Yesterday we went from Switzerland to Girona, Spain with two friends from Germany, transporting some packets of new publications of the World Teacher Trust to a seminar of our spiritual teacher in Spain near Taragona.
When crossing the borders between Switzerland and France, and then again between France and Spain, it was fascinating to experience the significant change of atmosphereal qualities.
Here in Girona we are staying overnight in the house of spiritual friends, a doctor and a family therapist, with whom we will go today to the seminar. It was a very warm welcome, and we had an inspiring exchange and meditations together. It was like coming to close family members. It is fascinating to see how the inner work is finding expression in different countries through different forms of good will work, carried through by the impulse of spirituality.

I just came across an article in The Cancer Blog of Chemotherapy.com about “Ancient art of yoga has true healing power”. It says that results from a pilot study show that women going through treatment for breast cancer feel better, sleep better, and have less fatigue when they practice yoga. A very interesting finding.

In today’s issue of the Swiss newspaper “Der Bund” there is an article on punishment as a win-win situation. In the canton Berne more and more criminal offenders are doing work serving the public good instead of being sentenced to prison. This helps the society to save a lot of money and has a motivating effect for the offenders.
There is a number of social institutions to which offenders can be sent, according to the need of the institutions. The offenders are doing unpaid work, which otherwise could not be done. If there are problems with the delinquents, they are sent to another place or to prison.
Some time ago I read that in California they are spending much more money for prisons than for education and that the prisons are overcrowded.
Here in Berne there have been in general very positive results with this initiative of putting criminals to welfare work, helping to save millions of Swiss francs and also helping the delinquents – a real future-oriented solution.

Last week a friend from Germany sent us a folder with two fairy tailes of the Brothers Grimm and thoughts from her and from a group work. It is fascinating to see how the genuine folk tales contain in a symbolic form teachings of eternal wisdom stirring the souls of the readers or listeners. Many modern scientists think the tales, often full of seemingly cruel adventures, are expressions of existential fear and need to be “purged” before reading them to children. But when you read them with a spiritual understanding, you see that they are telling about the path of the soul. The soul,� encaged in matter, through a long journey (of many lives) finds back to a union with its origin.
One of the tales I got was about a girl whose hands were cut off to avenge a curse of the devil on her father, who later got silver hands, then, because of her pure life, new hands and finally found union with her husband, the king. The hands represent our attachment to material life (the grip) and silver or moonlight the denser worlds of matter. The girl are we as a soul, who finally finds back to an eternal life with the spirit-king.
This tale deeply touched me, because it expresses the inner urge towards light which is a thread through my life.

At yesterday’s breakfast table the talk with our spiritual teacher, Dr. Kumar, came to the topic of the letter Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, wrote to George W. Bush, the president of the United States.� (Even if you are not interested in politics, it is worthwhile reading this very interesting letter.) In a very polite form, which must be even more poetic in the farsi language of Mr. Ahmadinejad, he asked quite number of deep and important questions to Mr. Bush, pointing out the right of the Iranian people for self-determination and the contradictions in the American politics.
Sri Kumar referred to India’s fight for independence and auto-rule against the British, which was seen by them as illegal, but that now, as a strong and independent nation they are respected in the world. The respect in the world toward America was much higher in the past, and in many countries the people ask themselves similar questions about the right of the behaviour of the United States.
People and nations grow in independence and freedom, and respect toward each other has to come from respecting the other’s right of another position, which might be complementary to one’s own.

Yesterday morning at the breakfast table with some friends and our spiritual teacher, Dr. Kumar, he mentioned� in the talk a poem by Osho on� Isaak Newton, saying when� Newton saw the apple falling from a tree and discovered the law of gravity, he only� saw half of the truth: He did not note that before the apple could fall, the tree had to grow.� Before matter and thus materialism can come about, there is spirit and there is the upward urge.

Yesterday afternoon I went with a Bulgarian, Indian and Spanish friend to the birth house of Paracelsus, where our group has a little room for commemorating the life and work of the great initiate and alchemist Paracelsus. It is a beautiful place surrounded by hills and forest, near the old Devil’s Bridge. Paracelsus had had a deep impact on medicine and opened the way for a holistic medicine. Today many people still are inspired by his ideas.
Friends of us have started 3 years ago the Paracelsus Health and Healing magazine, where my wife is also helping with proof-reading part of the English translations.
The room in the Paracelsus centre is also used for full moon meditations, an ideal place to link-up with with cosmic rhythms. We stayed there for a while, had a short meditation and enjoyed the serene atmosphere.

Yesterday we went to Einsiedeln to meet there our spiritual teacher, Dr. Kumar,� and a few friends. In the afternoon we saw a 50 years old Indian film about a story from the the great epic Mahabharata. The film called “Mayabazar” was – of course – about a love story with dance sequences reminding of modern Bollywood productions. At the same time it contained deep wisdom.

The film was in Telugu, and our teacher explained the sequences in English. It was fascinating to see how the manipulative tendencies of the one party were checked by illusions created by the Divine (Krishna), without interfering directly into the course of events. It reminded me of how� we enmesh ourselves, when we use manipulative machinations. It is a persistent theme in life to get trapped by self-caused illusions – and mostly we think it is the others who are doing us wrong and causing problems. Only when we, like Krishna here in the film, stay in a position of an observer, we have a chance of getting out of the self-deceptions.

Since some years I am doing a free distribution of English books of Dr. Kumar and Dr. Krishnamacharya, in order to facilitate access to these wisdom teachings, which fascinate me very much. So I get into a contact with spiritual seekers from all over the world.
With some of these contacts I get the impression that the person is trying to intellectually approach the wisdom teachings. Of course wisdom can be approached via concepts, they help to get an understanding, but wisdom itself is a living experience and thus is beyond.
I myself tried over many years to get into deeper layers of wisdom by devouring books. It remained a mental ballast, which I started throwing over board some years ago (there are still quite a lot of containers left…).
I feel with some people how they get trapped into the cage of concepts. Concepts are a cage preventing experience. Wether you are in a golden or an iron cage, it remains a cage. It is absolutely necessary to overcome this trap of concepts and intellectuality – not by denying mind, but by letting it go. Aquarian meditation is going beyond concepts. With practice you learn to stay above concepts even when handling them. You feel free while being surrounded by them.
It seems these thoughts come because we are just in the month of Gemini, the mental sign. The airy Gemini energy is so lively with mental concepts, but new impulses rush in, even before the mind realises what has happened.

A friend just sent me a note about the incredible 3-D mural art of artist Eric Grohe. Here are some more pictures of artworks by him in a large format. It is incredible how the entire ambience of a locality changes by these artistic designs.
See also the post on Perspectives and Illusions with the link on the artwork of Julian Beever.