We all get frequently confronted with news pictures or situations about people in need, with an open or hidden appeal to help. Where do you act? Where do you withdraw? Where does a “compassion fatigue” set in?

In their new blog “VoxBlog online debates“, AlertNet (the humanitarian branch of Reuters press agency: alerting humanitarians to emergencies) writes:

“Reading your morning paper, two articles catch your eye. One is about a new study that finds almost 4 million people have died in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. The other tells the story of “little Mary”, a 12-year-old Ugandan girl whose lips were cut off by rebel fighters. Which story makes you react?”

They take up the discussion from an interesting article by Paul Slovic in “Foreign Policy“. A short extract:
“A recent study I conducted with Deborah Small of the University of Pennsylvania and George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University found that donations to aid a starving 7-year-old child in Africa declined sharply when her image was accompanied by a statistical summary of the millions of needy children like her in other African countries. The numbers appeared to interfere with people’s feelings of compassion toward the young victim.
Other recent research shows similar results. Two Israeli psychologists asked people to contribute to a costly life-saving treatment. They could offer that contribution to a group of eight sick children, or to an individual child selected from the group. The target amount needed to save the child (or children) was the same in both cases. Contributions to individual group members far outweighed the contributions to the entire group… When writer Annie Dillard was struggling to comprehend the mass human tragedies that the world ignores, she asked, “At what number do other individuals blur for me?” In other words, when does “compassion fatigue” set in? Our research suggests that the “blurring” of individuals may begin as early as the number two.”
(Paul Slovic studies risk and decision-making and is professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. )

When I’m being flooded by calls for help or donations, I sometimes ask myself, where does compassion lead me – or others – to action? With certain themes I have a clear decision, but there remains a blurring area, where to help – and do it. Beyond the individual decision there remains a general impulse of good will, even though physical action is only possible in certain situations.

A swami begging in front of a temple in Simhachalam, India.

Today one year ago I set up the blog software and started blogging from March 31st, 2006 on. Looking back I’m astonished about the evolution it has taken, the multi-facetted spectrum of blogposts. The idea however, is still the same: Creating links between everyday experiences / information and the experiences / information from the teachings of eternal wisdom. This is for me a very interersting dialogue – and it seems for blog visitors, too 🙂

Little angel trumpeting over the city – the inspiring genius of this blog? Girona, Spain, July 06

A friend from California sent me the following text:

“Here is a good example of people using their spiritual heart and will and taking positive action where it is needed. The Salaam Shalom Educational Foundation has key programs underway with amazing leaders and participants dedicated to making a difference for Palestinian and Israeli children and their families. Indeed, their work touches all of our lives. Any work focusing on right human relations reverberates throughout the network.

I have met and gotten to know some of the founding and supportive members of this foundation. I have great respect and admiration for what they have accomplished in a short period of time, and the long range goals they are systematically working towards. They are truly inspired, and inspiring.”

In their newsletter they report about conflict resolution camps or programs for cultivating and selling Palestinian olive oil to help farmers.

On their website it says: “Peace isn’t something just to believe in, it is something to work for, and we are teaching children in the Middle East how to do it.”

After many years I yesterday wrote again a letter to the editor, to the Swiss NZZ. There was an article by U.J. Wenzel about “The more or less thinking hull – Is the internet the medium of unification?” The author wrote about Teilhard de Chardin’s “quixotic vision” of the noosphere – the total of a global sphere of human thought, with an evolution towards an ever greater integration, some kind of a supra-mental plane. (I was fascinated by Teilhard de Chardin’s thoughts during my study of philosophy some 30 years ago.)
Wenzel said that some “enthusiasts” see in their phantasies the internet with its covering of the earth as an expression of such a “collective consciousness” – while for him it is more like a filthy film of pornographic and violence glorifying pictures. Chats are full of gossip, blogs repeat thoughts of others, and the web spills over with copy-paste replicas… For him the trend goes towards plagiarizing the plagiarisms.

Isn’t the filth in the web just a reflection of the state of the mind, mainly of the masses? Like in society, there are many spheres, many different forms of expression.
From a spiritual point of view the evolution of consciousness is a very slow process, going on over eons. However, in the present time the speed of life has lead to an ever-increasing inter-linking in the world. The dangers of this development are countered by a tremendous upsurge of new initiatives and efforts. Especially the web, for example with its growing open-source communities, is part of this trend.

