When composing the new Lunar Messenger of the symbolism series on the symbolism of the monkey, for the Aquarius newsletter (still unpublished), I discovered that there is a profound difference between the Western and the Eastern understanding of the famous symbolic representation of the three monkeys:

While the three monkeys today in the West usually stand for “not wanting to see, hear or say anything” in order to ignore unpleasant things, in the East they symbolise three wise monkeys:

One monkey has his eyes covered, thus showing “I do not see the unimportant”. Another monkey covers his ears: “I do not listen to the unessential”. The third monkey covers his mouth: “I do not speak or eat unnecessarily”. These are instructions to be applied by a disciple of the Master’s precepts. In this way we prevent undesirable things and diseases from entering us.

When searching photos of the symbol for a future video on the three monkeys, I came across the following photo of the Indian Prime Minister Modi presenting the gift of a copy of statues of the three monkeys to the then US-president Trump and his wife Melania on 24 February 2020. The statues are in the garden of the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, India.

The photo with these three persons and the three monkeys, chosen as a gift from India to America, is highly symbolic of the much-needed “fusion of the wisdom of the East and the strength of the West” to overcome the global antagonisms. “East” and “West” do not mean locations on the planet but “material” and “spiritual”. There is much “west” in the “East” and much “east” in the “West”.

Friends sent me this morning the information that today a great one has passed over: Thích Nhất Hạnh. The Buddhist monk left his body at the age of 95 (1926 – 2022) in Vietnam. In the 60s, he had been a leading voice in the opposition to the Vietnam war. and later had impacted the lives of millions of people. Here you can read about his life story.

I heard about Thich already many years ago, and consciously in the 90s through Buddhists among the Vietnamese refugees for whom I worked for 11 years. They had fled from Vietnam during the second wave exodus, and Switzerland had taken particularly vulnerable people from East Asian refugee camps. I met a lot of Vietnamese refugees, first in the integration centre for recognised refugees where I was teaching German language and first integration, and later as a head of “An Lac”, in the 90s a psycho-social meeting and counselling centre for South-East Asian refugees. Some of them deeply venerated Thich and spoke to me about his importance and a bit about their Buddhist life.

I never felt drawn to Buddhism but I was deeply impressed about the life and message of Thich, which largely is of a universal nature. He has taught mindfulness and right attitude towards life in a profound way. There are centres around the world, a central one, Plum Village in France.

My friend Robert from Spain sent me the following beautiful lines of Thich:

Oneness

The moment I die
I will try to come back to you
as quickly as possible.
I promise it will not take long.
Isn’t it true I am already with you,
as I die each moment?
I come back to you in every moment.
Just look, feel my presence.
If you want to cry, please cry.
And know that I will cry with you.
The tears you shed will heal us both.
Your tears are mine.

Group energy is of great help for our spiritual progress. In a group meditation there develops a flow of energy. We are recharged and we can more easily experience a higher consciousness and a greater presence of spirit.

The energies always flow from the higher to the lower. The sun rays are streaming from the Sun to the Earth. The higher energies work through us when we feel the needs of others and respond to them. These energies strengthen the group consciousness, and they help manifest acts of goodwill in the world. Group work brings the inner light to the outside and intensifies the connection to the higher circles.

To illustrate this cooperation, I arranged in the lower part of the picture a group gathered around a table by joining pictures of two different groups. For visualising the influx of higher energies, I used a photo of a dahlia, elements of a picture of the earth, created with the software WorldWind.earth, as well as a picture of a star in the upper part of the picture. I designed the downpour of light with photos of a glass crystal held in front of a lamp. The light of the star shines through the earth globe and is reflected in the hearts of the group members.

The symbolism of Aquarius is visualised in the twelve Aquarius paintings done between 2010 and 2021. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

The horse is a profound spiritual symbol carrying various dimensions. This week, I did a video presentation about this symbolism of the horse. It was the topic of last month’s Lunar Messenger for Sagittarius (PDF), the text is also here on the WTT website.

The video was done with a layout developed for the Friends of the World Teacher Trust, and it was also published on the Friends of WTT YouTube channel. You can download the paintings used in the video on my website ludgerphilips.org. There is also a German and a French version of the video.

Watch the video to learn more about the sublime symbol of the Horse.

Today 111 years ago, Master CVV initiated the annual December Call celebrations. He established two annual celebrations as days for group initiation – the “Master May Call Day” on 29 May 1910, and the “Master December Call Day” on 29 December 1910. These gatherings are meant for lifting up those who align to it to the awareness of the energy of synthesis, also called the Avatar of Synthesis. The December Call is to strengthen the inner light so that we eliminate the undesirable in us, strengthen the seeds and eliminate the weeds. This leads to an expansion of consciousness and the related deeper understanding.

The energy of synthesis is much better expressed when we relate to the Master energy in a groupal manner. The impact has become global, and now the December Call is also celebrated at many places all over the globe. We just have group meetings where the presence of the energy is clearly felt. This group linking through virtual global meetings is speeding up the development, in all facets of life a spiritual value is added, while outwardly we are going through very peculiar times – times of profound transformation.

