Our youngest son (14) yesterday evening dyed his hair. He tried a chestnut brown Henna colour on his blond hair, but it turned out to be patchy and quite red, and he didn’t want to appear out of the bathroom nor go out in the evening. My wife had to save him by rushing to a nearby supermarket to buy a dark brown colour, and so he did a second turn. Afterwards all over the bathroom and on some of the clothes different colour spots were spread.

Not only we, but also he felt at first a bit irritated with the result of his change of appearance – brownish black hair. After returning home in the night he told my wife he would like to go to a barber to undo the dying. He himself is quite cured of dying his hair on his own. We quickly got used to the new outlook, and it’s not bad, but he isn’t very happy with it.

This way he is making his experiences with presenting himself in changing outlooks – in search of “Who am I?” and “what is my effect on others?”

Water Spirit – Artwork in the Kien Valley, photo from today’s excursion

A friend wrote me today:

“An investigation in USA of the most successful companies run by well-liked leaders showed that out of many questions there was only one to which they gave the same answer: they had all in the past experienced bad bosses! So, to become good on something you should first ask the Universe for the negative experience of that.”

A stone in a waterfall, picture from today’s excursion into the Kien Valley, Alps

It is a deep biographical truth – the so-called negative experiences with superiors in my life as well have given me an impetus what not to do in my life. And going through times of torrential changes and standing in them like the stone in the waterfall, just from one day to the other keeping the head high, gives a fruit of deep experiences. What was most important for me was (and is) to keep the link to the inner, through daily times of withdrawal within. If you don’t root yourself firmly, the tides will wash you away.

I today got a German powerpoint-presentation entitled “Reap as we sow”. When I had a look on the web to verify if there is an English source and if the content is genuine, I saw it had been posted in different versions on many sites since 2001, with and without comments and different titles. Here is one post from the BBC-website (“Where was God on September 11th?”, the text isn’t from the author mentioned there…). Though it is also not just genuinely the text of Anne Graham, the daughter of Bill Graham, as it is claimed, its worth reading. Here a small appetizer:

“For years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman that He is, I believe that He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand that He leave us alone?”

And where the text on the above site ends, it goes on in another post with:

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.”
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace. Are you laughing?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

(followed by “Pass it on…”)

Reap as we sow: Cacao fruits from a floral art exposition

Following today news-posts on the Climate Savers Computing initiative, which brings together industry, consumers and conservation organizations to significantly increase the energy efficiency of computers and servers (Intel, Google, Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, WWF and many others have joined it by now), I came across a website called Things Are Good: good news.

They are trying to inspire change by celebrating all the good in our world. They started the site to bring the attention to news that benefits people – that encourages people: “Negative news is easy to find, we aim to make positive news easy to find. Don’t stop reading those other news sources, just remember not to get bogged down by them.”

Anybody can write for ThingsAreGood. You have to register here and you can publish with a web text editor: ” What’s good? Anything that looks at the news with a positive spin and doesn’t contract our list of categories. Here’s the full list: Direct Action / Energy / Environment / Equality / Freedom / Fun / Health / International Events / Mind Space / Peace / Random Act of Good / Spin da News / Technology / Tolerance / Transportation.

So if you want to read some inspiring news or get active yourself, have a look at the site.

A friend who started meditating some time ago and is now discovering this new dimension for herself just wrote me: “You know, my husband says to me, ‘I don’t understand what you speak about a light and about spirituality. Are you already a special person?’ But nevertheless he is interested in knowing about it.”

I answered her that in general men have more difficulties approaching spirituality than women, and that this is quite normal. Women are often more receptive and susceptible to the psychic world or to subtle dimensions than men, who are more oriented towards the outside, and often more intellectualizing and sceptic. It is my experience that in spiritual groups there are generally much more women than men. I have come across several couples where conflicts arose when the wife started discovering the subtle dimensions and where the husband didn’t understand what was going on and he felt irritated and went into opposition. I know some couples who thus divorced due to their differences in views and attitudes or where there is a certain constant tension.

