Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft will have his good-bye at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2008 in Las Vegas, where he will give the keynote speech on 6th of January 08. He is going to leave his leading role at Microsoft in the next months only to devote his time entirely to the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. The foundation’s goal is to “ to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world.” It is devoted to global development programs, especially health programs.

Gates said that his keynote at the CES will be his last one: “They can invite me in the future, but I’m not sure if they really want it, for I would talk about contagious diseases and not more about excellent software.” (translated from a German quote in the Heise-Newsticker) – a really great change towards good will work.

Computers are a very good tool for goodwill work.

Yesterday an express parcel arrived from Venezuela. I was surprised, but then remembered: Friends of mine, a couple from Caracas had announced a week ago they would like to send me something. I had met them 2.5 years ago at the marriage of the son of our spiritual teacher in India, and it was a hearty meeting. Though they don’t speak English and I no Spanish, we had some contact from time to time and they like reading our monthly newsletter, El Mensajero Lunar.

The content of the parcel was a beautiful little work of ceramic art inspired by Latin-Indian tradition: A serpent-bird, made out of an involving and evolving line. I was deeply touched by this gift, for it is a profound occult symbolism for the descent of spirit into matter and of the ascent back to the spirit. The Indian symbol of the Feathered Serpent is depicting the same truth and is regarded as a symbol of an initiate. You might like to read here more about the “Mystery of the Serpent” from our Lunar Messengers. The serpent descending the tree in paradise and tempting man with the sensual experience (apple) is half part of the story. As long as we live in matter, we are regarded as creeping snakes. But when we start upon the path of return, we move up again and the serpent becomes a winged serpent, just as you see in the symbol of the Caduceus, the rod of Asclepius which is still used by our modern doctors as a symbol of healing (though the wings are unfortunately missing – a sign of the state of modern medical art?). “The tongues of the serpent become the wings of the eagle” it says in Spiritual Psychology meditations of Dr. E. Krishnamacharya, thus being the symbol of the unfolding Kundalini energy.

I put the picture of the serpent-bird on the wall at the entrance of our apartment, so that it might be a constant inspiration.

The serpent-bird of involving and evolving currents of energy

Asclepius, the great healer-initiate. Photo: Epidaurus, May 2005

A few days ago I got a Christmas-letter with an end-of-the-year review of an old class-mate. He has done an extraordinary career, being since some years the head of Munich airport (Germany’s best airport manager 2007). In our youth we had done some bicycle tours through Germany – to Frankfort, Hamburg and Munich – and in later years he had been in responsible positions at the respective airports. A strange preview of destiny. In spite of his management career he remained somehow very normal, authentic and humorous.

I haven’t seen him the last 11 years, I have rarely been at the annual class meetings, since youth I have felt strangely not at home in this world we had shared in your youth. While a number of my class-mates had done quite a professional career and are well established in different niches of mainstream society (doctors, university professors, lawyers, consultants…), my focus had always more been on exploring the inner realms – though not neglecting having a sound footing in a bread-giving profession which I like. I had felt somehow speechless in mainstream social contexts and their ways of associating – concerts, holiday tours, parties, arts, and the like.

Over the last years I increasingly broke the silence about the inner journey – which also reflected in outer journeys, like regular tours to India for seminars with my spiritual teacher. I noticed that by now an inner ground had grown on which I can express myself much more freely and explain about inner processes and give an understanding. To this had greatly contributed the work with the monthly newsletters about the wisdom teachings, which found an expression in the public talks on Meditation – Experiment and Experience given during the last months.

And so when I replied to the mail of my old friend, I wrote to him much more about what had been going on on my spiritual path than I would have done some years ago. In his letter he had mentioned a famous German sculptor, whom he had visited and who will make a sculpture for Munich airport. The sculptor told him about 2500 kinds of steel, having different qualities. I told my friend that very similarly you develop a sensorium for subtle dimensions, when you work with it over the years, a sensibility which is not possible to convey to someone else who hasn’t developed the related inner instruments.

It is fascinating to observe how these inner tools – called anahkaranas in the East – develop over the years. It is nothing spectacular, just a way of dealing in a clear way with situations, a deeper way of perceiving. It is just the same way a scientist or an artist develops his skills over the years – only that the field of investigation are the inner realms. For those who don’t know them, they remain an unknown continent.

Blue landscape with Bernese Alps. Some paths lead into far away worlds. It says that Eskimos have 20 different expressions for snow – a subtle differentiation coming from a more refined perception.

I yesterday had the chance of seeing the draft of a website of another country’s group of the spiritual movement with which we are closely connected. It made me think of how different people express their spiritual stances. Whereas I feel more sober and, unlike in earlier years, prefer clear, unemotional and down-to-earth presentations, others have a more flowery or romantic attitude and also prefer for web-design a more baroque depiction (“web-baroque”). I remember times in my life where I myself was attracted to more devotional expressions, but these have faded away and given rise to what I experience as a stronger stringency or consistency.

One of the new year’s greetings I received yesterday was from India, showing 3 photos of white statues covered with flowers from a ritual. I try to keep the stance of an observer to what, in the critical part of my mind, goes into the category of kitsch or overladen imaginations. But I know that judging closes the doors of perception. I have participated in rituals which on the outside seemed to be thus pure devotional emotions, but where for the inner eye there was a strong spiritual energy present magnetizing the whole atmosphere.

How to give an expression to beauty? How to express most sublime energies? Much certainly depends on your own cultural background and / or your projections. If you see just the surface, you easily get lost in your own superficiality.

Angel silently meditating in a shop window

Yesterday brought a number of e-mails from all over the world – new year greetings in several languages, with lots of good wishes – may they come true… For me this turning from December 31st to January 1st is not much more than a step from one day to the other, marking a day fixed by social conventions of some part of the earth, accidentally located 10 days after winter solstice – a much more appropriate day for a start of a new cycle.

Next week we will be in India, and in about two weeks’ time there will be the Pongal celebration – the new year according to the local traditions between January 12 and 15, marking the beginning of Uttarayana, the sun‘s movement northward for a six-month period. For years I had been working with refugees, and I have several times celebrated the Tết festival, the Vietnamese new year according to the luni-solar calendar, in February. My Iranian colleague of that time used to celebrate with us the Nowruz festival, the traditional Iranian new year holiday celebrated in Iran and several countries of Central Asia coming for Zoroastrian times. It is celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox (start of spring in northern hemisphere), which usually occurs on the March 21st. Though it isn’t an Islamic festival, it has been adopted as such in a number of countries.

For me this is the most appropriate beginning of a new year, marking one prominent starting point of the annual zodiacal cycle, where the sun enters the sign of Aries. Its invigorating energies are most appropriate for launching a new year. Thus the 12 signs of the zodiac are also a more appropriate rhythm than counting the months as normally done. But maybe the double-headed Janus, who gave his name to our January, is quite typical for our times, showing not only two faces and being often irritated by the many perspectives.

Dawn of January 1st, 2008 – what do the augurs say for the coming times?

The last weeks my eldest son (17) has quite increased his online gaming activity – especially since he shifted to World of Warcraft. I had the feeling that he “closed up” to the outer and wondered where this might go. It reminded my of my “wild years” in the early 70ies (of course not in a digital world) and thought, “Is this a return of the times?”

After having met him twice around 3 o’clock a.m. when I woke up in-between (and he had started before 3 p.m., now during holidays), my wife and I discussed what to do. Is a gaming addiction getting hold of him? Is it a state of pupation during adolescence? Is anything else wrong with him?

Next day my wife had a talk with him where they explored the gaming situation. He was quite open to enter into the reflection. She showed him that about 50% of his energy potential is being invested in gaming, 5-10% in other hobbies and the remaining 40% in school and a little help at home (nearing the per mill region…). Luckily he has enough energy and intelligence to get along with the situation without being devoured …

He said that gaming fascinates him most and that other things are more boring to him. She showed him the Rider tarot card of the Ace of Cups and told him, it seems he only reacts on other things with pressure and doesn’t find anymore access to his inner source. So he isn’t getting into a flow with the energy from within. The flow isn’t a
He understood quite well and answered that normally he likes doing things with the hands, he likes even doing dish-washing or helping to hang-up the laundry or especially his work at the scouts. The thing with the dish-washing and the laundry was new to us – my wife always had the feeling that she has to break through a wall to get him do anything. Though the fascination of gaming continues to be strong, we felt a relief that one day or the other also this gaming craze might come to an end…

I just got the following story from a Canadian friend:

One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside all of us. One wolf is EVIL… It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is GOOD…it is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked the grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” and the old Cherokee answered: “The one you feed.”

