Yesterday I published the newsletter of the Circle of Good Will for the month of Scorpio, where the topic of the Lunar Messenger is Kundalini. I got several positive feedback mails from readers, among these a mai from a lady proposing a link exchange to her website, telling that since 9 years she has the kundalini fire awakened and thus extaordinary sidhis(supernatural powers) and healing abilities.

When hearing such claims, I always think, whow, and am happy that I’m standing with my two feet on the ground. In the 70ies I had been in a then famous meditation movement purporting awakening of sidhi powers such as flying, walking through walls, clear-audience … I left the movement in the early 80ies, after having realised that this has nothing to do with serious spirituality and leading you into inflating your ego. I experienced this ego-inflation as a danger holding you in illusions and keeping you away from the really important steps of spiritual development.

The lady wanted to publish stories about her experiences on the good-will website, which I politely declined. A link however has been posted in the German section of link exchanges, since she wanted to post one to us on her page…

Yesterday I was at the extraordinary assembly of the Swiss Red Cross associations for writing the minutes. It was a meeting for the kick-off of the new strategy cycle for the years till 2012. For me it was fascinating to see how in such a complex and heterogeneous organisation is managing diversity and trying to ingegrate most diverse interests. Though the basic values are the same for all the members – humanitarian commitment -, their focus is varying. And when you try to steer such a complex organism into a joint direction for future development, there are quite a lot of anxieties and incertitudes to be solved and taken into account.

I had a few interesting talks in the noon pause, one with a member of the central board, about the importance of getting young people integrated in order to keep the contact with the next generation. This handing-over to the next generation of the enthusiasm for the humanitarian cause and for voluntary work of good will is very important to keep the good work going on.

Some days ago I came across the website of Slowfood.com, a world-wide movement “counteracting fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.”

Under the title “Terra Madre” they are organising a world meeting on food communities from 26-30 october in Turin, Italy. 1600 food communities from 5 continents and 150 countries, 5000 farmers, breeders, fishermen and traditional food producers, 1000 cooks and 200 universities will meet to share experiences and discuss the development of a new concept of agriculture and good, clean and fair food.

A very good initiative for finding new ways for better qualitative food. You might like to read the text on “Food and Drink“(PDF) from our series “Good Will in Action“.

Yesterday I participated in a workshop of the Swiss federal administration on accessibility and usability for the websites of the Swiss government. Until the end of 2006 all websites of the federal administration have to correspond to accessibility guidelines (see my post on web accessibility – overcoming obstacles).

The workshop was conducted by two persons of the foundation Access for All, one of them being a person who is blind since birth and is a specialist for accessibility testing. He intruduced us into the way handicapped people, especially blind persons, work with the internet as a window to the world. He had a bluetooth Braille keybord and a screenreader software. He gave us several examples of how obstacles for the blind can be overcome by better naming of links or by creating an easy-to-navigate website. He also showed us an extract of a “hearing film” – from a know cinema, where all action was being described, including the scenes. But he also described about the many ways there are created obstructions even by good-meaning people.
Fascinating how with a good will and creative know-how handicapped people can be helped to be partners in the world which is mainly being shaped by the majority having a relatively free command of their senses and bodies. It needs a sensitivity to open up to the world of people with another way of living side by side.

From October 10 till November 8 Yahoo! is filling a time capsule with extracts from life in 2006. The motto is “One World – Many Voices”, and it can be filled by Yahoo-users with photos, stories, ideas, films on topics around Love, Hope, Beauty, Faith, Fun Anger… The content of the capsule will stay in the ground of the Yahoo be opened in 2020. But before, on October 25-27, it will be sent with a laser beam into space from the sun pyramid of Teotihuacan in Mexico. Its inventor, the artist Jonathan Harris, hopes that millions of statements from all over the world give a global image of multifold individual contributions.

May the time capsule inspire for treading consciously a path to a better world.

The UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) has published together with Google� Maps an “Atlas of our Changing Environment“. It is very dramatic to see from satellite photos the tremendous changes the earth has undergone during the last 20, 30 years. The destruction of nature through urbanisation often passes unnoticed, but when you compare pictures over a longer period, you can learly see the impact of civilisation on changing the face of our earth. You might also see the photos from this site in a selection on Heise.de.

A week of traveling and at the end a seminar of silence with my spiritual teacher K. P. Kumar at the Yoga Vidya centre in Bad Meinberg, Germany, kept me away from blogging. The seminar with about 130 participants over the last weekend was a short but intense experience of looking inside and getting into contact with more subtle planes of one’s self. Observing the rhythm of breath over a longer period of time helps you switching away from the continuous flow of impressions and thoughts and opens up doors to the inner worlds.

Yesterday early morning when I just stood up around 4.40 am, my youngest son (14) stood radiating in the hall and told me he had just finished programming the four language version of the website Paracelsus – Health and Healing. He had been working on it the last weeks, and since we are leaving today for some days holidays, he wanted to get it finished – and it was, after this night’s sprint. It was the first bigger project for my son, who had acquired quite a lot of web-skills over the last two years. Last night we did some final “polishing”, and now it is ready for launch. (You might read also the blogpost on Paracelsus’ Birthplace.)

It has been a long story getting the site ready, and several friends had helped with it. The Paracelsus magazine for which the site has been made gives interesting insights about new an old knowledge about medicine and healing art in the east and west. Look here if you like to see a sample issue of the magazine.

Every day, since millions of years, sun beams are falling on our earth and giving light and life to all beings here. What would happen if this energy fell down in a more concentrated form?

An ad-campaign of Solon, a Berlin-based enterprise dedicated to the development of photovoltaic technology for the use of solar power, shows in a spectacular blockbuster-like 2 min film what would happen if instead of sun-rays millions of batteries were falling on earth. Funny to see.�

We too are “solar energy cells” having fallen on earth. As souls we are rays from the one light – and by raising up again we overcome the hard “battery state” and re-become “lights of the One light”.� �

�

A friend sent me the link to the website of the Global Ethic Foundation, initiated some 16 years ago by Professor Hans Küng’s book “Global Responsibility” (1990), which was first published in English in 1991. “This book developed programmatically the idea that the religions of the world can make a contribution to the peace of humankind only if they reflect on those elements of an ethic which they already have in common: on a fundamental consensus on binding values, irrevocable standards and personal attitudes.”

The ideals sound well, as also do those of the Parliament of World’s Religions (see also Wikipedia): “Embracing Difference, Transforming the World”, or the World Religion Forum, which had met in Kazakhstan on Sept. 13th, 06. Hopefully these initiative contribute to overcome the fanatism all over the world in the name of God and religion.