Today a Spanish friend sent the link to a YouTube video about Tony Melendez (here with English sub-titles), a musician from Nicaragua living in the United States. He is playing guitar and giving concerts  – but without hands, since he has no arms. In the video you see him also giving a concert for Pope John Paul 2.

A fascinating demonstration of overcoming handicaps or barriers, even under most difficult situations, when there is a will to do so. An inspiration for many.

You now can surf with Google through the galaxies and discover planets, nebula or supernovae with the web-browser, without any other software. The Argentinian programmer Diego Gavinowich from Buenos Aires was a finalist in Google’s Latin America Code Jam and won a 3 months internship at Google headquarters in San Diego, USA.

Google writes: “You can search for planets, listen to Earth & Sky podcasts, watch some beautiful Hubble telescope images, or explore historical maps of the sky from the comfort of your browser.”

Seeing the pictures of the cosmos reminds me of the “Conclusion” of the Critique of Practical Reason, where the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant writes:

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” (written on his tomb)

For moral law we today might say the subtle inner worlds you discover on the spiritual path. You find more about “Meditation – Experiment and Experience” here.

Google Terms of use – free for private use.

The World Forum of Civil Society Networks UBUNTU have worked out a very important Declaration on the context of the 60º Anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights UDHR. This Declaration was published with the first 50 signatures on 14 March 2008 in the International Herald Tribune (London – NY). Since last Friday dozens of people and organizations are signing this Declaration (and we have signed it, too).

The drafters of this Declaration have given a clear message to the world: to reach peaceful societies we need to promote human right to peace, right to development and environment protection.

By signing this Declaration you can express you support of the UDHR.

By the way, the name of the world forum UBUNTU, “is an age-old African term for humaneness – for caring, sharing and being in harmony with all of creation. As an ideal, it promotes co-operation between individuals, cultures and nations.”

Colourful globe of world union – sculpture in the Elfenau Park, Berne, June 2007

 And a last story sent by my Indian friend :

“5 important lessons to learn from a humble pencil:

1. It tells you that everything you do will always leave a mark,
2. You can always correct the mistake you make,
3. The important thing in life is what you are from inside and not from out side,
4. In life you will undergo painful sharpenings which will make you better in whatever you do,
5. Finally, to be the best you can be, you must allow yourself to be held and guided by the hand that holds you.”

And one more story sent by my Indian friend :

An old Master instructed an unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. “How does it taste?” the Master asked. “Awful,” spat the apprentice.

The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”

As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the Master asked, “How does it taste?” “Good!” remarked the apprentice. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the Master. “No,” said the young man.

The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the ‘pain’ depends on the container we put it into.

So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things ….. Stop being a glass. Become a lake!”

Picnic of a young couple at the Gerzensee near Berne, Switzerland

Another story sent by my Indian friend :

“This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain and suffering that I have seen…

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: ‘I don’t believe that God exists.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked the customer. ‘Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn’t exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can’t imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things.’

The customer thought for a moment, but didn’t respond because he didn’t want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt.

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber:

‘You know what? Barbers do not exist.’ – ‘How can you say that?’ asked the surprised barber. ‘I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!’ – ‘No!’ the customer exclaimed. ‘Barbers don’t exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside.’ –

‘Ah, but barbers DO exist! That’s what happens when people do not come to me.’ – ‘Exactly!’ affirmed the customer. ‘That’s the point! God, too, DOES exist! That’s what happens when people do not go to Him and don’t look to Him for help. That’s why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world.’ ”

He was not at the barber, but is in search of the Divine: A hermit in the Himalayas. Photo of a friend, India 2005

My Indian friend sent me yesterday some other stories, and this one that is also quite widespread in the blogosphere (the world of blog writers). But it is worth while adding:

“When you see geese flying along in “V” formation, you might consider what science has discovered as to why they fly that way:

As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in “V” formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.

People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are travelling on the thrust of one another.

When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.

If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those people who are headed the same way we are.

When the head goose gets tired, it rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.

It is sensible to take turns doing demanding jobs, whether with people or with geese flying south.

Geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

What messages do we give when we honk from behind?

Finally … and this is important … when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot, and falls out of formation, two other geese fall out with that goose and follow it down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly or until it dies, and only then do they launch out on their own, or with another formation to catch up with their group.

If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.”

You might like to read the Lunar Messenger about “Groups and Group Consciousness“.

Some birds like flying alone – an eagle (?) in front of a mountain in the Alps near Thun

This afternoon I went to a talk announced as “Guerilla Marketing in the Web – Affiliate-, Viral-, Blog- & Buzz-Marketing etc.” from a group called “Internet-briefing.ch – Where Web Pioneers Meet”, on the site of the Topsoft software fair. Was it already guerilla marketing announcing this title to attract people and then change it to “Web-woven promotion” (a word-play in German) at the presentation?

Though basically well-known, but astonishing again – all these tricks marketeers use to channel the waters of attention to their mill-wheels. Such a great human creativity used to catch people’s awareness and get them into the desired direction – and this by giving them the feeling that they act by their own free decision: Viewing YouTube-videos or down-loading desktop gadgets with ads, or, even more important, getting into the talks of the people.

The presenter quoted from the Cluetrain Manifesto, that markets are conversations (“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies. These markets are conversations. …”).

This is a very important point, and it is also true for non-marketing purposes. You can also use it for spreading ideas and concepts of spirituality. However, this is much more difficult than to work will mass-consciousness, as the marketeers do.

In the East the power of the word is called Saraswathi, the goddess of speech and of wisdom. Going into wisdom, however, is not just that what marketeers are interested in.

Markus Gabriel, CEO Angelink, preparing for the talk

After the lecture I strolled along the stands of the Topsoft exposition – a fascinating world of hopes and promises, with dark-clothed smart salespeople or a bit more freaky open-sourcelers. I had nothing lost in this ambiance and left the fair again.

The Topsoft-flag lying on the floor at the entrace, and people leaving.

An Indian friend sent me today the following excellent story (and then I saw that it is posted in many blogs…):

A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine.

Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars. “What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”
So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”

The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap $ 9,998.00

Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort makes all the difference!

Knowing where to tap… Statue in front of the BEA Fair building, Berne, this afternoon

Today I was on the annual networking meeting of Swiss NGOs. This time we met at the office of Amnesty International, and the group was larger than the years before. It is a fascinating group of web communicators from about 20 NGOs such as Greenpeace, WWF, and others active in the fields of social, health and environmental groups.

Several members (me too) gave a review of what had been going on with their site during the last months, the highlights and challenges they had encountered and the new ideas or campaigns they had realised.

It is always very refreshing to see that others fight with similar problems or get inspiration from good ideas. One started with a quote from Homer Simpson (“security inspector of the Springfield atomic power plant”) : “The internet – does this nonsense still exist?”

In the afternoon we had a workshop with Sophie Graf, a consultant from the communication agency Bernet PR, Zurich: “Texting in the Internet”. Though many points mentioned were essentials of web writing, it was good to hear it from another perspective. On the cover of the hand-out there was a quote of Mark Twain: “If I had more time, I would have written less.”

We worked with a long text from the Clean Clothes Campaign to see how it should best be prepared for a web solidarity campaign: Get the central message into the title and the header, discuss what should be done with the rest of the text. A quote from the exposition: “The first 15 words are more important than the next 15’000 words.”

It was a good exercise, training to see the essentials and focus on a clear, short message. This is also very important for working with spiritual ideas or in other communication situations.

Web texting: guiding the attention of the visitors. A scene in front of Bern Central Station this afternoon.