We are living in a dualistic, or more precise: multi-faceted world. Seeing meta-trends beyond the range of an intellectual mind however needs a broadenend awareness.

A long way up to higher evolution: Cloud over a mountain near Mykene, Greece

Though I’m more interested in journeys into inner space than stories about visits from outer space (by the way, what is outer and what is inner?), I found this interesting:

The media reported that Geipan, the French UAP (unidentified aerospace phenomena) research and information group has opened its archives on March 22nd, after 30 years of collating sightings and field investigations. Geipan (Groupe d’études et d’information sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non-identifiés) is a national agency belonging to the CNES – Centre national d’études spatiales.

Most of their observations are normal phenomena, like thunderbolds and clouds, but among the over 1 600 observed cases with about 6000 reports, there is quite a number (about 28%) which cannot be explained and remain enigmatical. Here is a French description of some cases.

In Paris, at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie they have an exposition until July 07 – Alone in Space – From Fiction to Reality. At the entrance of the site there is an alien with whom you can make an intergalactic conversation, you can ask questions – a funny game.

I yesterday read an interview (PDF) with Anne-Sophie Mutter, one of the world’s most celebrated violinists, in the Swiss newspaper “Der Bund“. Some of her statements caught my eye, for they reflect a deep spiritual attitude:

“I’m incredibly disciplined, but only when I feel like it. However, I feel nearly incessantly like doing music.”
Real discipline in music like in spiritual matters isn’t something imposed from outside, but an urge from inside.

(Speaking about her two Stradivaris:) “The sound is the combination of many things. The violins are strongly marked by the musicians who have played them. A violinist leaves part of his soul in the instrument. … The way of playing changes the violin, the violin with its past contributes to the formation of sound of the respective string player.”
In spirituality you come to know that psychic energies leave traces on the surroundings like deposits and charge the objects with certain qualities. So you can magnetise something for making it more suitable.

“Music is a divine gift. Composers are a gift of God to all of us, listeners and performers.”

“Very early I have understood that I can make a difference. I support many social projects. After all, this social vein has to do with the fact that I wanted to become musician in order to be able to improve and to change things on a small scale. … When I organise a charity concert together with friends and can support my girls’ project in Romania with 400 000 Euro, I walk home on wings and think, my life makes sense, because – besides having an incredible joy playing music – I’m able to help people who out of their own accord aren’t able to lift themsselves out of the quagmire.”
This is the real impulse of doing good-will work, for the benefit of others. You can do it, b e it on a big or on a small scale, provided that you have the right motive.

“The silence during the concert is what finally turns an evening into magic. The silence of together merging into the music. The greatest compliment of a listener to a musician is that he forgets everything around him – caughing, reading – he is simple totally captivated.”
At first sight this might seem strange that silence is creating the magic and not the music. But when you listen to music with rapt attention, your personality merges into the experience of music, lifting you out of your body consciousness. It is a deeply spiritual experience, which is cultivated through meditation. Also the musician can experience this silence during his play. “True musicians attune to the musical symphony of Nature through silence and reproduce the music. Such music remains – not obliterated by nature and time.” says K. Parvathi Kumar in his booklet “On Silence“.

Statue of a musician at the wall of the “Chinese Temple” in the garden of the Sanssouci Castle near Berlin.

I yesterday got a call on Skype from a stranger, which I didn’t answer (I have marked in Skype that by principle I don’t answer directly calls from strangers, but ask them to contact me first via e-mail), but switched over to the instant messaging mode. The following is the translation of the session log from this strange conversation:

X: I would like to talk with you about the Avatar of Synthesis.

Answer: What do you want to know?

X: Whether you know already the recipient of the Avatar of Synthesis, for I suppose I am the recipient of the Avatar of Synthesis. I want to prove it. I hope I can do this. I also have a prophecy.

(Here he sent me a link to a web IP-address, where he had published his ideas. I found them a bit disconcerting and confuse.)

Answer: According to my understanding, the Avatar of Synthesis has many recipients, that is all who call on him.

X: Mhh, o.k. … as you think. But I have directly received these 4 things, which can be found in the basic knowledge of esoterism.

