Leo is the royal sign of the zodiac. Gold is its metal and the splendour of the golden sunshine represents the lion’s force of creation. The symbol of Leo symbolizes the cave of the heart. The principle of the heart is the principle of pulsation; it is linked to the soundless sound called anahata, the Sanskrit name for the heart centre. In the cave of the heart, the initiates tune into the pulsation as the music of the soul. The radiant golden face of the lion with golden rays emanating from his heart is a meditation on the qualities of this sign.

The central star of the constellation Leo is called Regulus and it is also called the heart of the lion. Through Regulus the transmission of Sirius’ spiritual energies into our system takes place.

I used a photo of a statue in Rajahmundry, India, to design the figure of the lion. I placed a radiant sun and the glyph of the sign at the heart of the lion. Coloured concentric circles indicate the pulsation. Above the head you see the constellation Leo; Regulus is directly above the head of the lion.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Leo paintings.

The last blogpost of July 2nd was about “Biography of Sripada Srivallabha now released in English“. I would like to tell you how the story has been going on.

June 15th, there was the Indian release of the book by Sri K. Parvathi Kumar during the Guru Purnima celebration (at Cancer full moon, the full moon of the Teacher) in Hyderabad.

And yesterday I received photos from Sri Gopal, the head of the WTT centre in Hyderabad. Together with other group members, they went to Kuruvapur, an island in the Krishna river of strong spiritual vibrations, where Sripada passed the second half of his life (see here about my visit in January 2017.)

Mr Gopal wrote, “We are blessed that you thought of us to deliver this Most Sacred Book in the Sripada Srivallabha Sansthan (the temple). There was absolute Master’s cooperation wherein we received wonderful reception and we could participate in the Water Ritual to the Sripada Srivallabha Sila (the seat on which Sripada Srivallabha sat and did penance), performed by Sri. Manjunath Bhat, himself, who is the incharge of that Sansthan” (temple).

He further added: “In India we carry Guru Padukas ( symbolic Chappals -sandals- of Master) on the head with reverence. That is how we carried Gurucharitra (the book) on the head. The whole group carried the most Revered Book on head one by one till we reached the Guru Sansthan. Just for your understanding of the pictures sent.”

Thus, this English version of the Sripada biography, published in Germany, reached its “home” with great reverence: Major parts of the book had been written at Kuruvapur around 1350. And it contains the prophecy that centuries later it would be translated into many languages. See more about the book here.

Regular readers of the blog have already heard a number of times about Sripada Srivallabha, his biography and my journeys to the places of his birth and his stay.

It was a long adventure how the revised English edition of the “Sripada Srivallabha Charitamrutam” developed together with the German translation (published in 2016). I don’t want to go into it now; I just was very happy that during the recent international May Call celebration at Mount Shasta, California, Sri Kumar released the book. (Read more about the release during May Call here.)

And since today, the English book is available in the USA from Amazon.com and in India from Dhanishta Editions (you might not yet find in on their site, write to info@dhanishta.org). In Europe, you can order it from Kulapati.de; however, the parcel with the books is still on the way from India. It will also be soon available at the distributor Syntropia.de, who also sells the German version. More about book distribution see here.

You can also download the book for free (20 MB); however, it is good to have the book in paper form.
The Spanish and the French translations, on the basis of this English version, have been finished and are in process of proof-reading. See also the website www.sripada-srivallabha.org.

In the biography, Sripada said about the book: “I will remain in a subtle form in every place where My biography is devotedly read.” “Don’t think that Sri Charitamrutam book is a mere book. It is a live stream of a glorious consciousness.”

January 2015, at the beginning of my contact with the Charitamrutam, Sri Kumar told me: “Don’t think that it is a book; it is pure fire.” And indeed, it caused a lot of transformation with me.

In 1991, when Sri Kumar on a journey to Switzerland came to know that it was the 500th anniversary of Paracelsus (1493-1541), he did a hike with two friends to the birthplace of this great alchemist initiate. At this birthplace next to a bridge across the Sihl river (known as Teufelsbrücke, Devil’s Bridge) near Einsiedeln, he had the vision of an eagle, symbol of an initiate and that it is a very sacred place.

During the May Call celebration 1999 on Mount Rigi he did an excursion with the entire group to this place and proposed that it would be good to have a centre there to enable being in the presence of the energies of Paracelsus.

Some group members picked up the proposal and within two weeks they had rented a small apartment in the house at the site of the birthplace. In June, we visited the rooms and planted some trees on the meadow near the house (which a bit later goats used for their meal….). And then we furnished the apartment.

