Yesterday afternoon I had a chat with a young Indian studying engineering in Germany. I know him just via the web, we came into contact because we have the same spiritual teacher.
After a few ping-pongs he came out telling: “I am under heavy pressure to go back (to India) and get married to some girl of their choice” (his parents). “I would be happy if they leave me alone…” It is quite strange for us here in the West, though still very common in the East that not the individual but the family decides. He was fearing the decision of his parents, because he considered them to be people not interested in his spiritual way. It turned out that he just had thoughts about their attitude and didn’t know it exactly.
I told him: “I am sure that when they feel that you are trying to understand them, it might be a chance that they also feel what your inner need is.”
He didn’t want to speak to them fearing their interference.
I replied: “Don’t expect that your parents follow what you think, if they are not involved in the process.”
There came an excursion about monkhood, and then the deeper point: “How do I meet someone spiritual? (here in the West) All my friends drink and are not at all thinking about spirituality I am the only vegetarian, non drinker, I drive them crazy, they drive me crazy.”
It is really hard in our Western value system, considering ourselves to be modern and open-minded, to find a friend and a way, where one’s inner priorities don’t get compromised through the mainstream-pressure. I could just tell him some experiences and how I handled this situation in my life. He will have to find his solution.

Today is sunday – the meteorologists expect not just a sunny day. Clouds however don’t bother the sun, just us, he continues shining. In spirituality the sun stands for spirit, the eternal, while the moon, with its phases of waxing and waning, for matter. Very significant that today in the West we start the week with Monday, and Sunday is just a day off, at the very end of the week. Here even the shopping times are slowly extended, “for a better economy” as they say. Economy rules, we are in a materialistic mainstream time.
The sun continues to be the centre of our system, even if scientists since long have discovered its tiny dimensions in the vast surrounding. Not to speak of the lost dimensions of inner significance. Sun stands for light, and thus consciousness. Sunday is a good day to align with it. It somehow has a different quality than Saturday or Monday, it’s not just a cultural convenience. Having Friday as the centre and moon as the central planet for yearly rhythms gives a lot to think of, even down to politics and the so-called clash of cultures.
When installing this blog I have set the time to a weekly start on Sunday, and may this continue to be so, also with the way the blog proceeds.

Many things we are doing seem to be ephemeral, without leaving any traces. The desire to leave behing something lasting is with many people, not only politicians. It often reminds one of building castles in sand, being washed away with the next tide. A fascinating play with creation of out of sand is on sandfantasy.com, where you find videos of an artists drawing in sand.
Not all “traces in sand” however are ephemeral. There are landmarks of the Great Ones surviving thousands of years, like those of Buddha or Christ, who haven’t even written a book themselves. They came from the depth of the source of creation, with the full power of spirit behind. There is a beautiful legend from the Leaves of Morya’s Garden about the Signs of the Christ, with a painting of the Russian artist Nicholas Roerich. It is an inspiring tale about the founding of the inner temple, which is not made of sand or by bricks and mortar, but of the tissue of the eternal.

Yesterday evening, after a busy day and after having done the daily flow of e-mails I set upon translating an invitation of friends for a seminar on silence. I felt, that silence is something very untimely. We are always very much outgoing, and silence is totally unusual. During the day, there is often music coming from a neighbor’s office. On the roads, even in nature people are jogging or cycling with earphones – the ipod generation. Also at home the music of one of your youngsters is often on, while the other puts on a headphone… Not to speak of the shops with their convenience music, and with the roaring waves of the roads or from the sky.
There can be outer silence, with inner noises going on, even during meditation. Calming down the emotional and mental is uncommon and has to be practiced. Since over three decades it belongs to my daily hygene with meditation, but the urge to noise is still there. A thought I read from a seminar with Sri Kumar helped me some weeks ago: We can be active with several things at a time. When we drive a car, we can talk. So we can also keep linked to the inner silence while being outwardly active. It is just a matter of training.
In the invocation given by Dr. Ekkirala Krishnamacharya it says: “May we speak the silence without breaking it / May we live in the awareness of the background.” For me this give a lot of energy, keeping linked with the inner source. Then the outer is going on in a flow, even in the waves of activity.

