Mitchell Baker, head of the Mozilla Foundation, just published in her blog The Mozilla Manifesto where she describes 10 basic principles for the internet, such as: “Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability, and trust”, or “Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the Internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment.” If you enlarge the focus of the principles over the focus on the internet, you see that these are principles for co-operation within and between groups in a participative manner.

So you read (brackets viz. additions in brackets are added to enlarge the focus): “Individuals must have the ability to shape their own experiences (on the Internet).” “(The Internet; read: The group activity) should enrich the lives of individual human beings.” or “Individuals must have the ability to shape their own experiences (on the Internet).”

To know more about this topic, you might like to read the Lunar Messenger on Groups and Group Consciousness.

A friend just sent me pictures of incredible body paintings. With some Google search through different blogs I found out they were from Guido Daniele, an Italian body painter and multimedia artist. The pictures show different kinds of animals painted on fingers and arms of models. Have a look at his website.

(c) Guido Daniele

Two days ago in the evening my eldest son came back from a ski camp and yesterday he had a strong cold with fever, so that this night he was sleeping in my bed together with my wife and I slept in his bed. In the night I woke up from a dream of which the last fragments I remembered were about Harry Potter and packing books to go to school. Did I pick up thoughts hanging around the corner of this bed?

I sometimes feel like picking up thoughts, impressions or feelings which pop in but don’t belong to me. They seem to come from another person or a situation, and they fade away again when the person is out of “sight”. It’s not just with physical encounters, but also via a phone call, a letter or an e-mail. There is a taste of a quality of the person – it might be joy or sorrow, anger, desire or some power play. Sometimes I mistake these “visitors” as belonging to me, sometimes their echo goes on for a bit longer before dissipating again. If I remain an observer, it helps neutralising the influence. Otherwise I get lost in it for a moment.

I just read in the booklet “On Change”: “Observing change is the means to stay afloat. Non-observation of change drowns you.”

I experienced an anger with an e-mail I received two days ago. In a subtle way the anger was with me until my wife and I spoke about it that the ordering tone in the e-mail had made me protest. There were complex feelings related with it, which, when observed, faded away, and I realised that, without excusing myself, the problem was not with me but with the other person. The feeling then faded away.

In the wisdom teachings the mind is described as the moon reflecting the impressions on its surface. For this you might read the Lunar Messenger on The Play of Illusions. The picture with the reflecting moon is from Tamariu beach, Spain.

Reading in the booklet “On Change” by K. Parvathi Kumar I came across three sentences – some food for thought:

• Changing times demand strategic changes in the vision.
• ‘Heterarchy’ enables implementation with greater vigor than ‘Hierarchy’.
• A decentralised plan enables better implementation of change. “Center everywhere. Circumference nowhere”, is the Aquarian dictum.

At my job as well as in group cooperation of voluntary work I often experience that myself and other people tend to get frustrated if their point of view is not included in “hierarchical” top-down decisions, from the “more important” to the “lesser” people. The “upper ones” tend not to perceive the perspectives of the “bottom”. It demands often a much greater effort to include than just to dictate. But the danger of dictating is that I feel estranged and lose my commitment, resulting in inner emigration and anger.

I’m trying to learn to directly speak about delicate points. I just read an article in a magazine about Jakob Kellenberger, president of the ICRC in Geneva and former diplomat (see blogpost), that he is is always speaking cleartext in negociations: “I always directly start speaking about the problem. I am convinced if the other has the impression that you don’t dare to speak about the difficult points he thinks that you don’t feel confident with the matter or you fear confrontation.”

It’s the month of Aquarius, and you might feel quite some strong energies of change in the air. At work I experienced again winds of change, with a collegue in my team leaving and the new one beginning, and the second just also gave his note of leave to start something new. On other planes also a lot of changes are silently happening, nothing for a blog-note however. Here you find the picture of the month and the comment, from the Lunar Messenger.

Picture of the month of Aquarius. See Picture of the Month to send a postcard.
Space is considered to be like waters, because it is full of light and waves. The ancient seers therefore spoke about the waters of space, whose manifestation on the physical plane is water, the basis of life on earth. The photo of a waterfall at the Gran Sabano, Venezuela, by Evelia Mujica, illustrates the infinite flow of life force.

I just came across a study released in November 06 by Konica-Minolta on the “Impact of Colour” on the psychological wellbeing of employees. Each week for six weeks the colour of the office of an independent fashion recruitment agency was changed and the responses and behaviours were monitored. Six colours were surveyed in total: red, grey, blue, green, yellow and black.

(c) Konica-Minolta

Results: “It’s not just Monday mornings, rush hour or having to work late that can affect the office environment. Colour has a huge impact on the workplace in many ways and its importance shouldn’t be underestimated,” says Robert T Sethre of Konica Minolta.

Employees’ psychological wellbeing was found to be 72% less positive when they were working in a blue environment as opposed to any other colour. They were found to be less positive about their work-life balance (64%), pay and benefits (51%) and job security (40%). Blue creates greater job dissatisfaction and unrest amongst employees.

On the other hand, yellow was found to be the colour to spread a little sunshine through the workplace. The psychological wellbeing of employees with yellow surroundings was found to be 72% more positive, while 85% reported feeling more energised and focused. Employees in a yellow environment were also more positive about their work-life balance.