In December 1999 around the birthday of Paracelsus, Sri Kumar gave a seminar on Paracelsus in Einsiedeln and the entire group came for the inauguration of the Paracelsus Centre. And with Sri Kumar as editor-in-chief, an international team started to publish the “Paracelsus Health and Healing” magazine from 2003 on.

In the beginning, we did regular weekly meetings at the Paracelsus Centre to study the teachings of Paracelsus and other wisdom teachings. It was a lot of travelling, and about 10 years later, the frequency of these meetings got less. Since 2014, we have been meeting there during equinoxes and solstices. And also the team of the Paracelsus magazine does an annual retreat at this beautiful serene place.

On summer equinox morning, we met on the nearby mountain ridge for a fire ritual and later celebrated this cardinal point of the year in the Paracelsus centre – with meditations, little rituals, study of the importance of summer solstice, cooking and eating together as well as a walk to experience the solstice energy. At summer solstice, there is a subtle change of energies in nature and in us – witnessing it is a good preparation for the transformations it brings.

Around the house at the birthplace of Paracelsus, there had been some changes: the Cultural Heritage and Historic Monuments office has recently renovated the place with the Paracelsus memorial plate and some civil service workers had built a new fountain at the roadside. Hikers now stop there to drink some fresh water.

Spiritual Astrology regards Cancer as the time of dusk and as the moment where the soul enters into the body and thus, gets sealed in matter. Our mind corresponds to moonlight. It can reflect the soul, the Sun. Moon is the ruler of Cancer and Neptune is exalted in this sign. Like Earth is receiving the rays of Neptune via the Moon, our mind (Moon) is receiving the music of the soul through deep meditation (Neptune).

The image is inspired by the occult meditation no. 16 of Master CVV (see: Ekkirala Krishnamacharya, Spiritual Psychology; and: K. Parvathi Kumar, Occult Meditations): “Moon is silver. I AM the lake. Lake is moonlight, I AM healed. I AM silver. In me the moonbeam awakes. I AM moonlight. In me the Sun is sealed.”

The painting shows the Moon reflecting on the surface of the lake of mind, illustrated by the glyph of Cancer. And down below the Sun is sealed, spreading its light through matter. Behind the Moon you can see the bluish sphere of Neptune, and on its left you find the constellation of Cancer.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Cancer paintings.

Saturday morning after breakfast, last exchanges and saying good-bye to one and all, we boarded the buses which transported us back to San Francisco or San Jose. And the team of organizers started closing the site of the group living and packing….

It was quite hot when we came down from the mountains to the central Californian area. Our bus driver drove with high speed, he seemed to be in a hurry to come home… The bus stopped at the Courtyard Hotel in San Jose North. While the others checked in, I waited in the lobby together with three friends to be picked up.

Some hours later Murali came with his neighbour Gurjinder and they drove us to Morgan Hill. For two nights, we stayed in the house of Gurjinder and his wife Kusum, a very amiable couple from Punjab in Northern India. They live in a beautiful huge villa, newly constructed and well decorated inside and outside with Indian art. He is an IT specialist, she a dentist. She helped in Anu’s and Murali’s house in the kitchen, where the Master and his travel group stayed and where many of the Indian brotherhood came for the prayers. A small footpath through the garden connected the two houses.

Gurjinder and Kusum gave us a warm welcome. It touched me very much that they gave their own bedroom to accommodate Rosy and Mathilda. And I slept in the room of their daughter, who was rehoused to her twin brother (both approx. mid-20s) – one would hardly find such hearty hospitality in Europe.

Sunday morning after meditation there was a Pada Puja, a traditional worship of the Teacher and his wife by members of the Indian brotherhood of California in the house of Anu and Murali.

Later, the Master and his companions made an excursion, while I sat down to write the minutes of the General Assembly. Afterwards, Mathilda and I walked through the gardens of the two houses and enjoyed the flowers and the smell of the eucalyptus trees. And we had interesting exchanges with the parents of Murali. Although in the 80s, they are very spirited.

Next morning when we wanted to prepare for departure, Gurjinder was showing the rooms of his house to the Master, just looking into the room where I had spread my belongings for packing… Shortly afterwards, a driver from Lyft came to give us a ride to San Francisco airport.

Mathilda’s flight was in the early afternoon, mine was in the evening, and finally delayed for 2.5 hours. I spend the day in the airport, reading, writing, watching some expositions of the SFO Museum in the airport. While I was out on a terrace at the Gates, I saw the Swiss airplane coming in with much delay from Zurich. It was nearly 10 pm when the plane took off again for the flight back.