Not just wolves: 2 painted dogs in front of a farmhouse

Christmas is the time of presents – this is also the case in the business world. A number of Christmas presents popped in at my office. It seemed that the agencies and partners want to outdo the others in originality – and not necessarily in beauty and style. In some case there is a subtle material “aggression” behind – a kind of an endeavour to gain favours to get another order or contract. I don’t assume bribery ambitions, but there is some kind of this tendency.

Last week however, I got a very original small gift from an agency which has developed a media management system we use for administering our photos. It is a very good system, and I appreciate the executive director very much – he has an enormous commitment, not only for his enterprise, but also in social activities. Over the last decades he has built up in Andhra Pradesh, India, a mango cultivation and distribution system, which helps hundreds of farmers to have a good job. And then he built up several clinics, and also opened an office of his agency in Hyderabad where they do development and distribution of their media managing system.

The last years he sent always very creative little presents: Once a little granite stone with moss from a pass in the Alps, with a little booklet on how mosses survive in most difficult surroundings, showing parallels to our lives. Last year a stone with petrified little fish from South America, and a small booklet about the evolution and power of life. This year he sent an old Intel Pentium (c) chip, which people from a prisoners rehabilitation centre had opened and prepared, together with a booklet on silicon – how silicon, a material second-most spread on the surface of the earth has become the pivotal point of or technical development. By using the qualities of this semiconductor we are now able to reach technical heights unthinkable of only a few decades ago. The booklet mentioned that for the first flight to the moon the Nasa computers had less capacities than nowadays every cellphone has: We have entered into a silicon age. Now silicon starts even to emit light, through its use in LED light emitting diodes. A real step into the sublimation of matter.

The chip – a little work of art, with a beautifully reflecting centre

Today I got an e-mail from a person who receives our newsletter. She wrote:

“I am hoping you will take an interest in the content of the following website: www.leesrecovery.com. I have been advocating for the mental health treatment needs necessary for my brother, Lee, over the last twelve years. The result is that we finally made a breakthrough this year, 2007, in obtaining some of the vital services needed. What remains is an intensive program of head injury/substance abuse recovery and I do not have the funds. Without this specific recovery treatment Lee is probably without an option for a healthy, stable future; with it he is very likely to fully succeed.”

She wants to reach 5000 people to donate $ 10/each. I am impressed by the commitment of the lady to help her destitude brother. She has realised a high-tech flash website to promote her concern about her brother, with a lot of creativity. However, collecting donations is not the way I would go, but trust in support when going into the direction I understand as right. So I’m not going to send money – my “localised” focus of help attention is elsewhere. I am confronted daily in my work with so many situations of urgent need and initiatives of collecting money. But maybe someone of the readers feels being touched by this cry for help, especially at this time of the year.

Water flowing into a pont for extinguishing fire

I just have published the powerpoint presentations of the series of public evening themes we had from October to December. Friends helped with the translations, and so they are now available in English, German, French and Spanish, as powerpoints and pdf. They might be useful to get an understanding of the wisdom teachings and make them accessible to interested people. So here you get to the presentations.

I used a lot of photos for the slide backgrounds, from spiritual spots in many parts of the world – from Mongolia, Tibet, India, Jordan, and of course of different countries of Europe. I didn’t travel around, but collected the photos from friends – that’s more comfortable (though I like traveling 🙂 )

Making these slides fascinated me very much: How to visualise inner realities with “outer” photos? How to explain in simple words mechanics of subtle experience – to newcomers without any special background. This is a topic which deeply interests me. I think sometimes writing big books is easier than saying the essence in a few words. It is a process of condensation, “essentialising”. In this, I learned a lot from my spiritual teacher, he is really good in expressing sublime and complex thoughts in simple, understandable words. The “motto” is KISS: Keep it simple and stupid…

Here is a picture I took some years ago inside the Planetary Healing Centre, a beautiful spot near Visakhapatnam, India. I hope I will have time to see it again, when we are going to India in January 08.