Yesterday a friend from Barcelona sent me a note about a film called The Secret. For personal use it is also available for free on YouTube in a series of 10 parts ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), of about 20 min. each. There is also a version with Spanish subtitles available.

I had a look through the first part – and it tasted quite “American”: for my taste too much of marketing an idea, which is basically correct. The story goes: “One spring day towards the end of 2004, Rhonda Byrne discovered a secret – the secret laws and principles of the universe. Almost immediately her life was transformed, as she began to put into practice what she had learned. It seemed to Rhonda that almost no-one knew the things that she had discovered, even though the concepts could be found in almost every religion and field of human endeavour throughout history. And in that moment her greatest wish, and mission, was to share this knowledge with the world…”

The “miraculous” idea for the missionary zeal is, with statements from the film:
Every thought has an energy, which an even be measured. Thoughts are sending out magnetic signals and attracting things. So thoughts become things. People attract what you think of, when they think negative, it attracts the bad things. And when you think of things you don’t want, you also attract what you don’t want. The law of attraction is always working, if you want it or not. Mind is shaping the thing it perceives. It is working in an ongoing manner.

They are ballyhooing: “A New Era for Humanity – For the first time in history, the world’s leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it… Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein. Now YOU will know The Secret. And it could change your life forever.” And as clever businessmen they are trying to create a community, so they� have added blogs, newsletters, shop articles…

Everything has its value for those on a certain level. So also this film reveals as something totally new an aspect of the timeless wisdom teachings which in less sensational words can be found in many teachings. What seems to be totally new for one might be known since long by others. However, transformations by “magic want” generally don’t work in the long run, you need to transform your character by regular training and� sticking to the� regulations of the path. You might have a look to the Lunar Messenger on Awareness and Thought.

The power of thought is compared in the film to Aladin’s Magic Lamp:

A thought from Tuesday’s talk with Sri Kumar came to my mind. He mentioned in our conversation that the Indian minds are generally more lithesome than the minds of Westerners. They don’t hold to an idea like we tend to do here. This makes it more difficult for them to plan and organise, but they don’t get stuck so much in concepts. Their mind is closer to the abstract realms, to the planes of energy or Buddhi. In the West the concrete mind is strongly developed, focused on efficiency and achievement.

For an Indian mind it is easy to look to a theme from many sides, again and again. I am fascinated how Sri Kumar in his lectures elaborates themes of the wisdom teachings from many angles, illustrating them with a variety of lively stories. I myself would think that all has already been said by mentioning a few aspects of a topic, but when you go deeper into it and ponder on different layers and facets, a movement of thoughts gives rise to a flow, which is nourished by the radiance of a subtle energy or light.

Eastern and western approaches… Some Indian chilis

Yesterday afternoon we went half way across Switzerland to Einsiedeln to meet Sri Kumar, our spiritual teacher. Besides some administrave issues and watching a tennis match with Roger Federer at the TV, we had a meditation, a walk and a talk together. Again I was impressed by his deep spiritual wisdom expressing in minute details of day-to-day life.

We spoke about keeping the inner contact during the day. My wife told him that she experienced during the seminar we had attended last week a strong energy of presence that was brought in through him, and she asked him how he does it. He said that through opening up to the Presence and invoking the Spiritual Hierarchy, the energy starts flowing through.

We also spoke about meeting with adversaries. He told us that he had had in his life strong attacks from different sides, but he never acted against them. Instead, he neutralised the opposition by keeping silent and absorbing it. He said, it is his experience, when you don’t oppose to an adversary, this takes away the opposing energy. The person starts inquiring what is going on in the other,� why he doesn’t strike back.� When a person starts pondering, he stops attacking.

When people come and complain about others, he is trying to subtly show them the viewpoint of the other, so that they can come to a broader understanding. Actually we can be sure that we usually only know half of the truth or even less.

Kandersteg, May 27th,� 07

Today a friend sent me a link to a video with a unique morphing and blending of expressions of women portrayed in paintings and drawings over 500 years, condensed in a three minute video. You can regard the morphing images as the multiple faces of the female principle, the expression of the veiling nature of the Mother of the World.

Having yesterday came back from an intense one week seminar on Yoga and Transcendence with Sri K. Parvathi Kumar in Kandersteg, which was fascinating, but not so suited for blogging… It was much focused on experiencing inner dimensions and gaining the related understanding. Meditating and focusing on subtle topics with about 200 people creates a field of vibrating energy which for me is very thrilling.The seminar was also inspiring because of meeting a lot of friends from different countries and continents and have exchanges with them.

When this evening I went through the pictures I took one jumped into my eyes, though seemingly uninteresting. I had been taking several pics of the Blümlisalp-Mountain from out of the hotel window at different times of the day. On one I had taken last Wednesday at about 5 o’clock in the morning, there were all over the photo balls of different size. You can recognize them in the sky:

Click on the photo to see it enlarged (also the other picture).

