Yesterday evening I participated in the staff information and party of the Swiss Red Cross. At the information session two interesting projects were presented, which expressed creative new ways of dealing with social problems.

One was about the program called RailFair, done together with the Swiss Railways SBB and the SECO, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. The idea is to form volunteers – young or jobless people – to become railway assistents accompanying trains or giving their presence on stations to avoid violence and vandalism, without getting involved into violence themselves or becoming “deputy sheriffs”. The Red Cross does conflict training courses (Chili) with them and supports work integration measures with jobless people, and they learn to develop courage. People feel more secure in the trains and the stations where these “Grands frères” (great brothers) as they are called are present. They serve as role models.

The other inspiring project was about basic health promotion in Krygystan, a former Sowjet republic in Central Asia, where the health system has been eroding and the state of health especially in the rural areas had become very delicate after the collapse of the communist system. The project, initiated by the Swiss Red Cross and financed by the Swiss department of foreign affairs EDA is encouraging the village people to form health committees and organise their needs. People are supported with counseling, but they had to realise that they have to take care themselves of the situation. So they started to do sanitary instalments, cultivate herbs or fruits, make preventions against alcoolism, restore hospitals. This project has motivated the government to introduce it now in the whole country.

Both projects are exemplary for empowering people to solve problems.

Yesterday morning I took some pictures from an installation with loudspeakers at the entrance of the Kunsthalle Berne (Art Gallery) of Pavel Büchler, a Czech born artist living in UK:

I was fascinated by the “silent loudspeakers”, overlooking a noisy square. On the website of the art gallery I then read about the artist:

“Summing up his own practice as “making nothing happen”, he is committed to the catalytic nature of art – its potential to draw attention to the obvious and revealing it as ultimately strange. His subtle interventions and wry texts are concerned with revealing the accepted and everyday as ultimately bizarre.”

“Concerned with the distortions of language, he gives a critical attention to the gaps in communication, fascinated as he is with the limits of the communicative properties of visual language. He often addresses the question of the legitimacy of communication in addition to its ephemeral and long-lasting nature.”

So the artist is searching along the threshold of the spiritual, which is “beyond the communication”, of the word, which is beyond sound, beyond form, even beyond manifestation, which is also called the “soundless sound”, or, in relation to communication, the “communicationless communication”. You might read our Basics of Spiritual Life on Working with Sound (PDF).

By the way, the exposition of Pavel Büchler is called: absentmindedwindowgazing. When the mind is “absent”, by wide awake, there is a chance of perceiving glimses of the suble worlds.

Today I got the latest newsletter of “The Soul Journey“, from friends in the States, this time on “Wabi-Sabi”:

“Beauty in simplicity – that’s what wabi-sabi is. In Japanese, wabi means humble and sabi suggests the presence of beauty in the natural progression of time. In short, wabi-sabi can be seen as an aesthetic appreciation of all things, no matter how humble or simple. Or it can be seen as connecting with the essence or soul of all things, especially in their lack of adornment.
Soulful wabi-sabi is about appreciating the form that naturally occurs such as in the weathering of wood, the shape of landscapes, the colors of rocks or flowers, the flight of a bird, and other natural appearances. The wabi-sabi mindset also uses recycled materials, often in ways that are creative and unique, for waste is contrary to this aesthetic approach. Hand-crafted items are also present in a wabi-sabi environment, because of their frequently found soulful characteristics.
When the form is appreciated for what it is without the compulsion of changing it, then we can be at ease in our environment. It also encourages us to create comfort and to enjoy the experiences of our senses. It has something to say to us about simplicity and clutter as well. Simplicity has a Zen way of evoking the soul within us all since it shows the soul of things when we do not surround ourselves with excess. There is now a movement in house design based on this wabi-sabi idea. It is more than a fad since it reflects a growing soul consciousness among people.
Wabi-sabi is also about appreciating time, as having something to enjoy and value in each moment. When we do not try to cram as much as possible into the shortest amount of time, we can perhaps savour the riches, the beauty and the insights that each moment offers. This is when we can access soul naturally and spontaneously.
Let the ordinary speak to you in new ways, revealing its soul, and evoking yours. Remind yourself to live in the moment, open to inspiration and the joy of being present to your life and soul.”

Another e-mail from a German friend brought a link to a German website on the great Russian artist Nicholas Roerich (the site of the Roerich Museum in New York), where you find a short Quicktime movie about the pictures of Roerich. Roerich is for me really an example of Wabi-Sabi, beauty in simplicity

For its 50th birthday, the science magazine New Scientist has asked over 70 of the world’s most brilliant scientists for their ideas what will be the biggest breakthrough of the next 50 years. As to be expected, the answers show the specialities and disciplines of the scientists -and are often marked by the materialistic paradigm of today.