Even if a husband doesn’t have access to the spiritual dimension or to a meditation practice , when he is open-minded and accepts that his wife is engaged in spiritual matters, it works. If both practice together, it’s fine – though no guarantee for no crises -, if not, there has to be on both sides a certain open-mindedness to accept the different ways and paces of development.
You might like to read the Lunar Messenger about Woman and Man.

Dollhouse Café Scene

Some days ago I got an e-mail from a friend living in another part of the globe. She wrote me that since she began meditating regularly a few months ago some strange things started happening in her house which were irritating her a bit: water taps started running, her daughter started hearing some strange voices via the mobile and a few other phenomena happened, which were disturbing her. She asked if she is doing something wrong and ended by writing that people in her country say: “These things exist…”

I answered her that there are beings living on the lower planes of the subtle worlds, which might feel stimulated when somebody is approaching their realms. Normally the inner light emerging in meditation, especially through the intonation of mantric sounds creates an energy field which makes these beings depart. It is good not to counteract any such experiences, but just to notice them and stay neutral. These beings can be found more often at places where something not very good had happened in the past. It isn’t necessary to know about it. It is enough to light a light in order to make the shadows go away.

She replied that she thinks the same way and feels encouraged that she isn’t doing something wrong because of these things happening. It might be souls from the so-called purgatory which come for a visit. Her daughters, however, have fear to go to sleep and think that something could happen to them. She asked if there was something more she could read about.

I answered her she could tell her children that these things are o.k., there is no need of having fear. It is probable that what they are experiencing are “wandering souls”, which haven’t detached themselves enough from the material world. They could say “hello” to them, with a positive feeling, to help them find their way to more luminous planes. But we shouldn’t pay too much attention to these phenomena, because this might be distracting for us and for them. It is good to know about these things, but not to go into details with reading more about it, and better do something else. If her daughters experience fear before sleep, they could speak some prayer to the inner Master, to Christ or to some other great being, this would help creating a protective field.

We had been in touch the last weeks with a situation a bit similar, where according to medical people it was a case of a mental disease. As per the phenomena it could be very well understood as an intrusion from the dense layers of the subtle world through an unduely open channel in the inner system of the person. Stabilising one’s life through a righteous, pure way of living and work for the general welfare creates a protection towards these and other shady influences.

“Wandering Souls” – people walking along a lake in Senegal

A friend of mine sent me yesterday some lines describing an experience with the healing power of OM and mantrams:

“One Sunday early morning in May this year, my wife experienced the power of the Word or Song. OM and the Gayatri song didn’t appeal to her the first time I played them. She woke up complaining about a terrible bellyache. She could not move easily, so she stayed up in bed groaning. While getting ready to go the hospital, something happened.

It dawned on me to play the Om and Gayatri song from the CD I got from you while preparing a glass of water for her to drink. Meanwhile I told her to close her eyes and listen to the lyrics and the utterance of sacred sound. Almost 45 minutes or more later she fell asleep and when she woke up the pain had gone. Then she was able to do some chores at home: cleaning, washing up.

She recognised that the sounds she listened to have some power in them. Even my sister-in-law who knows nothing about Sanskrit can’t sometimes refrain from chanting OM, Guru, Shanti… as if it was automatic. Both my wife and sister-in-law said these words have found their way into their memories.
Very often at home I let the music on with OM sound pervading our household and the surrounding.

It is not in my habit of speaking of my experiences, but I deemed it fit to tell you just this. It ain’t no jest!”

You might be interested in reading more about the power of sound in the book on “Mantrams” by Sri K. Parvathi Kumar or Basics of Spiritual Life on “Working with Sound“.

In India, in the Planetary Healing Centre near Visakhapatnam, there is a constant reverberation of OM to purify the entire surrounding.

I sometimes get mails from friends about astonishing things, situations or information. Generally I try to verify them via a web-search before considering them, and some of the stories turn out to be fakes. There are also stories coming which sound phantastic, and people seem to be attracked by them. I try to keep neutral towards them and don’t go into any details, for mostly I don’t see any relevancy for me. I could take them as true or as fairy tales or a rumour of “urban legends“. One such story came to me yesterday, about the “Children of Winter“, by Sorcha Faal – see also her blog.