In the plane, I sat in a row together with a mother and her daughter, about 8 years old. They were from LA but of Italian ancestry and on their way to Italy. The lively daughter gave me a welcome chewing gum and recommended me to watch the “Captain Marvel” movie about a superwoman, which she had already seen, and so I did.

Flying through the time zones, looking down once while passing from Greenland over fields of icebergs and then again just before the Hebrides, I tried to consciously realise what was just happening. Yes, the melting icebergs around Greenland have something to do with my flying above them; but the unfolding network of light and spiritual awakening and of an attitude of service witnessed during the group living is a strong promise for better relations between humans, nature and the globe.

When my wife picked me up at the train station and I finally was back home, I felt profoundly grateful for the safe ending of the journey and filled with an abundance of impressions.

Saturday morning after meditation, there was the final meeting of the big group.  Sri Kumar presented all the organisers of the group life – 13 couples, mostly the second generation of the WTT, had carried out the work:

“Their parents have been associated with either Master EK or me during the last 40 years. They grew up in a spirit of service, got married, secured their job and also have children. The Indians believe in greatest importance of education and to settle in society. Then they think of marriage and it is all carried out by 35 years’ time – the first cycle of Saturn. They do not set the cart before the horse; they make sure that they are good enough to pull the cart and then set out to enjoy the life in a good manner. They grew well in the presence of Master EK and later of me. They are very well oriented to service. They have the good luck of not being selfish from childhood because they have the touch of the hierarchical teachings and the hierarchical teacher. Whenever we relate to this 2^nd generation group, it is always full of the spirit of offering and service.”

Then the Master presented his entire family that had accompanied him on this journey.

As an expression of thanks, the group offered to the Master and his wife Kumari-garu as traditional gifts coconut and clothes. For the closure of the group life, Sri Kumar spoke the Group Invocation: “It is for the group protection, group sharing, group enlightenment and ensuring there is no malice between the members of the group.” A beautiful and profound group life thus came to a close.

Normally, with a superficial glance, you might think of such group livings as easy-going, but when writing these lines, some challenges and obstacles group members had encountered came to my mind:

A dear friend who had planned to come had to change plans and flew from the US to India because his father just had died at arrival in Kumbhakonam for May Call and my friend wanted to assist his mother. Another friend fell at Frankfort airport on a moving stairway, broke some bones and had to stop her journey. Another friend had to return home during May Call due to severe pain; some time before, she had broken a number of bones when during skiing she dashed into a tree instead of into her daughter. She nevertheless came but had to go to a hospital even during May Call. Many caught a cold or even fever during the group life or on the journey back. Another person, when helping with cooking for group members burnt her hands in boiling oil. Some friends could not come from India because the American embassy did not give them a visa. Many had to struggle to overcome financial or private difficulties before the journey. And many group members did great sacrifices to help making the May Call celebration successful.
Such group livings can ignite profound spiritual aspiration; they give strength and determination for continuing the Path.

One group member, a dear friend aged 85, wrote me that he will stay at Mount Shasta until mid-August – he is determined to climb to the top of the mount ( 4,322 m) and is training hard. He just wrote, “I was today at over 3000 m”. Strive to the top!

Friday 31 May morning Sri Kumar spoke about the importance of attuning to time and time cycles – it was already his last discourse of this group living. Some extracts of my notes:

“The whole creation is carried out in tune with the time plan. Time holds the key to involution and evolution, to the law of alternation, pulsation, periodicity, the law of expansion and contraction, emergence of life and mergence of life into itself. All laws are contained in time and therefore time is the ultimate remainder which remains after and is before creation. The birth, growth, completion, regression and conclusion of a creation are in tune with time. There is a time plan to every being, to the planet, to the solar system and to the creators of solar systems, the Prajapatis, to the cosmos. All happens according to time, time is the ultimate terminator… Nature cooperates with those who cooperate with nature; time cooperates with those who cooperate with time. Normally we expect cooperation instead of extending cooperation. Cooperation is the most cherished value in hierarchy; it is the fundamental spirit of brotherhood…”

While parts of the group were going on another excursion to Mount Shasta, we later in the morning had a short meeting of the Executive Board of WTT-Global with Sri Kumar followed by a meeting of the Board of Advisors – discussing topics concerning the development of the WTT. And after the evening meditation there was the annual General Assembly of WTT Global.

Sri Kumar: “The World Teacher Trust groups all over the globe constitute the soul of the World Teacher Trust, and the organisation stands as a personality for the expression of the activity of the World Teacher and his team of teachers. The work is carried out in the organisation with least rules and regulations. Much freedom is ensured for the soul while personality is kept flexible in the sense that the personality shall not condition the soul and the soul has a free play with the personality which is the essence of the teachings of the Hierarchy.”

In the hotel where I was staying, the McCloud Hotel, there was a room where Guy Ballard (pen name “Godfré Ray King”) lived in 1930. He is the founder of the “I AM” movement. In his book “Unveiled Mysteries, Vol. 1″ (Download PDF from this page) he describes how he met another hiker who identified himself as the Count of St. Germain.

On 30 May, the group made an excursion to Crater Lake in Oregon, about 260 km from McCloud. The lake formed in the caldera of Mount Mazama after a huge eruption about 7700 years ago. It is one of the deepest lakes of the world (about 650 m) and there are no rivers flowing into or out of the lake.

In three buses and a number of cars we drove through a beautiful, spacious landscape. My roommate Mark took me and the two friends from Denmark in his car and we enjoyed the sprightly conversation.

The roads along Crater Lake were mostly closed because of snow but the access from the West was open. We walked a bit along the rim of the crater surrounded by steep slopes and looking a bit like a huge chalice where heaven and earth meet. Although people were talking and busily taking pictures you could feel a profound silence and sanctity in the atmosphere. The buses arrived a bit later – the group had brought picknick for all of us.

When on the way back approaching the Mount Shasta area, there was a short and intense hailstorm. We stopped for some time at the side of the highway for evening meditation. Afterwards, a beautiful rainbow formed over Mount Shasta like a bridge to heaven. I couldn’t take a photo – the battery of my camera was down… But here is a beautiful one by Mathilda seen from Shastina – Mount Shasta would be in the centre.

McCloud is a small town in the south of Mount Shasta, and its dancing hall had been transformed into the venue for this year’s May Call Day celebration, the 110th one since Master CVV received the energy of synthesis in 1910 and started distributing it. And all of us had followed the call. About 350 group members had come from different parts of the globe, from India, Europe, and the Americas; many of them had been accommodated at different places in the surroundings and were transported by busses to the hall.

It had been quite a challenge for the California group to organise the event – its members are mainly IT specialists from India living around Silicon Valley, about 300 km away. A tent had been set up as a dining hall and in another tent was the kitchen – everything was well organised and run smoothly, with Indian and Western style food…

Tuesday morning the May Call group living started with the morning prayer at 9 am followed by some welcome greetings and the first discourse of Sri Kumar. Here is a short extract from his second discourse on May Call day:

“Master CVV is a Master of contraries; if you want one way it will be the other way. ‘I want it this way’ – immediately he says thank you; it will never be the way you want it but it will happen. You go with your very narrow understanding. Keep the mind open and look at the input. Newcomers come and find themselves highly in confusion because they think it should be like this. The Master said, why should it be like that?

Expect the unexpected, is the message of the Master. You wish a beautiful ambiance here to experience the ambiance of Mount Shasta. For how much time? There will be dark clouds, heavy snow. I will get messages: ‘They are presenting to me an Alfred Hitchcock movie’ and they think, the Master is like this. I told my family, it is mostly warm there in May; the Master said, ah, is it? I bought the warm clothes in a mall and the moment I bought the clothes the weather became warm. This happens with the Master. To him May Call is more important; the weather is not so important. We had so many May Calls with so many weathers. He wants us to become friendly with the elements by presenting the contraries to you. The first thing is, your life gets into a crisis. Touch the Master and get the crisis.”

Afterwards, there was a group excursion. First, we visited the Sacramento River headwaters. On a nearby meadow, we formed a huge circle and sung some mantrams. Beautiful sunshine shone on the place and for some moments, a white seagull came and flew very low inside the circle, like a messenger from above.

Later, the group went to a place at the foot of Mount Shasta to enjoy the presence of the mount and take some group pictures.

Afterwards, we drove to the upper, middle and lower falls of the McCloud Falls. I got a ride with my room-mate Mark and two friends from Denmark. We did a little excursion down to the river and sat for a while at a beautiful place at the confluence of two rivers.

In the afternoon, there were some book releases and distribution of gifts brought by group members. There were two new books with lectures of Master EK, a book with teachings of Master Kumar on the Secret Doctrine by Mme Blavatsky and the second volume with teachings by Master Kumar on Occult Healing, in German language.

I was particularly happy about the release of the English version of the biography of Sripada Srivallabha, an avatar of Lord Dattatreya. It had been a long way of several years to prepare this English version, after the German translation.