Numbers haven’t left a deep impact on my way of thinking, neither in school, where I wasn’t good in mathematics, nor later in life, nor in economic contexts. I also wasn’t much touched by coming across teachings about the qualitative side of numbers, neither during the time at university, nor my formation or work as a teacher in an anthroposophical school some 20 years ago, nor later during my spiritual studies.
But somehow last week’s seminar on the wisdom of Pythagoras has stirred an impulse and touched me in the core in a way I cannot yet grasp. There is an inner echoe going on. With matters just studied, it goes into the brain and gets stored there somehow, but with experiences touching me existentially, they tend to transform my life.
It seems to me that for the first time numbers have shown to me a tast of their inner essence, when I listened to Dr. Kumar speaking about the Pythagorean decade and the qualities of 1+2+3+4=10 or 1x2x3x4=24 or the qualities and relation of the other numbers. Seeing in a meditative experience the numbers as pre-conscious structuring elements of existence ruling over the whole manifestation of life and being somehow a shorthand form to express deep and complex patterns in a seedform opened for me a new attitude toward these strange and at the same time familiar intelligences called numbers.
I wonder how this sprouting seed is developing.

Back from warm Samos to cold Switzerland. We had been for a week on the Greek island in the Eastern Mediterranean for a seminar by Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar on the wisdom of Pythagoras in the light of Eastern wisdom. It was a fascinating meeting with about 160 participants from North and South America and different European countries.
Pythagoras was born on this island, though he had been most of his life wandering in the East for deepening his knowledge. On the northern side of the island we had been visiting and meditating in the caves, where Pythagoras had lived for a while. On the southern side, a village is now bearing his name, and there is a statue of the famous mathematician-initiate in the harbour of Pythagorion, covered with mathematical and occult symbols from his teachings. We had a beautiful evening meditation with the group around the statue.
I’m now typing my seminar notes, some people told me they were interested in getting a copy…

A friend just sent me a nice article of the San Francisco Chronicle, from Dec. last year, about a whale who was saved by divers from being entangled in crab lines and nuzzled them to say thank you…

The next three weeks we will be a lot on the road and there won’t be much occasion for blogging – I’m no “moblogger” (mobile weblog writer)… So there won’t be any posts from May 24th – 31st 🙁

The next post are probably on 1st and/or 2nd of June, but just for short.
Need something to read? Have a look at our publications…

Yesterday evening, after work: I was driving with my motorbicycle back home from work during rush hour. There was a jam at a roundabout, and so I took a way which I sometimes take along tennis-courts on the side of a forest, which is free for pedestrians, bicycles and moterbicycles.
Half way through a man with a bicycle with a children’s� cart with two children in it coming from the other direction stopped me and said: “Don’t you want to take the road?”. I replied: “This way is free for motorbicycles.” – Yes I know, but here is a forest and I would prefer for my children and me that there is no motor traffic here, in this forest air. Don’t you want to take the road?” I said: “No, I would prefer going on” and drove away. I felt irritated and started reflecting on the encounter. I had to agree that the man was right and that my insisting on the right to go through that way was mainly because of the feeling that I didn’t like being approached like this and out of a feeling of being right.
Being fixed in my conviction, I could not react to the concern of this courageous father.
Though this small way is a shortage when coming in the morning, for returning home I could just as well take the road, though a traffic light might sometimes stop me.
So I decided to change my habit and take the road in future.
Surprising encounters bring you messages to reflect upon.

The weekend supplement of the Swiss newspaper “Der Bund” reported about a project of two Austrian artists who in summer 05 had covered all advertising signs, logos and company names of a commercial street in Vienna with fluorescent monochrome yellow foils. In this two week project called “Delete” (you find an English description by clicking into the upper left “deleted” area) they just left those written signals necessary for road safety. They just have published a book in German on this campaign.
On this project they say: “The aspect of deleting – The lettered, indented, grid-iron order of the street space is transformed into a ‘smooth’, orderless space, which unleashes something akin to pure potentiality …. a process of letting go occurs, or, to put is more positively in lines with the principles of Taoism – a vacuum is produced which maintains the fullness.” A deeply spiritual motive.
The project was meant as a protest against the flooding of the cities with ads, thus commercialising public space. This visual inundation is an expression of the modern over-active business-oriented way of life, and a campaign will probably just create a momentaneous awareness of the continuous bombarding. A more sustainable change has to come from the inner. Through a meditative work you are washing of the graffiti from the walls of your inner nature, as I hinted at in a post 2 weeks ago.
It is my experience that this continued exposure to silence deletes the sensual imprints and re-creates the pureness of the original state. From this the noise of irrelevant impressions gets neutralised and instead of getting sweeped away you stay in contact with your higher self.