When I had a look out into the garden this morning, all was covered with april-snow. It was quite different from the rain yesterday and the warm night before.
Every day, yes every hour and moment has a different quality. It unfolds like a seed and bud through time. The German writer Michael Ende has given a beautiful description of this in his book “Momo”. It is very fascinating to sense the quality of the hours and thus try to unlog the key of time. This is what Spiritual Astrology is all about. I am not much interested in normal astrology, but I am observing since years the changing qualities of
time and compare it with the daily ephemerides to gain an understanding of the rhythms and movements of the time cycles. To look at time as chronology measured by watches, like science does seems to me like reducing a multi-dimensional happening to a one-dimensional line.
However working with the key of time is more an art than a science in the ordinary understanding, for it requires being linked to ones inner and remain an observer.

Yesterday turned out to be extremely a “newsletter-day”. In the morning the mailing of two different newsletters coincided at my work, in the afternoon, where I had off, there was the mailing of the good-will newsletter for Aries full moon. Before there had been a newsletter-request from Canada, then came the French and English translations for next month’s good-will newsletter, done by friends in Germany and America, as well as a correspondence with the friend doing the Spanish translation, also in the US. In the evening the Spanish translation of the Vaisakh-Newsletter arrived from a friend in Spain, which I am preparing for web-publication, besides a book request from London.
Every newsletter has a long history before, but then there is the coming out at one point. Also in the yearly cycle, in spring all the flowers come out around a time, but they have prepared for it a long time. In our lives it is the same, and the same in creation. Not the coming-out into appearance is the point of manifestation, but it carries impulses which have been sown long back in the past, and are a cyclic expression of the underlying eternal.

I am often astonished how things run parallel in my professional life and in my volunteer work for good-will. It is a spontaneous happening and not anything manipulated – the latter wouldn’t be interesting at all. It seems to be more an expression of the quality of time.
Yesterday there was a turbulent day with a rough road. Often I can observe the winds of time already from the early morning. When there are crossroads showing up in the first 1-2 hours, then it seems to go on like that.
Today starts with quite a different energy. Let’s see how it works out.

Yesterday my wife and I had a walk on a nearby mountain. It was cold and rainy, nevertheless along the ways everywhere there were signs of flowers awakening after this long winter. An enormous energy is felt, still hiding behinds buds and rotten leaves of the old year.
In Aries there is always a fresh energy to be felt, especially in the time of the ascending moon till full moon – a good time to sow seeds and start new initiatives (like this new blog ;- ))

Yesterday evening, after having just finished the new “Lunar Messenger” for the month of Taurus, about the buddhic plane, and my wife having proof-read it, I asked her:
– “How was it?”
– “Do you want to hear a praise?”
– “No, after all the content isn’t mine.” (It is from the wisdom teachings, and mainly from transcriptions of seminars by Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar)
– “Well, after having read all, I must say that I still don’t really understand what is the Buddhi plane.”
Yes, that’s it, you cannot mentally understand the buddhic plane. It is the supra-mental, as Sri Aurobindo calls it, and so the mental cannot grasp it. We just can open up for the experience.
– “However you can align to you soul, to the master consciousness, and then there is the experience.”

Everyone has his or her own perspective, which is not the total view. Dealing with my wife, our children or at work I am often astonished how different one can view the same thing. In the “Occult Meditations” of K. Parvathi Kumar I just came across the following thought:

“Each one’s life carries another perspective. If one circumscribes oneself and looks to one’s life, one’s pan, one’s pleasures, one’s problems, it gives a totally limited and narrow perspective. If he sees life in general and equates his life with life general, he gets a much better equation of understanding…
For example if a person has an incurable sickness, he may suffer much when he looks only to his suffering. If he observes life in general he would find many like him and sometimes he may even find many in deeper suffering than the suffering he is in. Life as a whole when equated with, man relives himself from the suffering of self-circumscription. He joins general life and moves on in a state of joy instead of moving in suffering.

A few days ago I got from Joyce, an American friend, some photos of incredible chalk drawings from Julian Beever. This artist has to have an extraordinary sense of perspective and proportion to make them appear 3-D. Have a look at his website.
A great way of creating an illusion of a specific perception (through the camera).