Someone remarked in a talk some time ago: “I don’t need to study anything about meditation or spirituality to get knowledge. That’s only mental. We have everything inside, and whatever I need to know will come to me by way of intuition.”

I thought, well, if a child thinks, “I have everything inside, I don’t need a teacher”… Or a pianist: “All comes to me by way of intuition, I don’t have to practice, I don’t need a teacher”… you can imagine the output. It is my experience that if you don’t have a right and profound understanding of what you are doing with meditation or on your spiritual path, you’ll quickly land in a deadlock or in the wilderness. A right understanding and a wise teacher help clearing the obstacles on the way to experience.

Today a Spanish e-mail which landed in the spam-folder from one of the newsletter-subscribers contained a link to a film about “Shocking New Fur Investigation“, by the Swiss Animal Protection / East International, showing how in fur farms the fur is cut off from living animals. There was a link leading to a site called “Fur is Dead“, for actions against cruelties in the name of fashion. (You might consider not looking the video, for it is atrocious.)

I had written before about “Trash? or How to Deal with Atrocities” and other blogposts about man’s cruelty against his fellow-creatures. It seems as if people cut off part of their being to ignore what they are doing, to suppress their consciousness. Such cruelties not only happen against animals, but also against fellow men. It is difficult not to close one’s eyes and at the same time not to be drawn into a voyeurism of media stimulation. May people realize that what they are doing now is the seed of their future destiny coming back to them. And may they develop feelings of friendship and friendliness towards all sentient beings.

Temple elephant in India

A friend sent me some days ago a powerpoint presentation about a huge beautiful temple in India, near Delhi, which has been constructed from 2000-2005. I forwarded it to another friend in the States remarking that it is better to construct temples of the heart than of stone.

He replied that he had seen the temple last year and that the presentation does not do full justice to the scope and grandeur of the “Swaminarayan Akshardham”, called a spectacular, thematic symbol of eternal life. He added a saying of H.P Blavatsky, from one of her Aquarian axioms, “You cannot build a Temple of Truth by hammering dead stones. Its foundations must precipitate themselves like crystals from the solution of Life.”

Another giant temple called “Sripuram“(: see pictures) and made of 1.5 tons of pure gold has been constructed near Vellore and inaugurated in August, 07. It is now the biggest structure made of gold. You find a description with some photos here. It reminds me of the megalomania of the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, the biggest church of the world at Ivory Coast.

The urge of man to idolize God to aggrandize himself and his own belief-system is much more powerful than the urge to work for silent self-transformation and selfless service for the needy.

For copyright reasons there is no picture of the temples, the picture here is from a friend, of a palace in Northern India.

Karma is the impact of your actions. “Carma” is the name of a website dedicated to “Carbon Monitoring for Action” with a giant interactive database showing who in the world causes most carbon emissions.

The site has just been launched on November 15th. They have collected information of over 50,000 power plants and 4’000 power companies worldwide. Power generation accounts for 40% or all carbon emission in the US and about a quarter of global emissions. The USA is at the top, nearly 2.8 billion tons of CO2 are emitted by power plants, followed by China with 2.5 billion, and China also has the power plant with the highest output.

So have a look on the global “Carma” to see who causes most global karma (: and we get our’s through the power outlet…):

Today I came across the website of a film called “Mystic India – an incredible journey of inspiration“. The description says:

“Mystic India rediscovers India, a land of many mysteries and fascinations, the one land that all desire to see. Home of the Himalayas, the tallest mountains, India is our world’s largest and oldest democracy, and contains an amazing wealth of wisdom, culture and spirituality. And within this earliest civilization known to mankind, lie hidden mystical secrets. It lies hidden in India’s silent spirituality, making her a mystic land of meditation, contemplation and enlightenment.

From 1792 to 1799, Neelkanth walked alone, barefoot and barebody, 8000 miles for 7 years through the length and breadth of India. Carrying no maps, no food and no clothing, how he crossed the roaring rivers, faced ferocious animals and survived the freezing winter of the Himalayas, is still a mystery. It is a story of struggle, of kindness and of courage even when face to face with a man-eating lion….

Neelkanth became one of the greatest spiritual leaders of India. His lessons continue to inspire millions. His vision, work, and wisdom echoes the essence of Indian culture – its unity in diversity. This is the greatest gift India can offer the world.
Mystic India is an epic journey into the land and soul of India…”

You can see a trailer or hear soundtracks from the film.

Photos: (c) Mystic India

Thursday night the first new snow fell in the city, and the following morning the roads were very slippery, when I went to work with my moped. The day before I had a flat tyre-tube which I luckily got quickly repaired, plus a new tyre. I jokingly had told the mechanic: Now I have a winter tyre for the snow – and it came faster than I thought.

First new snow: View from the rest-room at the upper floor of our office building in Berne

This Scorpio-time is a time of letting-go, of working on old burdens: The heritage my father had left over he had distributed quite uneven, and the part assigned to me was quite a lot below the legal share. I had spoken with the notary, who told me that he had been unable to convince my father that what he was going to decide was not along the rules. He nevertheless did the final version of his testament according to his own convictions and without the notary’s assistance.

A second notary involved in family affairs told me the same, with more details. Speaking with my brother and sisters showed me that they weren’t happy with the situation, either. But since the affairs are more complicated and I didn’t want to get into a legal procedure with the family, with costly expert opinions etc., I informed them about what the notaries had said and that I don’t want to insist on the legal minimum.