Yesterday afternoon when my wife and I were returning from a little walk, we met near our house a bearded young man, clad in long white robes and with a white cap cordially greeting us.
I hadn’t seen him before, but my wife explained it was the eldest son of an Afghan origin neighbor family, who is living somewhere else. We have a good contact with the family and the children are regularly coming to us for some homework help etc. While the rest of the family is clad totally in a western style, this son is showing his cultural and religious attitude in a way quite uncommon here in Switzerland. My wife told me that the father wasn’t happy about his son expressing his creed in such a way.
It was a strong and for me at first irritating message, which made me think of dress codes and social “normalcy” in our society. It is similarly strange here to see orthodox Swiss jews in a certain quarter of Zurich You can also easily recognize certain kinds of anthroposophs or ladies from certain free evangelical sects by their way of clothing. Not to speak of the different dress codes used in youngsters circles or with bankers and business men, where a necktie and a dark suit are obligatory.
I also was reminded of my dressing during my student times, while I was a meditation teacher of a then well-know movement and how I had left these codes with leaving that group.
We use clothes as costumes for certain roles, and by habit we identify ourselves with these roles, thinking them to be “ourselves”. We forget that it is just a role we are playing in a theatre play, and that when we take on another role we take on another outfit, but remain the same. We are not the outfit, but the inner. Through meditation you get more accustomed to experience your Self as being different from the outer layers of the social and cultural encodings, of the body, emotions and thoughts. You get detached from these layers and experience them just like coats which you put off and on according to the situation: I am not the coat, but the I AM in the sheath.
We learn to be ourselves in whatever role we are and to be normal. “Normal temperament” is a keyword on the spiritual path, not clining to any strange attitudes and behaviours.
See also the blogpost on “Dress Codes and Judging People“.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from a friend in Minnesota, US:
“Good Morning dear friend. I have just read your blog for this morning. For a couple of weeks, I have been noticing the things you’ve touched on in your blog post – maybe in a more particular way even. Wherever I look right now, it seems that people are striving to make profound changes in their lives. It seems to be “the right time” for sweeping transformations. I think there is not one person in my circle of friends who does not undergo changes of some sort in their lives. From breaking up relationships, to new jobs, to relocations, or making decisions of far-reaching consequences… a whole series of processes seems to be taking place. Never in my life – not that I consciously remember – have I witnessed such a tremendous shift. It seems to me that people consciously choose to make changes toward a freer life. The basis for their striving seems to be a desire for integrity and creative expression. I’m seeing people being more confident, having a very positive and joyful outlook on the future. The energy feel very profound to me, filled with hope and trust; a very fundamental energetic change altogether.
My question to you is: is this a result of the planetary constellations? Or does it have to do with the series of significant full moons we are currently having? Or maybe both? Or am I maybe imagining it all? “

When you observe events in your life, you see that on the one hand there are cyclical movements of ebb and flow, and these pulsations of life can be observed in smaller or greater systems. One is the inbreath and outbreath of the annual cycle, marked by the rhythm of the solstices and equinoxes. In the ascending arc from winter to summer solstice the time from spring equinox to summer solstice, through Aries, Taurus and Gemini, is often marked by the springing up of new vistas of ideas, expressing in changing one’s situations, or “getting changed” by the trend of things.
Since the time of my starting regular meditation just now 32 years ago, and especially since the early 80ies I have been observing cyclical rhythms, by observing life experiences and by using instruments of spiritual astrology symbolisms, which have found an expression in the Letters on Spiritual Astrology. When you observe from outside-in and ponder on it from inside out, you are developing an understanding of life phenomena in terms of energy and principle qualities, getting to a more synthetic (not simplified) view of time movements. I do not want to speculate about the complex reasons involved in the changes in your environment. As a meta-trend however, I observe in general a speeding up of individual life situations, in individuals, groups and in greater systems. When you get sensitive to changes, being exposed to them, you tend to see them more in your environment. The general speed of our age is increasing by what the wisdom teachings call the energies of synthesis expressing on our planetary life, and the quality of the time, called the Aquarian age. This is particularly seizing people exposing themselves consciously to these energies through their inner attunement to the soul. Maybe this gives some hints to a deeper understanding.

I yesterday got an e-mail from a young woman fom the French speaking part of Switzerland, who had visited us last year. The contact came via the Good-Will website and was motivated by her spiritual search. She now wrote that, after some turbulent months, she is just about to leave Switzerland, direction Sahara and Ocean, to live together with “her prince”, whom she had met a short while ago.
The lines gave me a lot to think, of my own coming to Switzerland 20 years ago, following the call of love… Of another e-mail arriving yesterday from a friend, who had gone to the States some years ago and is just leaving her friend’s house to get out of the relation… Of the news in the media the last days of the many African people crossing the ocean in tiny boats towards Teneriffa or Italy, in search of a better life in Europe… Of the many dramatic stories I had come across during the 90ies, when I was head of a psychosocial counseling centre for refugees and migrants…
The search for a better life and living is such a strong motivating force, expressing in so many biographical stories – of love, dreams, hopes. The underlying force is not just that of woman and man, it is part of the essence of man. In the more subtle way it is the expression of the search of the personality toward the soul, depicted in many fairy tales as the search of the prince (the soul) for the lost princess (the personality lost in material life).
The symbol of the young lady who is about to follow her prince is the rainbow. May the many coloured bridge lead her to the true goal of her dreams.

Yesterday I was at the Orbit-iEX 06, the Swiss fair for IT, e-business and internet. I cam with an interest in seeing what are new developments in with content management systems (CMS) and intranet solutions for my work. Right when entering the fair I was approached by several smiling ladies trying to catch customers for the different stands. I had some very interesting presentations about CMS and an interesting short seminar by consultants of Namics on a study about the 10 best intranets worldwide by Nielsen Norman.
I gained some new insights from all I heard, though there was a bombarding of impressions and for me unrelevant presentations. I enjoyed it and started later sorting out. It reminds me very much of how you have to use your sense of discrimination also on the spiritual path.
There is such a multitude of information, and you have to sort out. You need information to be able to progress and understand further steps on your way. (I experienced this last week, when while studying I understood something in a deeper sense which I had been doing for a while already.) Also you need experts to help you on the way, but there must be trust in the guides. And you must ask questions, to gain the knowledge needed. By itself it doesn’t come ready-made to you. Asking the right questions is already an important step ahead in your search.