This weekend we had been in Einsiedeln for a short, but very intense seminar with our spiritual teacher, Dr. K. P. Kumar. It was a very small group of 14 persons. We had been invited, but we even didn’t know that he would give lectures. So it was a surprise for us. And it were very deep talks about “The Scripture of Synthesis”. Saturday morning, he had written down 12 statements about existence, the basic truth of all that is. In the three lectures he first commented the sayings, then gave a number of stories and explanations in terms of spiritual astrology to illustrate them and make them more comprehendible. Since we were such a small group, he could go into subtleties of the teachings which normally aren’t possible in a bigger group.

Sunday morning he spoke about the life of the great initiate Vedavyasa, who lived at the times of Sri Krishna, about 5000 years ago. His final scripture, the Srimad Bhagavata, is a writing that synthesizes all knowledge and practices of discipleship otherwise known as the science of yoga. He gave a number of hints how the wisdom unveils to the one who has prepared himself and then takes in the knowledge with the right inner attitude. I was once more thrilled to  witness how he could bring these sublime teachings in a way suited to our level of understanding and illustrating them with numerous stories.

It was a hearty, leisurely ambiance, and also after the lectures, at the meals. I feel it very inspiring to listen to his expositions, uplifiting all who were present. I took notes, thought the talk went quite fast. It is my method of staying alert and focused. I hope I’ll find soon some time for corrections, in order to share the notes with friends.

Sunday morning dawn at Einsiedeln

Last Monday after the visit to Microsoft we returned to Berne, where the city was sprinkled all over with orange – the Dutch football fans had invaded the town, a peaceful, though not silent invasion. It was quite a contrast – the cool, focused ambiance at the Microsoft center and the emotionally charged atmosphere of the fans. The tickets for the game already promised: “Expect emotions” and indeed, you could feel it.

I’m not at all a football fan and was a bit sceptical about mass hysteria, especially in the stadium. The media had fuelled it over the last weeks until overkill. But already in the corporate hospitality center, where we had our dinner, there was a hilarious, cordial mood, mainly of middle-aged people mainly in orange, with orange hats and other orange decorations – a carnival. I said to myself: “Get ready to plunge into a collective solar plexus center in upheaval.”

In the stadium the colour orange was prevalent, the blue of the Italian Azurros was mainly in one block, but obviously a minority. And normally dressed people, too.

Music and announcements heated up the public. The players came in like gladiators into a Roman Coliseum. The game began. It soon became visible that the Dutch team had an excellent group cooperation in the way they were exchanging the ball between the different players. The Italians, however, seemed to be more a collection of strong individualities. In a newspaper they later spoke about the Italian world champions as the “divas”.

The point of focus – the football – changed from one side to the other in rapid moves, but all were focused on this one point, not only the camera men all around the field, ready to catch a good shot.

The football is like the “I AM”, the point of focus of our awareness. When you are not linked to the higher self, your point of focus gets tossed around all over the field of activities. The teams – your interests – push it into ever-changing directions.

It soon became clear that the good group cooperation of the Oranjes was stronger than the individualistic strength of the world champions. The game ended 3 : 0 for the Dutch. A huge emotional outburt of joy went through nearly the whole stadium – except the Italian corners.

I also was taken by the waves of joy, but I was astonished that the Dutch fans were very civilized. When the masses left the stadium, it went quickly and in a totally ordered way. I had to review some of my prejudices.

Of course the whole was also a big marketing activity, and the sponsors claimed their rights of attention. The mascots moved over the field wishing all a good-bye.

Today at noon, when I crossed the city, it was orange all over: The fans were moving with bands through the streets, in the fan-zone the music played and warmed up the emotions for tonight’s play against France. Will the emotions of the party-mood still be there tomorrow? The Swiss were mourning the two lost games scattering all their football hopes.

Screen in the fan-zone in front of the government building

Dutch fans in the street

Orange all over

The agency with whom I’m realising the new intranet for my office invited me last Monday for a visit to the Microsoft Solution & Innovation Center near Zurich and for the football (soccer) match Holland – Italy of the EURO 08 in Berne. I couldn’t resist and accepted the invitation. About the football match you’ll read in the next post.

The Microsoft Solution and Innovation Center is one of 4 centers world-wide, it opened in November 2007. It is some kind of a future-lab, to develop visions of what the electronic world may be in a few years.

