic of the ethers of space – around the centre.

Yesterday evening we had a visit from a woman of our village. She had seen the announcement of our public evening theme in April, but didn’t have time to come. Later she contacted me via e-mail, subscribed to the newsletter and we invited her to come once for a visit.

She is a very intuitive person who has been working for years with Feng shui and space cleaning, counseling people. She feels especially attracted to working with the symbolism of water, inside and outside, and water has a great purifying quality.

However, my wife and I noted afterwards that it took us a while in the talk to find “the common ground”. Her approach to spirituality and the one we are used to seemed to be quite different, though the topics near. When my wife and I reflected about what was the reason, we saw that somehow in the course of the years we have become in a way “sober” and down-to-earth as per dealing with subtle energies. They don’t have anymore the quality of a “magic wand” of sudden transformation (or at least normally). We have experienced that a lot of reflection on knowledge and understanding helps in deepening the knowledge. It is somehow no more of the child-like spontaneity and immediacy. It was fascinating to see that immediacy in the way this woman was dealing with the subtle world, in a sincere way, not like man esotericists do, though moving in the same field.

My wife and I also have a deep conviction coming out of our experience that to delve into deeper realms a guide and teacher is of utmost importance. This woman was wandering through the spheres on her own, and she didn’t even seem to feel any need for a guide, at least an outer one. She feels everything is coming to her just like this, and this gave her a fascinating simple-heartedness and naiveté. I thought, it’s not easy to come back to this “childhood paradise”, though she wasn’t young. After a long way back, you also might come to this home of simplicity, oneness and unity, behind the many conceptions of thought. It is a feeling like being at home.

Stairs in Spain, with flowerpots. July 08