Fiery red stimulated passions and some employees reported feeling angrier. With black people claim to feel tougher and more macho. The highest proportion of respondents (52%) perceived themselves to be least productive in a grey office, which suggests they find it dull and uninspiring.

Grey and black howevever are the colours of most of the clothes I see here in Switzerland – what a contrast to the bright colours of the sarees in India… Have a look on the Lunar Messenger on Light and Colour if you would like to know more on the subtle effects of meditating on colours.

In yesterday’s isue of the French Swiss newspaper Le Temps there was an article stating that more and more people who have started a blog are frustrated and that blogging might dissolve itself sooner or later. The writer, Luc Debraine, quoted an article from New York Times that tens of millions of bloggers normally just have one reader. For many blogging is a big illusionary bubble, of the hope that their personal expression is creating attention, an interactive exchange, to get publicity. The result is nil: Bloggers are melancholic beings fighting like Don Quichotte against windmills. Many are disappointed and turn again away from blogging. The American web research institute Gartner is estimating a sum of 200 million ex-bloggers.
“There is too much noise, too much gossip and useless images on the internet”, says Bruno Patino, the French president of the site monde.fr. “This arena threatens to us sweep us away. The tendency will be more towards the agora, towards a reorganizing space. For me the main theme for 2007 and 2008: the reduction of noise on the internet.”

An intelligent thought easy to agree, but difficult to realise. Outer silence comes from inner silence, and this is rare nowadays. The web is just a mirror reflecting the trends: Today each individual is trying to establish its identity and therefore trying to be different from others, in the frantic pace of life. Individual initiatives are often just blossoms of a day and not long lasting. The long breath comes through inner depth, by following a path, a search of a red line through life.

Reducing the mental noise is essential on the spiritual path, thus reducing inner and outer gossip. But it is like swimming against a stream, the mainstream. You need a training, and a guidance is helpful. In the booklet On Silence by K. Parvathi Kumar you can find beautiful thoughts on the import of silence.

Back from a deep and soul-stirring time in India at the group living of the WTT the last 3 weeks. Though I returned already last Friday night, it still takes time to digest all the many deep impressions and also the “change of levels” between very different worlds. It’s hard to describe to “outsiders” experiences from inward and outward processes and events. Just some short extracts from the “Impressions” I wrote for the people who had participated in the meeting, to give you some taste of the ambience:
Early morning the sounds of the nearby temple – wooden trombones, cymbals singing of mantrams – mingled with the counterpoint of barking dogs – created the unique familiar melody of morning awakening….

From the visit of the Simhachalam temple: The bus stopped at the place where nearby a huge banyan tree is spreading its branches and roots over a little sanctuary at the end of the stairway coming up from the valley. Then the stairs lead us through rows of colourful shops with all kinds of devotional articles, along rows of beggars, to the entrance of the temple. We were admitted through the great main entrance and went through the yard into the inner temple. There the atmosphere was filled with the vibrations of age-old recitations of mantrams and of rituals. We approached the innermost of the temple, where a lingam is worshiped, symbol of the creative power of God….

First the road lead us through the immense city of Hyderabad, along mosques, colourful ad-posters of all kind and busy life in the streets, then through a landscape with strangely formed rocks, standing and lying in unlikely positions, like remnants of ancient cities of giants. Then we came through an area with hills and macchia-like shrubs. We had lunch at a little shrine on the wayside where monkeys tried to snap bananas and other food. Finally we saw Sri Sailam lying on a hill, but had to go nearly for one more hour down into the valley and around a dam of the river Krishna.

… After breakfast we mounted an old bus, which slowly climbed up the road for a place about 5 km away. We were told not to take any food or cameras etc. with us so as not to attract stealing monkeys – though this time none showed up. We descended a stair for about 300 meters to a most sublime and picturesque place: There was a shrine with a statue of Adi Sankara, who is said to have meditated here and anchored a great spiritual energy at the place. In earlier times also Lord Maitreya had meditated at this place. A little waterfall came out of a rock wall of about 70-100 m height, protecting the place. At the side of the paved place, directly near the water, there was a huge, old banyan tree with several stems and many air roots hanging down. … From time to time pilgrims came to have a look or Sadhus to take a bath at the waterfall. … The sounds of the mantrams reverberated in the air, uplifting all, purifying the inner. In an exhilarated mood we afterwards mounted up the stairs to the bus bringing us back to the pilgrims’ centre…

At the moment I am sitting in an internet cafe at a noisy corner in Visakhapatnam, India, answering some mails. In a few minutes we will start for an excursion, and tonight we (the members of the group living of the World Teacher Trust, where I am at the moment) will take the night train to Hyderabad, and then tomorrow we will continue to the old temple site of Sri Sailam, about 270 km from Hyd. Just this much for the moment.

Two hours before leaving for the flight to India. Answering last mails – from the States, France, Switzerland, saying good-bye to friends… A little tension is in the air, and the night was was a bit turbulent with dreams. Normally I’m sleeping very well, and it is not at all the first flight, but somehow it is a time of great changes – where might they lead? (: See the presentation of the beautiful new booklet On Change, by Dr. K. P. Kumar).
Just before I left my office, a web-developer of my team phoned me to tell me that he wants to make a time out and sign off. The other web-developer also resigned just for the end of this month (see blogpost). Fortunately a very good other person showed up who will start in 3 weeks. On several other levels there is also a lot of change going on. I wonder what the retreat time in India will bring.

Winds of change are blowing.