Today 12 years ago, I published the first blogpost on Friday, 31 March 2006. In the meanwhile, 1402 little “flowers” (blogposts) have grown along the wayside. The quote from Agni Yoga, Leaves of Morya’ Garden I with which I started is still the guiding star:

Yes, yes, yes, each word of unity is as the seed of some fair flower.
To cultivate a garden of beauty is permitted to all.
But where are the gardeners who can judge which seed is best?
We shall teach them to gather the fertile stalks.
We shall pluck out the blighting weeds.
And the ground where God has manifested Himself
We shall adorn with flowers.

I decided to do the blog in English to keep the scope international. In a way the blog is my public diary of events, reflections and little stories to sow some seed of inspiration and good will. And I frequently search the blog to re-find a specific topic.

And sometimes interesting comments by readers add a little flower to the garden. So I hope that the garden of inspiration will further grow with future blooming.

Easter Bunny working in the garden in front of the seminar centre “Lichtblick” (Bright Spot). On the ball in the background it says:
“Good thoughts are angels which you send out to bring about the desired event.”

Early morning, the day after spring equinox, I started my annual journey to North Germany for the CVV Sharing meeting. On the way, I visited some family members and friends before I continued further north to Hude in Oldenburg, Germany.
It was already the 9th “CVV Sharing” and the fourth time we met during the weekend after spring equinox at the seminar centre “Lichtblick” (“Bright Spot”).
The motto of these meetings is “Experiment – Experience – Expression” and the inspiration given by Sri Parvathi Kumar for the 2018 meeting was:
“The Master permeates within the cerebro-spinal system. Contact within and permeate in Presence.”

This year, there was an increased focus on meditation: we followed a meditative alignment every three hours with longer meditations – up to one hour – at 6 am and pm and at noontime.

There were profound exchanges in small groups and in plenary, where we spoke about inner movements and group experiences, and we did experiments with triangular group visualisations.

Friday evening there was an input with group exchange about Sri Kumar’s message for the New Year (contained in the Aries Vaisakh News Letter).

Saturday afternoon, two members gave a contribution on “Myth and Music” – one member presented thoughts about Greek mythology and the Lyra – the invention of the instrument by Hermes and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice; the other member transmitted the myths into guitar improvisations. Later, the group sang a continuous “OM” in different pitches for ten minutes – it created a strong synchronisation of the group. Afterwards there was an exchange about meditation.

Sunday after the morning meditation we assembled on the terrace for a short fire ritual. And while the group sung “Agnaye Swâhâ, Agnaya Idam Na Mama” each group member put a stick into the flames – a thrilling ambiance.

Later, a group member gave an input about the network of light and the experience of Buddhi, and we exchanged about group experiences. Afterwards, we went to a small lake in a nearby forest to speak the Global Peace Prayer and the Invocation for United Europe.

The final round showed that the group much appreciated the longer meditations and all felt very uplifted and inspired. Next year, we will meet again in Hude on the first weekend after spring equinox, for the 10th CVV Sharing.

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Ritualistic work is the conscious following of a rhythm, aligning with the rhythm of nature. An important annual rhythm are the cardinal points of the year, the equinoxes and the solstices.

At spring equinox – 24 March 2018 – we met at the Paracelsus centre, like in previous years, to celebrate the beginning of the new annual cycle, the entrance of the sun into Aries. Outside, it looked still like winter; it was cold, snow and fog were covering the nearby meadows and hills. But the air was filled with the dynamic impulse of the transition which was taking place in nature. And we created spring ambiance with some primroses, candles and colourful fruit. It is always like magic when a little altar is set up – beauty and the geometry of the arrangement manifest a subtle magnetism uplifting the surrounding.

Our little group of seven members tuned up to the energies of spring equinox by lighting candles, singing mantrams and reciting the Equinox Prayers. Afterwards, I read and commented on the message of Sri Kumar for the New Year (contained in the Aries Vaisakh News Letter). In the South Indian cycle of 60 years it is called Vilambhi, meaning slow down – to clear hindrances and to lay the foundation for a deeper, sustained growth.

After lunch, we made a little walk along the nearby pathway which is part of the European pilgrimage network leading to Santiago de Compostela in north-western Spain. Later we had a vivid exchange about principles of yoga and how we apply them in daily life. After the evening meditation we set out for our journeys home.

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The visible planets are the physical bodies of great conscious entities expressing themselves through these forms. Just as we have incarnated into our bodies to grow and to make experiences, these sublime beings also live in their planetary globes to undergo their evolution on a cosmic scale. All the stars in the sky are at various stages of evolution. There are planetary entities higher than our planet, and there are suns higher than our sun. Like a flower that grows and unfolds to bring forth seeds for future flowers, our planet also unfolds like a beautiful flower, preparing future stages of evolutionary growth.

