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

The last weeks there had been several contacts or situations, where couples were separating, divorcing or going through a crisis, some of them after long years of marriage. Everywhere there was a process of becoming aware that there wasn’t anymore basis for the relation. They had drifted apart or realised that it would be better so end the situation by one of the partners leaving the common flat.

My wife observed: “Over years they had suppressed emotions or closed the eyes to certain situations. It is like putting them into a storage room, or rather putting them into a safe, locking them thrice and then loosing the key.”

But you cannot cut away by means of surgery parts of your life, they start leading a life of their own: In some of the cases unwholesome forms of behaviour had developed, in another there was an emotional ice age freezing certain parts of perception.There remains a more or less subtle feeing of sickness of the situation, and like with cancer, emotional metastases develop. The origin isn’t the metastasis which you perceive somewhere in the relation, but the underlying blockages of life energy.

My wife said, that in the talks with the persons she feels like a mining rescuer going down into the mine with a headlight and bringing miners back to light: “I had to learn not to interfere with the concrete situation by way of giving advices, but by helping them to align to their soul, to the light. When this alignment is gained, they themselves find their way.”

And even if the way seems to be painful at the first look, it is like re-integrating long lost parts of life back into the greater whole. And this has a deep healing impact.

Figure of a troll in a Norwegian museum. Blocked emotions sit in us like in a cellar.

A friend wrote me that she see so much competition and rivalry within spiritual groups gives her problems: “Why are there always so many divisions and splits? Why can’t you just work for a common cause, to express synthesis in practical life?”

She tries to keep contact with the different groups and to get people exchange, but it seems to be a long way. A friend of her is in a deep crisis, because she has just been excluded from a group. She told me she sent her the last Lunar Messenger on “Dealing with Obstacles“, since the text was very fitting.

I answered her that sometimes these divisions are like cell divisions and bring about something new, sometimes old things / attitudes fall off, or people with another vibration frequency separate. I had this experience several times in my life. It is like in the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, who was excluded from his flock only to find a way to groups of a higher order.

Often it is a “clashing of personalities”, which causes groups to exclude members, especially with dominant leaders or with fix ideas about how things should be. Like with an individual, groups also have their personality… Freedom of the individual and ruling oneself and not the other is most important for a good cooperation in a spiritual or good-will group.

Group conflict sometimes end with broken relations….