In a futuristic setting (“It’s something like Spaceship Enterprise…”) with a 360-camera in the middle and surrounded by 7 large presentation screens we were entering into Microsoft’s visions of how a big enterprise might organise its collaboration, with video-teamwork, electronic white-boards, touchscreen-tablet noteooks and innovative mailing systems, with facilities beyond today’s scope and design.

The head of the innovation center told us, just like the automobile industry develops concept cars, computer technology develops concept workspaces. It was thrilling to see how the virtualisation of collaboration will be progressing, a quality of the Aquarian age.

However, when she asked for feedbacks, I told her that in my job one of the difficulties isn’t technical feasibility, but the humans working with the system. Of course the youth of today is very naturally handling electronic tools, but the human factor remains the center and not the electronic instruments: Instruments are for expressing ideas, helping to manifest them, they aren’t an end in themselves. In spirituality the body is realised to be the instrument of the soul, which has to get hold ov the vehicle, and not the vehicle becoming the master, like it is often the case.

We had a second presentation about the development of unified communication, where Microsoft sees a convergence between the different end-user’s instruments: Not the instrument matters for the communication, but the message to be transported. This too, goes into the same line of a spiritual principle that the instrument has to be the servant, not the master.

Inside the building: Cool style like the technical world, but without the breath of vegetation life.

At a seminar celebration Sri Kumar told the story of the man, who made him come to Argentina and prepared the groups, which are active today: Don Pedro Nahum. I found it very inspiring, so here are some lines are arranged from his talk.

Pedro Nahum worked day and night for 30 years to manifest the teachings of the Theosophical Society and those of Alice Bailey in Argentina. He was a very fiery man, to whom money never was a conditioning factor nor did he live for earning money. He was moving between three cities, Buenos Aires, Posadas in the north and Mendoza at the feet of the Andes, which are distant to each other by 1200 to 1500 km. He was moving from place to place by trucks speaking to the truck drivers who were his students and reaching places and teaching books. His teachings were always during the midnight hours until the early morning, because during the day the people had to work for the living. He respected it and travelled by day.

He was reading books and explaining the spiritual teachings to his followers. He never allowed anyone to record the teachings nor even allowed to make notes. He said, listen and register. That is the oldest method. In ancient times the teacher taught and the students listened, and it is to the student to register and to remember.

He had as many as 1000 followers; relentlessly he was teaching them. They were living in the forests of Argentina and learning. They stayed there day and night for a few weeks, learned and then went back – a very hard work, but he was a man of iron will. He created enough fire in all those who followed him.
He was saying to his students that another teacher would come and teach meditation, give the technique of yoga and also the rhythm and the technique of discipleship. When he came to know of Sri Kumar he suggested his followers to listen to him. In 1992 Dr. Kumar came for the first time for about 3 weeks. Pedro Nahum was planning to leave his physical body, not because of old age but because of the intensity of the work he did.

He attended Sri Kumar’s teachings in Buenos Aires and Posadas, and there he symbolically handed over to him a silver cup of mate, the traditional tea they drink there. He said: “I have done what is to be done, you please continue. I wish to leave. Teach them meditation, I did no teach them meditation. Give them the discipline of discipleship which I did not give. I have ignited fire in them, and they all carry the fire of aspiration. They are all very wild people. I know that you can handle fire. I am glad that you have come, I symbolically hand over the work to you and I will leave by the time you come next time. I know that you will come many times to Argentina.”

Sri Kumar listened carefully, accepted the silver cup, and next year when he was starting for Argentina, the day he left India, the same day Pedro Nahum left his body. As Sri Kumar landed in Switzerland, he had the news that Pedro Nahum had departed. Don Pedro had good extrasensory perceptions. He now lives in the heart of all his followers and continues to inspire.

The WTT-Group from Misiones edited some of his sayings in Spanish and in English, which you find here. Since for him the waterfall is very important and he explained everything about the falls to his followers, the group arranged his photo above the falls.

At the meeting in Iguazú for the May Call celebrations from May 26th to June 1st, there were about 300 persons from different countries from East and West: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Honduras, India, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, United States, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland as well as from Venezuela attending the seminar. Most faces were new, but many I knew from previous group livings.