Answer: Many people receive many things and relate them with the mental conceptions they have.

X: I have searched for a long time on the internet for my extrasensory perceptions. Do you want to have a look at the website?

Answer: No, not necessarily. There is so much junk on the web, I don’t have the time to view it all. I better concentrate my energies on something constructive.

X: O.k. – you don’t really believe in the Avatar of Synthesis.

Answer: I only notice that we have a rather different understanding of the Avatar of Synthesis.

X: Yes. I would like to be able to convince you.

Answer: I don’t want to convince you.

X: You don’t want to convice me?

Answer: No. On the spiritual path it is not a matter of convincing others according to my understanding.

X: I will give you a prophecy, but not today.

Answer: Then I feel myself compelled to interrupt here the dialogue, sorry.

X: In some months something will happen. I even have the exact date.

Answer: It doesn’t interest me.

X: O.k., ciao.

Answer: Ciao.

I my life I have come across several persons claiming to be spokesmen for sublime beings. It all sounded to me like big ego-boasting, creating confusions with people and distorting spiritual conceptions. The genuine teachers I have come across never did such boasting and never were proselytising.

For me the Avatar of Synthesis is a most sublime concept of a profound energy and being working for the transformation of life. You might read a bit more about it in the Lunar Messenger on “Meditation for the Aquarian Age“.

Synthesis – A view of the dome of the Dali-museum in Figueras, Spain.

Some days ago I got an e-mail of a person in search of the next stage of his spiritual journey which he is pursuing over many years. He had been with a South Indian guru for 12 years, then switched to a North Indian teacher who had passed over about 10 years ago. He now came into contact with the path I am going, which he had contact with some 20 years ago. The cause of his changing from the South Indian guru was related to the feeling that there were some manipulative energies, maybe even an infringing of personal freedom, for he had sometimes the feeling of energetic “grabbing”. This was also hinted to him by another teacher.

Inner freedom, freedom of choice is the most important and sacred aspect for spiritual evolution. Many systems – spiritual, political, social – don’t respect this and want to hold members in their grip. It often needs a long time until you sense this grasping and feel strong enough the urge to go away, to search for another direction and to leave the “security” of the old group. This is not easy.

I felt a subtle “irritation” in his search, which I have also been through during different shifting periods of my spiritual “career”. I was reminded of similar experiences which had caused me to change teachers and systems. It is something like marrying and divorcing and leaves traces.

For finding one’s path logic doesn’t help. However, a good sense of discrimination is very important, and you have to be very careful. The best is to ask within for guidance. It is the inner master who is calling you to the path, which expresses through the outer path /teacher, no matter which form you chose. When you listen deep within, you will sense whether there is a call into this direction or not. And then follow that call, wherever it might lead you. The subtleties of the path reveal only with the time you are practicing, you cannot understand them by mere reading or reasoning.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society WDCS has just launched an interactive web banner of a life-size blue whale, the largest animal ever to have lived on earth. It is part part of WDCS’s Stop Bloody Whaling campaign, and highlights the growing danger to great whales from a cruel and increasingly aggressive commercial whaling industry.

“The banner is both a fascinating impression of this gigantic animal, the blue whale, and a key reminder of the very real danger of commercial exploitation faced by this and other great whales should pro-whaling countries succeed in overturning the ban on commercial whaling.” Says Nicolas Entrup, spokesperson for WDCS. In the Antarctic alone, between 1904 and 1978, 1.4 million whales were killed. This number includes the 350,000 blue whales taken by whaling fleets during that time.

See also our blogposts on “Earthlings” – Dealing with Animals, Vegetarianism – A Contribution to Fighting Climate Change and Ideas of World’s Most Brilliant Scientists for the Future.

When I’m looking at the statistics of the good-will website, I’m always astonished that the most frequented pages are those of the background images or wallpapers.

I’d put them in just for fun – but it seems that changing the desktop background is quite a favorite pastime of many. Today I came across a site with beautiful free wallpapers, where you find hundreds of motives from nature:

In spirituality the word “background” denotes what is at the background of our being – the pure existence, which continues to be there, whether we are awake, dream or sleep. Without this background you wouldn’t be back next morning to get up. You can’t call that a “wallpaper” – it’s not only the wall, but the space into which the wall is built…