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.

The last 7 years I had been able to participate in the annual retreat seminars of the World Teacher Trust (WTT) in India, under the direction of Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar, my spiritual teacher. And in two days, I will “jump” again across the continents via Dubai and Hyderabad to the city of Visakhapatnam, at the Gulf of Bengal.

I very much love the cordial and inspiring atmosphere of these meetings in the retreat centre of the WTT. A group af about 40 people is normally coming from different parts of the Western world to enjoy the meditations and the deep and brilliant talks of Dr. Kumar on the teachings of eternal wisdom, full of humour and profound knowledge. And we have also been doing excursions into the surroundings to WTT projects like the Planetary Healing Centre:

more

Most of the participants come there every year, so that it is really a friends’ meeting. The climax of the retreats is always the participation in the Guru Pooja celebrations in Simhachalam, a village with a very old temple compound in the surroundings of Visakhapatnam. These celebrations are done in honour of Spiritual Hierarchy, and about 3-4000 members of the Indian WTT brotherhood are coming for these meetings. Here is a picture of a fire ritual 4 years ago:

This year however will be quite different, since our teacher had to undergo a surgery 2 weeks ago. Since he is in the process of recovering, he won’t be able to conduct the seminar. The group is nevertheless meeting there and besides the celebration we are going for a little tour, which has been organised by our Indian friends. So there might be no blog entries before the end of the month – unless I find time to write some thoughts from an internet café…

Two days ago I read an article in the Swiss collection “Marketing & Kommunikation 2007”, about a research on directing attention to the ad messages. Key remarks were: Without attention no advertising effect. And: Mere stirring of attention with sex pictures doesn’t work: Recent psychological researches have shown that women avoid looking at naked skin, and they react with tension on female eroticism. With men, naked female bodies work as “vampires of attention”, deviating the attention from the message of the ad. Viewers thus tend to forget quicker the message of the product. And without attention no conscious perception and thus no advertising impact.
The conclusion was: Erotic pictures should be used only very sparingly and only after intense pre-tests. It seems that the old marketing rule of “sex sells” has become obsolete, and this particularly with the female public.
Directing the attention is also a science in spirituality: To be able to enter into more subtle realms you have to learn to direct the attention inward. And when you are more stable in the inner, your outer attention cannot easily be diverted through outer “vampires of attention”. For this, you might like to read the Lunar Messenger on “Awareness and Thought“.

Two days ago I got a Powerpoint-presentation entitled “Does Evil Exist?” (1.7 MB), with beautiful photos. The story is supposed to be an incident from the life of Albert Einstein, but a look into Google quickly showed that it was an urban legend, using Einstein and the atheist professor as stereotypes. Nevertheless it is a nice story, and legends are also illustrating the search for truth. Here it goes:

The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, “Yes, he did!” “God created everything? The professor asked. “Yes sir”, the student replied. The professor answered, “If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil”. The student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth. Another student raised his hand and said, “Can I ask you a question professor?” “Of course”, replied the professor.
The student stood up and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?” “What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?” The students snickered at the young man’s question. The young man replied, “In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”

The student continued, “Professor, does darkness exist?” The professor responded, “Of course it does.” The student replied, “Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn’t this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.”

Finally the young man asked the professor, “Sir, does evil exist?” Now uncertain, the professor responded, “Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man’s inhumanity to man! It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.”

To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.”
The professor sat down.

The young man’s name – Albert Einstein.

We yesterday returned from a one week stay at my natal family in Germany. Three days ago my father, who had just read the new issue of the Lunar Messenger, said to me: “My mother would have said: ‘Just words’. I don’t really understand what this is about.”
I told him, “When you read a journal for specialists, like this technical journal, you also might not understand it.” Nevertheless he wants to continue reading the Lunar Messenger.

We can accept and understand what is compatible with our comprehension. It is my experience with the wisdom teachings that subtle aspects sometimes reveal their deeper dimensions only after long times of pondering, after years of spiritual practice. Many who are reading these teachings just remain casual readers – interested, but not working with them. The teachings remain abstract and theoretical, when you don’t work to integrate the basics into your life. Intuitively we might reject them, not because there is something wrong with them, but because the soil in us is not ready to receive.

Today is winter equinox day in the northern hemisphere, where the sun starts its northern journey again and the days will become longer. I just came today across an interesting educational website of NASA about Sun-Earth connection, where you find a beautiful Sun-Earth viewer, with visualisations.

On the site there is an area about Ancient Observatories – Timeless Knowledge, with image galleries to places of sun-worship, where you can zoom through the “House of the Magician” in Yukatan or see pictures of pyramids, Easter islands or Machu Picchu, Peru.

In spirituality the sun is seen as the central giver of Life and Light, but is only working like a mirror reflecting the energies of the central spiritual sun – like the physical body of man is the outer vehicle of the soul and the spirit. The month of Capricorn in the year is particularly suited for spiritual practice. It is the annual time of the dawn. See also the Lunar Messenger on “The Secret of the Dawn“(PDF) or send an e-card with the beautiful picture of a dawn in Mongolia (Click on the picture to send it as an e-card:

We might think that the outer space is an empty vacuum, but this is not at all the case. The “Space Weather Center” gives you daily forecasts and storm alerts, so that you can be prepared for your next trip:-) .

On the site you read: ” To the unaided eye, space appears to be a vast, dark void, and the Sun a tranquil sphere of light. But in fact, space is not empty because Earth’s orbit lies within the atmosphere of our dynamic Sun. Our solar system has the cosmic equivalent of wind, clouds, storms, and hurricanes called space weather.”
It is an educational website with interesting sections about plasma, “living within a star”, or the protective shield of our earth. On the site of the US-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website (NOAA) (: do they want to administer the oceans?) of the Department of Commerce you find links to a number of scientific sites about the atmospheric influences.

Last Wednesday there was an x-ray eruption on the sun with a related plasma shock wave, which is just causing a geomagnetic storm (see the sitebar of our blog for actual information). These storms are causing auroral activities and sometimes even breakdowns of electronic communication or electricity.

The sun has an 11 year activity cycle, and next May is expected to be the minimum. So modern science confirms what the ancient scientists of wisdom say, that space pulsates and is filled with innumerable waves of the ocean of the space waters.