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

Friends from SouledOut, California sent me an e-mail encouraging people to participate in the Global Peace Meditation/Prayer Day, also known as World Oneness Day, during the 24-hour period of Sunday, May 20, 2007, along with groups and individuals worldwide.

It is an experiment on the power of directed thought. People around the world join in special ceremonies, praying and meditating on the theme of planetary peace and harmony with nature.

The day’s effect on consciousness will be measured at Princeton University by the Global Consciousness Project GCP. The GCP is an international effort involving researchers from several institutions and countries, designed to explore whether the construct of interconnected consciousness can be scientifically validated through objective measurement. So they are collecting data from a global network of random event generators since August, 1998, with about 65 host sites around the world for field measurements of group consciousness, which show that resonance and coherence of focus can produce structure in the random event generators (REG) data.

During yesterday’s study group, while reading a transcription of a seminar by Sri K. P. Kumar on the Secret Doctrine, we came across a caption that there were failures on the subtle planes with the creation of the earth by the creative intelligences (devas), just as there are failures with what human beings are doing. We shouldn’t understand the devas as infallible. And just like people with power try to hide their mistakes or even justify them by making or manipulating laws in their favour, the same can be observed with these intelligences. However, in the long run they are getting into other cycles of adjusting and learning.

I like this idea. It is so very human and common in day-to-day life. You can also observe it in your own behaviour. I’m talented in creating excuses, also before myself, and observe the same with others:

Yesterday, a “low energy day”, I grew angry with my wife that the children hadn’t cleared their mess in the kitchen. With this simmering anger I got them do the washup.

For me, I was sure my growing angry was because of the mess of the children and that they had preferred gaming to cleaning up. Only later I came to see that already before that I felt a bit imbalanced. Out of this, my dealing with the kitchen situation came much more from my predisposition than from the actual situation.

A friend yesterday sent a link to a movie which just started in German. A little search on the web showed that the film was out in English already since beginning of 2006: ONE – The Movie. A Contemporary Journey Towards A Timeless Destiny. It seems to be a fascinating movie. Here you can see some trailers.

And here is an extract from an article by Sita Stuhlmiller about the production of the film:

“What happens when a middle-aged trial attorney and father of three wakes in the night with an idea to make an independent film about the meaning of life? Ward M. Powers, with no experience at all in filmmaking, mail-ordered a video camera and set off with his best friend and a cousin on a two-year life-changing experience. Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s maxim: “Follow your bliss,” and with no budget or training, they took to the streets to film ordinary people responding to life’s ultimate questions.

They started with twenty questions, among them: Why is there poverty and suffering in the world? What is the relationship between science and religion? What are we all so afraid of? How does one obtain true peace? Describe God. What is the meaning of life? What is your one wish for the world? Eventually the filmmakers got up the nerve to ask their questions of spiritual teachers, philosophers, authors, artists, priests, rabbis, yogis, imams, monks, nuns, medicine men, social architects and scholars, including Robert Thurman, Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hanh, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, Father Thomas Keating, Hasan Qazwini, Deepak Chopra, Riane Eisler and many others.

“And so, about three years ago, we set out on this odyssey with nothing but a DV camera, twenty questions and mantra—We Are All One. But what began as kind of a lark amongst friends to try to make an independent film, somewhere along the way turned into a life’s journey. And what started out back then as a kind of Kumbaya notion of Oneness also grew into something much greater. Somewhere along the way, Oneness became more colorful . . . more intense . . . more inclusive . . . more internal . . . richer and more beautiful than we could have ever imagined.” -Ward M. Powers, Director

“On the last day, in the final minute of the last interview, Father Thomas Keating summarized the journey: ‘The spiritual journey is the realization—not just the information but the real interior conviction—that there is a higher power or God. Or, to make it as easy as possible for everybody: there is an Other; second step: to try to become the Other; and finally the realization that there is no Other. You and the Other are One, always have been, always will be’.”

Yesterday a friend from Sweden sent me a text with a call from Don Alejandro Oxlaj, Grand Elder of the Maya, for Global Meditation on May 22. I found it also on the web, posted last Saturday. Don Alejandro is head of the National Mayan Council of Elders of Guatemala, Day Keeper of the Mayan Calendar, a 13th generation Quiche Mayan High Priest and a Grand Elder of the Continental Council of Elders and Spiritual Guides of the Americas.

There are some touching thoughts in his call. It’s worth while reading the whole text. Here are a few extracts.

“We all are children of the Earth, we are flowers of the garden of our Creator coming in different colors, in different shapes, in different sizes, with different aromas; speaking different languages, and each one worshiping and meditating in their own way to the same Creator who has different names according to their own culture….”

“Let us talk now about our present times. We enjoy new advances in technology, inventions that make everyday life easier for us, we all use them, but the negative side is that we are finishing up our forests, and contributing to the contamination of the planet, the rivers are drying out, the waters are being contaminated. Our crops are affected by plagues as well as plagues killing our animals. We are threatened by contagious illnesses, incurable illnesses unknown in the past… Very harmful are the use of chemicals, the insecticides, transgenic seeds, etc. …”

“Now lets speak about the future. We, the traditional Mayan elders, and all indigenous peoples in the world, meditate on the future. We don’t think only for today, the present, we think for tomorrow, for our children, grand children and future generations. We see a dark shadow approaching, a shadow that will cause a lot of harm. It is the great contamination. All this is due to man’s creation… We don’t want any more wars, no more death, no more nuclear testing, no more chemicals, because the warming up of the planet is unbearable to Mother Earth. If we don’t change, sooner or later, she will strike back with millions of lives lost…”

“Our Creator created us here over the face of the earth to worship him, to love and respect each other. We all are equal, we are flowers of the earth, in different sizes, of different colors, with different songs, with different smell, but all looking at our Creator, honoring him with different dances, different music, different ceremonies. We all plead to him, we are his children, he is the creator of all that exist, all that we see and all which is beyond our senses. He has given us our life with an intelligence to do well…”

May 22nd 2007 is 5 Ajpu, the Day of Grand Father Sun, he shines upon all of us equally, he doesn’t know discrimination, he doesn’t get lost on his path, he doesn’t get ahead or behind of himself. He gives us warmth, he gives us life. One Sun, one Air, one Water, One Mother Earth. May 22nd 2007 day of Grand Father Sun, Grand Mother Moon.

The Maya Prophecy says: “Arise, all arise, not one nor two groups be left behind, together we will see once again the place from where we have come from.”

Mayan Tikal Temple, Guatemala, © Leonardo C. Fleck, Wikipedia