Besides the seminar lectures on “Coexistence” by our teacher, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar. There were very interesting encounters with many different members – but this isn’t much for the blog. In case you are interested, I have typed the seminar notes…

One exchange was quite particular: I was sitting next to a lady from Honduras. When I asked her, what she was doing in her home country, she answered in a short, precise way, in perfect English: “What do you mean? I don’t speak English very well, but first I am a mother with two children, then I am a lawyer, and a politician. I am member of a Latin American international assembly, similar to the EU. I am in the commission working with the European Union, o.k.?”

I replied: “Oh, so you have a lot of responsibilities. How do you integrate all this with spiritual life?” She hesitated a moment, and I was wasn’t sure if she understood me well, but then she answered in a clear, decisive way: “First in my life there is God, since always, then come other things. I am a politician because I think it is right that I am at the place where I am. If I weren’t there, there would be someone else who might not do it as well as I do. o.k.?” Then she turned over to the other side, leaving me back a bit baffled.

Passion Flower in the Argentinean national park of the Iguazú Falls

In the afternoon of our arrival some friends asked me if I would like to join them for an excursion to the Cataratas, the falls on the Brazilian side. They are in a beautiful national park, full of luxuriant vegetation. I had been there 7 years ago, but now the weather was fine.

The public bus brought us right to the entrance of the park, where we changed into another bus which brought us closer to the falls. And then we saw them, the overwhelming range of cascades, large and small ones, falling from different heights over brown rocks, embellished by green spots.

Clouds of spray hovered over the falls, and the sun painted beautiful rainbows.

At the upper part of the Brazilian side of the falls looking at Garganta do Diablo / Devil’s Throat

It is a most enchanted scenery, with the continuous roar of the falling waters resounding over the valley. The path lead us closer and closer to the “Devil’s Gorge”, the big hole at the beginning of the falls, where huge amounts of water tower down into the abyss. The water sprinkled over us and gave a cooling feeling. The soul feels uplifted and inspired by all the natural beauty. Some coatis were running around, watching us tourists, and waiting for some food to be picked up.

The next day we went with some small busses to the Argentinean side, where you can go even deeper into the cascades, through forests full of tropical bushes. A little train brought us to a catwalk leading to the other side of the Devil’s Gorge. The waters seem to be so quiet before rushing down into the abyss – like in life, where surprises often come unexpected.

At the end you can look from a platform down directly into the white of the thundering waters, without seeing the bottom.

Flocks of birds were dancing in the clouds, sometimes disappearing in the waters. A friend said he had seen a film about these birds having their nests behind the falling waters, a safe place without any natural enemies.

We later went with a little ferryboat to the St. Martin’s island in the middle of the falls.

A boat in front of the rocks of St. Martins Island

Some huge black birds circled over our heads or sat in trees.

Some lizards darted over the rocks or enjoyed the sun. Signs warned of serpents, but we didn’t see any.

On St Martin’s Island there is said to be a power-spot, an entrance to the subtle Devic kingdom – and you could really feel the sublime presence, surrounded by the torrential cascades.

The sun painted horizontal rainbows into the mist over the rocks.

The energetic center is said to be around the rock in the middle – a superb, but inaccessible place.

For hours after the return there remained the impression of the thundering waters in my subtle bodies. It had such a strong impact of purification, power and upliftment.

In Eastern wisdom teachings the descent and ascent of water is seen as the movement of involution and evolution of creation. It is described with the “Narayana” mantram. A friend from Miami who was at the group living in Iguazú sent me today a picture of the falls writing:

“I selected this photo because for me it represents the synthesis of the message of the past group living: NARAYANA: Waters from heaven and waters from the earth. For me the mist that is produced from the fall of the water represent our souls going on the return path. Thousands and thousands of little drops that at the end merges with the immense, unlimited blue sky.”

A long blogging pause of two weeks. The reason why:

We had already packed everything for the journey to Iguazu, Brazil. I just wanted to do a backup of my laptop before leaving. For some reason the software I had installed didn’t recognize the external harddisk. Oh, I thought, that’s time to install the new version which I had bought some weeks before.

When strying to re-boot the laptop after installation, nothing happened, the screen remained black. My son said: “You have taken out the installation CD too early”, he inserted it and got the laptop running again. Fine, I thought, finished some mails, shut down the computer and put it into the rucksack.