It is the only photo of all the pictures with these circles. But they reminded me of a series of photos a friend from Spain had taken in the Ajanta caves in India, where exactly the same balls had appeared, and this in the holy atmosphere of the temple caves. He told me that these were energy patterns of subtle beings, devas, and that also other people had made such photos. Here is one pic of this series:

It is easy and common to intellectualize these phenomena away, while others might be getting enthusiastic about such things manifesting, like for example Crop Circles (here a recent Lotus manifestation). For me they don’t have a value in themselves but are messengers, symbols or ciphers of the subtle worlds, pointing to that which is beyond.

For a deeper understanding of these energies you might like to read the Lunar Messenger on Cooperation with the Devas.

Yesterday a friend came for a night’s stay. He is an astrologer from the French Pyrenees whom I came to know via the good-will website and who is going with us to the seminar of the World Teacher Trust, with Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar, which is starting today. He is a full-time astrologer and has a very deep focus on Spiritual Astrology. We had a very lively exchange on various topics and his explanation of charts opened some new vistas of understanding for me. He sees himself in the ancient tradition of French occult astrologers and is expanding this through his understanding of Eastern wisdom.

Though misused a lot, and for a good deal a subtle science of intuition, you can gain through this wisdom key insights on themes of your live, helping to direct you on the steps ahead on your path.

While it is getting warmer here in these latitudes, you might like to see some pictures of an icy environment: The New York artist Roni Horn (born 1955), partly living since years in Reykjavik, Iceland, has installed in Stykkishólmur, a little fisher’s village on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, an exposition called Vatnasafn / Library of Water. There she has set up 24 big glass pillars representing the melted water from 24 glaciers. In these pillars filled with water the landscape – houses, ocean, islands, sky – gets reflected, and created an enchanted atmosphere with the continuously changing weather. The website (flash!!)
You can also download a PDF about the exposition. The Poem on the cover says:

Big enough to get lost on.
Small enough to find myself.
That’s how to use this island.
I come here to place myself in the world.
Iceland is a verb and its action is to center.

At the moment (untill August) there is also an expositionof her works in the Hafnarhús Reykjavik Art Museum entitled «My Oz». It is the first large-scale exhibition of Roni Horn’s work in Scandinavia. The landscape and isolation of Iceland have strongly influenced her art, and she has often traveled there since 1975.

(c) Vatnasafn – Library of Water

I today met for lunch an old acquaintance, a counselor and supervisor, with whom I had been working over more than a decade and for whom I have great esteem. Two years ago he had “retired” from most of his assignments and focused on what he wanted to do in the remaining years.

There was a crisis of re-orientation, unless “by chance” he and his wife, a healing practitioner, had come across Cluster Medicine and Cluster Logic. (“ClusterMedicine – that is a method aiming at knowing the causes of both physical and psychic disorders that are standing behind the obvious symptoms and accordingly giving special therapeutic impulses. / ClusterLogics- that is a method aiming at knowing mental, social and emotional weaknesses and accordingly giving exact and strategic impulses.”, from the website).

It was for him an opening of a new dimension and a continuation of his search for development of his instruments. He has very good counseling skills and it was fascinating for me to see his enthousiasm for the application of the new approaches he is learning. Even though the body is growing older, his mind is radiant.

Fire at the end of a ritual in India, January 2006

The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres has done an exhibition of satellite pictures of the earth with the title: KUNSTWERK ERDE (The Earth as a Work of Art). The original exposition in Brussels is over, but you find a series of beautiful photographs combining art and science in an interactive world map. And there are PDFs with more information in several languages.

About the exposition: “Countless observation satellites circle the blue planet, supplying floods of data, which are processed into satellite pictures. These images of deserts, glaciers, volcanoes and big conurbations show one thing above all else: the stunning beauty of our earth.
The pictures chosen for the exhibition combine scientific import with the extraordinary aesthetic thrill afforded by long-distance views of our familiar planet, a dual approach that also appeals to less scientifically-minded members of the public, providing them with an insight into highly complex subjects.”

“

My African friend from Congo (see the previous blogpost on Finding our Common Origin – Sanskrit and Kikongo Wisdom Teachings) just sent me a page with reflections about the veiled significance of eating: “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who your are“. A few extracts:

In the Kongo tradition, there is an expression related to both material and spiritual nutriment. Besides, the Kingdom of Kongo is picturesquely seasoned with cooking implements, hence the frequently used expression “MAKUKU MATATU MALAMBA KONGO” (Three fireplaces serving to cook Kongo) putting forward the tasty side of full existence as concocted by Nabi Kongo (Kongo Great Initiates).

On the other hand, the following formula comes as buzz words: ” Muana Ngo Tu Dia” = We are going to eat the leopard cub”. As regards the importance attached to this animal in most African societies (representing inter alia a symbol of royalty), the above-mentioned expression evokes a situation in which an emergency solution is a must on a given fact or problem undermining life in the village; otherwise, no one is entitled to escape from the case.

From the spiritual standpoint, words generally assuming double sense in Kikongo (a matter-of-fact sense and a lofty one), this means attaining self-realisation; The Multiple must merge into the One, to reach the Buddhist nirvana, moksha, Unio Mystica or triumph over the wheel of incarnations, uplifting towards celestial spheres.”

Enjoy reading.

Buddha statue in the house of a friend