The oceanologist Daniel Pauly, gave an interesting reply reflecting a thought from the wisdom teachings which say that humanity will become more and more sensitive of all forms of life:

“In light of the time span considered here, I think the most important development for the oceans would be a device that could detect, amplify and transmit to us the emotions and fleeting, inarticulate “thoughts” of animals in such a form as to evoke analogous emotions and thoughts in human brains. This would first work with primates, then mammals in general, then the other vertebrates including fish. This would cause, obviously, a global revulsion at eating flesh of all kinds, and we would all become vegetarians.”

A vegetarian diet has to do with good will, for this way we contribute to reduce violence towards the animal kingdom. You might want to read our booklet “Ideas and Recipes for a Lacto-Vegetarian Diet“.

I yesterday read an interview with Jean-Daniel Gerber, director of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in the “NZZ Executive“, which made me heartily laught. Mr. Gerber has a beautiful sense of humour.

Q: Which formation would you make up for if you could? A: Astrology, to give a scientific basis for the economic prognostics.

Q: How many e-mails are you answering per week? A: About 53.4. And in a good mood 2 more.

Q: From which failure did you learn most? A: When I once applied for the role of the donkey in a nativity play and was rejected as unqualified.

Q: Your favorite film? A: Kodak.

And he also shows a good sense of right values in life:

Q: As a citizen, what bothers you most? A: That politics is given priority to expertise.

Q: What is your professional example? A: Jimmy Carter, who after his failed presidentship reached the real height of his career with the Carter Institute for Human Rights.

Q: Which qualities with you collegues do you estimate most? A: When they prevent me from my own stupidity.

Yesterday evening I was discussing with my wife the difficulty, how people can find access to and a place in voluntary work of good will, especially in a spiritually motivated work: A short time ago I had heard from two persons who, due to different reasons, had withdrawn from publication projects with which I am co-operating. And two months ago the person who had helped me translating the monthly Lunar Messenger into English had withdrawn due to work overload with other professional and private commitments, so that I am doing these translations myself again – though not “living” in the English language. And for the person who also two months ago had withdrawn from the Spanish proof-reading, again due to work-overload, quickly another person had stepped in. Recently in my team at the office a web-developer had resigned from the job, so that I’m now searching a replacement.

In professional life you just publish an advertisement, if you are looking for new collaborators. In good-will work it doesn’t work like that. People come to help when they see a function where they could find self-unfoldment (see the blogpost on The Future of Volunteer Work.). Like with an apprenticeship it needs quite a time and monitoring before people can be charged with more responsible work, for example for translation or in publishing. It needs skills, flexibility and readiness to co-operate in a rhythmic, persistent manner. For a spiritually motivated individual it is quite a step to start working. And it is more demanding working in a group. People often drop out after an enthusiatic start, because they meet difficulties or they suddenly have other priorities.
You need to develop such a co-operation and commitment to a voluntary work, that a qualitatively high standing result is produced, and this takes time. I observed it with the Paracelsus Journal or the Vaisakh Newsletter, both projects of the WTT with which we are co-operating. It is the experience that people are attracted to such a co-operation through the magnetism of spiritual wisdom. In-spiration is the best and lasting power for such a commitment and self-commitment.

By the way: The WTT movement started today 35 years ago, on 18th November 1971. It grew in slow bur sure steps out of the underlying spiritual seeds. It has given inspiration and a platform for many a spiritually inspired activity of good will.

In the last two days I got two beautiful powerpoint presentations from friends in Spain, one with photos from a journey to Tibet (3 MB), another with most delicate motives from China (5.9 MB). Have a look at them, if you like to make a journey in your imagination.

The European edition of the US weekly mewsmagazine Time has chosen Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux system, on its list of heros of the last 60 years. By giving away his software, the Finnish programmer had earned a place in history, Time writes. They chose him in the category “Leaders and Rebels”. He was just 21 when he changed the world by writing the kernel of a new computer operating system called Linux. He posted it for free on the internet and invited anyone interested to help improve it.

“Today, 15 years later, Linux powers everything from supercomputers to mobile phones around the world, and Torvalds has achieved fame as the godfather of the open-source movement, in which software code is shared and developed in a collaborative effort rather than being kept locked up by a single owner”, Time writes.

The power of giving is a central spiritual principle. You can read more about it in the issue on Giving and Taking of the Good Will in Action.

A beautiful new photo of the Hubble space telescope looking like a modern painting shows the Orion nebula in an explosion of infrared, ultraviolet and visible-light colors. It was “painted” by hundreds of baby stars on a canvas of gas and dust, with intense ultraviolet light and strong stellar winds as brushes.

This morning I saw in the customer magazine of the “BKW Energie” an article about the Swiss artist Urs-P. Twellmann, who is creating beautiful artworks in nature – circles, spheres, spirals… He is working mainly with wood and ice. You might like to have a look at his website: