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.

I just got an invitation for an internal discussion group of the New-Jersey based Aquarian Age Community. It is a group working working on the base of the Ageless Wisdom Teachings and especially dedicated to support the work of the United Nations from a spiritual side. They conduct meditations in support of the United Nations and organise conferences on like topics.
In the New YorK building of the UN, there is a Room of Quiet, “devoted to peace and those who are giving their lives for peace”. In the middle of the room there is “a symbol of how, daily, the light of the skies gives life to the earth on which we stand, a symbol to many of us of how the light of the spirit gives life to matter.”
Inspired by this Room of Quiet, there is a Room of Silence (Raum der Stille”) in the Brandenburger Tor in the middle of Berlin, next to the Reichstag of the German Government, which we had visited some weeks ago. Silence in the core of all our activity, and it is good that people are reminded of this also at places were global politics are made.

My wife and I are doing regularly yoga asanas – me in the morning (now before blogging ;- )) and she in the evening. I like them very much, they soften the body in a smooth way. I’m just doing a short series, but feel the effect strongly. Professionnally and in the free time I am sitting a lot in front of the computer and so there is not much movement. For my wife they have also helped with several health problems.
Asanas are not sport, but an age-old subtle technique to make the body soft and to increase the energy flow, thus being an important prerequisite on the spiritual path. There are lots of methods, and many use them as a means by itself. We use them as a good preparation. Sport is often oriented to performance, achievement and competition. Yoga asanas however are for developing the body as a vehicle of the soul.
My wife is also giving yoga courses in a near-by church community chentre, one for women and a mixt group of youngsters and adults. She is doing it on a voluntary basis, for the joy of doing it and to to help the people.
Yesterday a member of the women’s group came to the other group with her 4 year old boy. He was bent on seeing what his mom was doing with yoga. Even at home he showed a great interest in these exercises. My wife told me that it was great to see how this little man very naturally participated with full attention in what the group was doing, practicing all the exercises with an astonishing flexibility of the body. The youngsters were much more stiff.
He was the group’s darling. What could be the result for healthy bodies, if here children were to learn the yoga asanas already from an early age!

Yesterday morning we had our little monthly English study circle after morning meditation. We are reading a booklet by Dr. Krishnamacharya and speak about it in English. It is an interesting text and the group members thus gain a better understanding of the language.
Later I had a correspondence with the Russian translator of books of the same author, and the correspondence again was of course English. The author’s mother tongue is Telugu, but he decided to write his works in English. Likewise I decided to do this weblog in English, though it is not my mother tongue. I often have correspondence with people of the Spanish speaking world, and since I don’t speak Spanish, we do it often in English. Here in Switzerland there are intense discussions going on about an earlier introduction of English into the school system, besides the other main national language, French or German. The last hundred years English has become the language of communication between many people in the world.
Dr. Krishnamacharya said that English was chosen by Spiritual Hierarchy as the language of the wisdom teachings, and no longer Sanskrit, to give access to the people. There was a deep inner meaning behind the outwardly aggressive colonialisation policy of the British Empire, laying the ground for this evolution. I don’t see it as a cultural colonisalisation through one language, but as a quality of time by which mankind is getting into a closer relation with each other. There are endeavours to create special top level domain language encodings on the web for non-Latin signs, like Arab, Japanese or Chinese. National languages, dialects and encodings will remain, but the need for a common means of communication is getting more and more a necessity of an interchanging world. In the subtle planes, before a word expresses in language, there is the first impulse sprouting forth, concretising as an idea and then clothing into a thought. In these three stages language as we know in the expressed form does not exist, though differenciation slowly comes in. It is only with the outer manifestation of the spoken word that there is this incredible “Babylon” of languages and cultural encodings gets predominent. Having a means of maintaining a unity of a language within this world of multifold differenciation is an invaluable means for the growing inter-connectedness of our world, until man again ascends to a non-verbal communication on the subtler planes of silence.

A friend from California sent me a link to the website about Akiane, a 12 year old child prodigy from Idaho, USA. She is a painter and a poet, having started at the age of 4 and having reached by now an astonishing quality of ripeness. The mass media have discovered her and even a book about her has been published.

What seems to me to be even more interesting is the deep spirituality expressing through her. Having been born by an atheist mother and a “worldly-minded” father, she had at 4, a life-changing spiritual transformation, converting the whole family to Christianity. She has been teaching herself drawing and painting and is learning mostly from her own keen observation and study. The inspiration for her art and literature comes from her visions, dreams, observations of people, nature and God. Her favorite topics are people and spiritual subjects. The quotes from her given on the website are very interesting and are an expression of eternal wisdom:
“I teach and they run away. I listen and they come. My strength is my silence.”
“I have been blessed by God. And if I’m blessed, there is one reason and one reason only, and that is to help others.”
“The meaning of the shared-self is the meaning of wisdom and love.”

Though on the site they speak of “a Christian artist”, the creative expression of the soul is something universal and not limited to one or any religion. The expressions of eternal wisdom come from the undercurrent of existence, expressing through different forms and at different times. A soul like that of Akiane is not just “dropping from heaven”, but has a long story of experiences, on which she is – unconsciously – tapping. What seems to us like an early blooming flower is an expression of a long time of work and ripening over a series of lives. It is like the electricity, which is not mysteriously being created at the wall outlet, but there is a long generation process behind.