Normally when I come across such stories / information, I put them inwardly into a “broom cupboard”, where they can stay without disturbing. I don’t need to judge pro or con, I can just leave them there. I might also take them out later when needed. I also use the cupboard when I come across seemingly opposing doctrines in systems of wisdom teachings.

This inner cupboard is very practical: It helps you to keep in good humour and to stay open-minded, without getting drawn into any queer things and theories going against a good sense of discrimination.

Bird in Bhutan, being carefull and discriminative with the cactus

Last weeks the children have developed a skill to “slip away” from their responsibilities in the household. They tend to leave their schoolbags, skateboards or instruments on the floor right at the entrance. Used plates stay on the table, packing garbage doesn’t find its way into the bin. When asked to clear their mess away, they tend to say, “Yes, I’ll do it in a minute” – and nothing happens. Computer games are much more fascinating than homework, and the latter are started late in the night.

Two days ago my wife felt tired of the Don Quichottean fight, the feeling of running against rubber walls. So she decided to go on strike as per the service in the “Hotel Mom”. She packed the dirty clothes of the children into their room and told them to do their laundry themselves. And she stopped preparing food for them. So yesterday we had breakfast, lunch and a cake – but not for the children. They stayed at first “cool” and were out most of the day.

In the evening the younger one (14) made a “charm offensive” and said, o.k., he’ll clean up his mess and help preparing the dinner. We had a dinner with three – the elder one didn’t yet come back. But my wife didn’t react on the younger one’s demands for preparing some extra wishes. The youngest found this “antisocial”, but tried not to come into the front line. And he did the clean-up of the kitchen.

The other one (16) is living at “minimum effort level” in highschool and at home. He yesterday said he would come home at 8.30 pm, however, it turned out to be 2 hours later, totally wet from rain. At the moment he is still blocking and somehow organising his meals. If “mom on strike” is stronger or his “strategy of freedom” – the outcome is still open…

A friend sent me the following comment: “There were some articles recently in Swedish newspapers on teenagers and empathy. Twelve year olds have great empathy. Then it disappears totally, and re-appears around 18-20. So there is some light in the end of the tunnel :-)”

In puberty the inner roads sometimes seem to be blocked because of reconstruction work.

Yesterday we had a final spurt time at home: Our youngest son (14) had been finalizing the website he had created together with some classmates for the Junior Web Award, a Swiss national class competition for realising websites which closed this night at midnight. The contest was organised by Switch, the Swiss Education and Research Network, which is responsible for all Swiss domain registrations.

With the project they wanted to offer “teaching staff the possibility of integrating the topics of internet, domain names and websites in their school lessons. By having students gain insight into the structure of a website and letting them learn something about usability, for instance, they have been able to improve on their own personal information capability and enhance their media competence. At the same time, the competition has also allowed them to acquire other competences of central importance in the present-day world of work, such as teamwork and project management. It is precisely these aspects that have made the competition so valuable for vocational school classes too: planning and implementing a project (e.g. a website) jointly in a team and within a limited timeframe is a skill that is absolutely essential for professional life today.” More than 100 classes – or more than 2000 students – have created in excess of 100 websites in the categories of Design/Fun and Topic/Contents.

Our youngster however, didn’t have much of his web-knowledge and experience from school, but from his enthusiasm about creating websites. Since he was 12 he had started doing sites and studying web programming (he switched from reading Mickey Mouse to reading books on html- and php-programming…) and has done already some projects.

The site for the competition he called Freizeit und Sport (Leasure Time and Sport, for the contest section Design/Fun), of course housted on his own domain… He got some friends together to portray scenes from sport and hobbies, and one of his friends does really good photos. Another friend dropped off from the project 2 days ago, so that they had to realise with another one the missing section, and it worked out well.

Besides a school soccer cup of our community, where his class yesterday made the first rang, and a school band concert from his ex-school there was quite some stress around till the site was finalized, but it really turned out well, also in comparison with many other sites of the competition.
So in case you want to vote for this site in the contest, you can do it here (write Freizeit und Sport into the box) from June 18 – July 15.