Yesterday I was at an Online & Dialogue Marketing Forum in Zurich, with about 200 participants mainly from the business world. It was interesting to see the many ways and approaches to turn people into customers: How do I attract people to buy what I want to sell? One speaker, Markus Gabriel, however pointed out that more and more people turn away from being receptible to traditional advertising activities, by zapping away or by using communication channels without ads. And more and more people like expressing their opinion online – in blogs, forums, comments. He said that about 85% of the content on the web is done by private persons in their freetime – besides enormous amounts of trash you find highly qualified contributions, and all done without financial benefit. The whole Wikipedia encyclopedia lives by this free commitment.
People like to express freely and directly, give comments and recommendations – which are often more observed than the official communications of enterprises. There are blogs with high interlinkings and thus are sometimes positioned as high as the enterprise sites, even of big companies.
The voices of private people become more dominant than official channels. On the other hand companies are profiling customers to be able to approach them more directly with what they suppose people want.
Most important however for people is trust in the information, and thus they go by what their friends recommend them. Mouth-to-mouth recommendations are the strongest.
This I also observe in the field of the good-will website: When the monthly newsletter goes out, normally there are several new people asking to be included in the mailing list. This is probably the result of recommendations of the readers. On the other hand it is true that wisdom does not spread by marketing, but by itself. It attracts people who are searching for it, and no marketing activity would ever really incite someone to follow the path of self-transformation, where an enduring effort and commitment is needed.

The White Island is a secret place which, in ancient times, was located in an inland lake and is currently located in the Desert Gobi. It is the place of descent of many sublime beings of higher intelligence where the Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara, is said to be at home. The painting “Shamballa” by Nicholas Roerich shows the glacier peaks of the mountain range of Thang-La which reminds of the White Island. The painting stems from an expedition through the Himalayas, Tibet, and the Desert Gobi in the 1920s. Many thanks to the Roerich Museum in New York.

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Golden-yellow is the color of the Buddhic plane, the supra-mental, the light of wisdom. Buddha is seen as the embodiment of wisdom, and statues that depict him are often golden. Contemplation upon this helps the observer to move beyond the boundaries of the mental and to move into the higher light. The picture by Christa Bischoff, Hamburg, shows a Buddha statue in Bhutan. The arms outstretched remind us of the qualities of mercifulness and helpfulness toward fellow men.

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Breathing and sound are the twin aspects which conduct the creation in space and time. By continuously listening to the rhythmic sound of respiration, the mind unites with the pulsation. Thus we enter into the inner space, where we can hear the music of the soul. The picture of the two young Bhutanese monks making music, by Christa Bischoff, Hamburg, depicts very well the twin sound of respiration.

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Cancer is the doorway for the birth of the soul into the worlds of forms. Suble intelligences, called Devas in the East and angels in the West, accompany it. Out of habit we ascribe attributes and shapes to them which correspond with our imaginations. We only get a right understandig, when we enter again into the subtle worlds. The picture of the statue of an angel from the cathedral of Girona, Spain, shows a golden angel figure looking into the sun light.

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The sign of Leo is connected to the sun, its ruler, and the color gold. In the wisdom teachings, the sun is described as a golden disc which covers the true, spiritual sun and lets us only see its glowing. The photograph of the golden, sunny disc, which emanates the light of the sun, is from the castle of Sanssouci in Potsdam, Berlin. It shows the open sky, the circle of stars, and the temple of creation – as if made of a fine network of power lines.

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Every month I chose a Picture of the Month to publish it with the Lunar Messenger newsletter. These pictures disappear from the site after the month is over. Maybe you would like to have a look at some nice ones of the last months. So I publish them here with the comment.

“In the alchemy of spirituality we undergo a deep transformational process and purify the matter of our bodies. Thus our personality becomes as pure and clear as crystal and the light of the soul can shine through. The globe is a symbol of perfection, and the picture of the crystal ball from the seminar house of H.P.B. in Ingolsheim, Alsace (France), reminds us of the lightful state of spirit-infused matter.

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Yesterday I was at an interesting presentation on accessibility of websites, by Namics, internet specialists from Zurich. For many a handicapped person present websites offer difficulties, in navigation, in transporting the content to screenreader-softwares or in the contrast used for the sites. There exist definitions of the web-consortium about accessibility, which are in a process of updating, because many new technologies have appeared in the last years. Somebody of this consortium hold a talk at the meeting, explaining what they are talking about, when they try to define how a website should be for disabled persons to have free access to it.
Very interesting was a presentation of a deaf person from Gebärdenwerk in Hamburg, giving a 30 min talk about the special problems of deaf persons. At my table there were two translators transposing the talks into sign language (which in Germany is recognised as a separate language besides German) for a few disabled persons in the audience.
There exist a number of aids for disabled persons, but when the site is not well done, it is hard to get the right access. The Swiss Government websites have t be barrier-free until the end of this year, and for my office we are also thinking of making our site accessible. I wonder I find the time and know-how to renovate the good-will website according to the accessibility standards…
Most impressive for me was a talk I had at the end of the meeting with a blind man, who had been a high school teacher and later lost his eyesight and now is teaching again, and he is publishing a tape newspaper together with pupils and volunteers. He had such a commitment to sensitise organisations and people to the needs of visually handicapped or blind people and to render help to persons concerned.

2200 years ago the Greek Philon of Byzantium made a catalogue of the most important monuments of his time, based on sites located around the Mediterranean sea, like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus or the Pyramids at Giza. The only buidling still existing is the Pyramid.
Since 2001 there is a campaign going on for chosing the New 7 Wonders of the World – not not chosen by a single man, but by millions of people all over the world. You can give your vote on the website of New7Wonders, selecting between 21 remaining candidates – ranging from the Acropolis to Timbuktu. The campaign will end in about 10 months, and on 07.07.07 there will be the official declaration of the new 7 wonders.
A good idea to focus on the cultural heritage and to create an awareness for the great efforts of mankind from all over the globe for creating beauty – and at the same time a project with a global participation.

We are using a lot computer or other electronic equipments, but don’t think much about what is in it – or what is being done with the toxic waste products at the end.
Greenpeace is now publishing a ranking about the global policies and practices of leading mobile and PC manufacturers, what they do about eliminating harmful chemicals and or taking responsibility for their products once they are discarded by consumers.
So the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics might help deciding what products to buy and what better not – think that often the old machines land in some 3rd world deposits…