At Zurich airport I wanted to check something on the laptop, but the screen remained black. The CD with the software was at home and we were ready to take off, and me with my black laptop.
I wanted to take notes from the seminar with our spiritual teacher. O.K., I said to myself, it seems this time your laptop wants holidays from you. A bit sad I put it back into the rucksack.

We had a beautiful, smooth flight, where everything went like in a big flow. It was a big jump through the night, via Frankfurt, Sao Paulo further on to Iguazú Falls near the Argentinean border. At the hotel there were already several friends, from Germany, Venezuela, Argentina, Spain, a cordial welcome like in a family meeting.

I mentioned the story of the broken laptop to a friend from Berlin, and she said: Oh, I have mine with me, but I don’t really need it during the seminar, you can use it.

So I could write my notes, but didn’t blog. We came back last Monday night. I got the laptop running again on Tuesday, but the week left no time for posting anything, though there were so many impressions. So here it goes again.

Approaching Iguazu – over the city

A treetop full of orange flowers in front of our hotel window.

I frequently observe that similar topics come across my way at home and at my office. It is some kind of synchronicity, which superficially seen seems to be accidental. Of course it is not identity, and there are many strings of themes and activities quite different from each other.

In the last months the relaunch of the intranet system at my office kept me quite busy (I wrote a blogpost 14 months ago and another in October 07, when the project officially started). I’m the project manager and have to coordinate the internal processes with the external agency. At the moment we are in the process of finalizing detail concept, and the new intranet hopefully will be launched in October.

At home I’m working since some months – besides other activities – at the relaunch of the Good-Will website. My youngest son, 15, is helping me with the technical side, and I do the content migration and photo layout, scanning etc. It took a long time until finally the project started. My son needed overcoming technical, but also motivational obstacles. But since some weeks the fire has got him and we are making good progress. I hope that in a few weeks we are through.

I started the old site in 2000 and re-worked it a bit with the site layout 2 years ago. It grew over the years, but the coding, done by a WYSIWYG-editor, is full of mistakes. Since I’m a “layman” as far as the technical side is concerned and don’t have much time to go deeper into it, I wouldn’t be able to do the relaunch myself. Now we have a very good co-operation, where I can realize quite some ideas which my son is adapting into the techical side. You’ll see more of the results in the near future. Also the blog will be integrated into the layout and structure of the new site. Here is a screenshot of the English page on “good will”.

Two days ago I received a beautiful powerpoint presentation from an Argentinian friend with incredible pictures of the waterfalls in Iguazu, near the border triangle between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. We will be there next week for a seminar with our spiritual teacher, Dr. Kumar.

A photo of the Iguazu Falls, from a friend.

A member of our local group had yesterday birthday and invited us for breakfast and a little excursion this morning after our group meditation.

The outing went to a nearby hill, the Belpberg (more in German) which in previous epochs had been the end moraine of a glacier. Our friend wanted to show us a surprise and didn’t tell us what we would see, we should just experience.

From the western side of the hill we took a little road, entered a forest and came along a beautiful waterfall.

A little further on there was a house directly next to the forest, with a magical ambiance around.

Our friend told us that until recently a man lived there, who used to do rituals and ceremonies in nature. She once was invited by him into his house. She was fascinated by the friendly way he lived in tune with nature. Only the nearby farmers didn’t like it, they were a bit irritated by this strange guy and so the owner terminated the contract. Though the man tried his best to stay there, it seemed that now he had left the place and other people were living there.

Someone of our group mentioned: “It is quite hard to live in a non-orthodox way in Switzerland, it’s very different from India, where everyone can live the style he likes, without irritating the others.”

We continued our walk and took a small, steep path through the forest,

and then saw some chalk cliffs with a little cave overlooking the valley, called the “Pfaffenloch” (Parson’s Hole):

Between two rocks there was a small entrance into a tunnel. We went in, but the passage got more and more narrow, and after some meters you had to creep.

I felt uncomfortable and returned. While the others crept to the other side, I looked around and saw remains of some rituals – candles, fire etc. – a beautiful place for celebrating nearness with nature.

And there was a fantastic view over the valley to the Alps. The cars and the railway down in the valley looked like little toys.

When the others came back, we sat down and intonated a few times the holy word OM – quite a contrast to the shooting going on in the valley – Swiss marksmen training.

Back at the foot of the hill we saw some farm houses, which now serve city people to live in. I’m always astonished how much energy some people put into making their houses representative dwellings. So much vital energy is being absorbed by these activities.