Capricorn, tenth sign of the zodiac, is called “the mountain”. It is the mountain of initiation, a symbol of the spiritual quest of the personality to unite with the light of the soul. After climbing to the peak and absorbing the “light supernal”, the initiate returns to assist those who are captive in matter. Capricorn represents the dawn of the year. The golden rays of the morning sun, the winter solstice sun, pour forth a spiritual light and activity that help the souls free themselves from matter and rise up again.

The energy of Capricorn supports the development of the golden etheric body and also the diamond causal body. In mythology they are represented as golden and diamond dragons. Since ancient times, high beings have lived on earth called Nagas in spiritual wisdom. They are sacred serpents or dragons holding the light of wisdom. Like serpents, they live in hidden caves in the mountain regions. The Nagas can be regarded as embodiments of the Kundalini energy. They are the ascending serpents and are radiant and divine by nature. The descending serpents are represented as black and are poisonous by nature. The Nagas do a lot of good for humanity. Some of them are also said to be able to fly.

For the illustration of the Dragon of Wisdom, I photographed a dragon statue in a Tai Chi centre in Hamburg. The mountain in the background was designed with a photograph of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Andes, which a pilot friend, flying over, had photographed. The essence of wisdom streaming down from the sun enters and illuminates the dragon. In his hand he holds a golden glowing orb, symbol of the gift of wisdom for humanity.

The symbolism of Capricorn is visualised in the twelve Capricorn paintings done between 2010 and 2021. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.

The wisdom teachings explain that there is no end to existence. There is a cyclical movement of time in creation. It is like the growth of a seed to a tree bringing forth again new seeds. So, from the background of space, there are periodic emanations of creation. They are seen as cosmic pulsations.

With seven such pulsations, the creation descends and ascends again. From innermost realms, creation comes down to objectivity; and after a while, the direction is changed and there is again an ascent via subtle and causal states to the absolute state.

Our earth is part of a chain of seven globes. There are earths in preparation in three preceding states, we are on this present earth in the fourth state, and there are earths in recession in three succeeding states. Therefore, when a physical form is dissolved, it does not end but continues to exist on subtler planes.

You find these great time cycles in the Eastern wisdom teachings as yugas, manvantaras, kalpas, and years of Brahma, the creator. And you find many details in the teachings of Helena P. Blavatsky. As per human evolution, see also the book of Master KPK on “The Seven Waves of Life“.

You can easily feel dizzy in view of such incredible magnitudes of time pulsations. I depicted a small part of this grand cosmic pulsation in some of my paintings, see for example here and here.

I recently came into contact on Facebook with Elena Merlits, a theosophist from Kiev. I was fascinated to see how Elena was visualising teachings from the Secret Doctrine of HPB about the great time cycles like globe chains, rounds and root races. In her graphics, she worked out aspects of these cycles in great detail and also diagrams about cosmic planes of consciousness.

She is also illustrating other spiritual realities. I give here, without comments, some of her graphics – you can also just contemplate on them without understanding the details.

She also does black and white artwork inspired by inner dimensions – the last picture is from these series. The picture are in a bigger on Facebook (and in a closed FB group in Russian languages to which she gave me access – luckily, there exists automatic translation.)

I started arranging some texts of the Lunar Messenger as video presentations. Here is the latest video on “Sleep and Turiya”.

You know what sleep is – or at least you think you know. However, we are not aware when we are sleeping, so we don’t really know it. At the transition from wakefulness to sleep or vice versa, we pass a threshold that separates both states.

The wisdom teachings emphasize the importance of remembering this point. At this moment, we experience the original state of consciousness and life. It is also called Turiya in Sanskrit, meaning the 4th – the 4th state of consciousness besides waking, sleep and dream states. The new video explains more about it.

There is a new YouTube channel for “Friends of World Teacher Trust”, https://friends.wtt-global.org. It is a platform where people who feel related to the WTT can communicate and teach the essential wisdom teachings of the WTT coming from Master CVV, Master EK and Master KPK. The idea behind: to welcome people who relate to World Teacher Trust teachings and would also like to teach to friends, relatives and like-minded persons.

So, I publish my new videos there, also in German and French.

We are going into the hours of Sagittarius full moon. This full moon is celebrated in the East as the birthday of Lord Dattatreya. Dattatreya is the great teacher or guru principle in the universe. The teachers on the different planes are manifestations of the one teaching principle. A profound wisdom.

You can find more information about Lord Dattatreya on the Sripada Srivallabha website of WTT.

Sagittarius is called a house of initiation, but every initiation is preceded by a crisis. Therefore Sagittarius is also the house of crises. The seers always present things in their positive dimension and so they speak of an opportunity for initiation. We should not run away from crises, but face them courageously. In Sagittarius they are fiery crises because Sagittarius is a fire sign. The fiery crisis we face can give us a push to continue on the path of light.

The symbolism of Sagittarius is visualised in the twelve Sagittarius paintings done between 2010 and 2021. For detailed detailed descriptions please see the ludgerphilips.org website.