There had been quite some reflections about the backgrounds of the situation, of what is the right way of proceeding without emotional entanglements, and also with balancing other expectations around. A lot of pictures came along, with thoughts of past situations, about the relation with my old family, of discussions with my father, of karmic inheritances. Clearing the wastes of the past and laying sound foundations for steps of future growth helps letting-go the shackles of unresolved emotional ties.

Similar Scorpionic situations came along with a friend who went through a crisis of inner birth: long-frozen emotions came into a flow after a talk with my wife. It was like a baby being born within, which quickly started growing. Throwing loving light into abysses of the past, while keeping close contact with the light of the soul, helps triggering transformation processes. Scorpio really is the month of the phoenix, going from death to a new life.

An American friend forwarded to me the following blessing today:

A Prosperity Blessing

May you be blessed with an amazingly abundant day today!
May the clouds break and the heavens pour down upon you more joy, more love, more laughter and more money than you could have ever dreamed of.
May the sun shine its golden light of prosperity through every cell of your extraordinary body.
May you be cleansed today of any resistance or feelings of unworthiness that you may still be holding onto.
May your false illusions of doubt, fear and scarcity gently fall away like soft white feathers on a gentle breeze.
May you be willing, simply willing, to allow the Universe to shower you with miracles today.
May the Angels wrap you in their shining wings of opulence. May the fairies deliver you to their pot of gold at the end of a majestic rainbow.
May your eyes shine with the glorious truth of who you really are and may that truth uplift others in your presence to their own inner knowing.
May your ears hear the sound of perfection ringing in your soul.
May you taste the deliciousness of every precious bite of life as your day unfolds moment by moment with amazing grace, heartfelt love and a bounty of magnificent money.
As this day ends, may you slumber wrapped in an exquisite blanket of enduring peace and profound gratitude.
And may the last words you speak today be Thank You!

NB: The author of this Prosperity Blessing informed me about her copyrights: the blessing is written by Veronica M. Hay, her website is Insights and Inspirations.

A brook in a Jordanian oasis.

Yesterday evening we had the second public evening of our evening themes on Meditation – Experiment and Experience. It was Scorpio New Moon, and the atmosphere was quite different from the first meeting: At new moon times you might feel more more oriented to the inner, to letting-go. So some people let the meetings go, and we were 10 persons, four externals, three of them from last time.

Fitting to Scorpio I spoke about difficulties and hindrances on the spiritual path: So when you start meditating, you might think of beautiful experiences of light, inner silence, expansion, harmony and clarity, but instead you often experience fog, dullness, drowsiness, bubbling emotions, thoughts jumping like monkeys or blocked energy and the feeling that the inner light is switched out. There is quite a lot of personality filth covering the lamp of the soul, and the inner light cannot shine through. In our inner being we are the soul, the I AM expressing through the personality, but living in the personality we get quickly totally lost in activities and all kinds of fancies. We had a look at the 10 obstacles Patanjali explains in his yoga teachings (read more about them here) and how to overcome them with the help of spiritual instruments. However, the work with the instruments such as sound, colour, mantrams, doing activities of good will, isn’t a magic wand giving instant enlightenment such as many hope for and others promise to give.

Afterwards my wife guided the meditation, including the observation of respiration. There was a deep silence present in the room, and the noise from the restaurant was suddenly far, far away.

Afterwards people spoke about their experiences, which ranged from sleepiness to feelings of great expansion and light. It’s always again surprising how in a group generally the meditation experience is easier and more smoothly then when you do it alone.

I today came across an article dedicated to “natural architecture“. They were showing pictures of the book “Natural Architecture” by Alessandro Rocca, an architect and a professor at the Milan Polytechnic.

On the site they wrote: “The natural environment still manages to fill us with a sense of awe and amazement. despite the amount of scientific knowledge mankind has gathered, nature still holds great mysteries that we may never be able to unravel…
There is an emerging art movement that is exploring mankind’s desire to reconnect to the earth, through the built environment, referred to as ‘natural architecture’, it aims to create a new, more harmonious, relationship between man and nature by exploring what it means to design with nature in mind….
The movement is characterized by the work of a number of artists, designers and architects that express these principles in their work. the pieces are simple, humble and built using the most basic materials and skills. because of this, the results often resemble indigenous architecture, reflecting the desire to return to a less technological world.”

On the German website “Sanfte Strukturen” (Soft Structures) you find more pictures of an art group, which is constructing living architecture with willow sticks, such as churches, halls, palaces. They adapted their techniques from the Sumerian reed-constructions in Mesopotamia and use it for beautiful constructions.

See also our blogpost on “Transforming Nature“.

‘Weidendom’, by Sanfte Strukturen, 2001, from the book “Natural Architecture” (c)

 An American friend sent me today a link to a beautiful video by Amira Zahra called “Ocean of My Dreams”, with verses of the Persian Sufi poet Rumi, the Arab Muslim mystic Ibn Arabi and Amjid Yaseen. The video is a synthesis of 3 of their poems, the text of them is in a free e-book of a Muslim writer.

My friend wrote: “If one has known true love, this video of the incomparable Rumi and others, will make a deep impression. Its deeper message is that if we love life itself, every moment is an occasion for joy, irrespective of the contents of that moment.”

Picture from the video