I visualised the earth inside the petals of a huge flower. For this, I worked on a photo of a Brahma Kamala flower (Saussurea obvallata, transformed from a Wikimedia photo by Sujay25), making it glow like a lantern. I created the starry background with the help of the beautiful Stellarium software. The stars are like fireflies blinking in the darkness of a magical garden.

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 Aries paintings.

Some days ago an Indian friend sent me a Facebook video by Mona Caron, an artist creating large-scale paintings on walls (murals). I have seen other kinds of murals but here I was touched by the subtlety of the colours and the playfulness with which she is creating mainly vegetative motives on all kinds of walls.

[In brackets: While looking at the videos of her paintings, my thoughts went back to the mid-70s, to my student times in Münster, Germany:
Together with two friends I lived on a farm, in an old milker lodging. There I could do a few murals, in my amateur style to bring in some poetic ambience: In the entry a big painting of a church window with flowers, in the kitchen a branch of a cherry tree with a poem of Hölderlin, in the sleeping room a big wall painted with gold patterns of water colour and in the long dark corridor a big spacy painting glowing in the dark with ultra-violet light… And I decorated the windows of the toilet at a little sideroom with glass painting…]

Mona Caron’s flowers grow on fronts of high-rise buildings, at crossroads or along the streets. Of course, when she is painting flowers, these are not “vertical gardens” bringing the beauty of live flowers but her murals enliven the ambience and stimulate the imagination. She is very creative in the way she brings beauty into the otherwise stony deserts of mega-cities. And her works now embellish walls all around the globe. See here the “Market Street Railway” mural. However, she does not only work outdoor but also does indoor artwork.

Mona Caron is a native of Ticino, in the Italian part of Switzerland. She is the daughter of Swiss theatre and opera set designer Peter Bissegger, and now is based in San Francisco. Besides painting she is also active in “art-ivism” with social movements to support different issues like climate justice events.

Read more about Mona Caron on her website.

Painting giant weeds on buildings all around the world: “Weeds”

Outgrowing: “Outgrowing our skyrocketing dangers, reaching for clear skies.. . Healing herbs for an ailing earth, in a 6500 square feet mural in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.”

Manifestation Station – a painted utility box

Picture from the video “Outgrowing” by Mona Caron (c)

During my last stay in January 2018 at the WTT Retreat Centre in Visakhapatnam, India I participated in a one hour video discussion moderated by Anuraag Saxena, an Indian from Singapore, originally from Visakhapatnam. See here my previous post.

Five other group members from the West also took part in the lively discussion. It was about our spiritual path in search of the eternal wisdom, in India called Sanatana Dharma.

With his videos, Anuraag is trying to inform Indians abroad about the rich heritage of India and make Indians aware of their treasures of Sanatana Dharma, the essence of Hinduism. None of us Westerners would coin ourselves as “Hindus” (the title of the video says “Why I became a Hindu?”) but we deeply agreed with the core values, esp. also “Vasudhaiva Kutumbaka” (see in one of the video links), meaning “all the world is one family”.

Here are the links to the video discussion as well as to the 10 4-5 min. snippets. These are his accounts on Facebook and on Twitter.

1.       Sanatana Dharma. What’s so cool about it?
2.       Singularity & Vasudeva Kutumbakam
3.       Katy Perry Vs. Spirituality
4.       Science Vs Spirituality: Opposing forces?
5.       Wealthy but lonely. The curse of Western Capitalism
6.       Digestion & Appropriation of Indic knowledge
7.       Is God a woman?
8.       Why is Catholicism against Diversity & Inclusion?
9.       Purushattva & the resurgence of Yoddhas
10.     In the end: Be Liberal

There is a cyclical movement of time in creation. It is like the growth of a seed to a tree bringing forth new seeds. The wisdom teachings explain that there is no end to existence. When a physical form is dissolved, it does not end but continues to exist on subtler planes. With seven cosmic pulsations the creation descends and ascends again. From innermost realms, it 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.

I illustrated this great pulsation with the circle of the serpent eating its tail, a symbol of the eternal movement of time. I created three semi-transparent globes on the descending arc and three globes on the ascending arc with a crescent of the present earth at the centre. I transformed a photo of the gears of an old pocket watch (Wikimedia, Sachin Sandhu) and placed it in a desert-like surrounding symbolising the slow movement of time. From its centre grows a Brahma Kamala flower (transformed from a Wikimedia photo by Schwiki), a mundane replica of a celestial flower growing at high altitudes in the Himalayas, symbolising the sublime unfoldment of nature.

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 Pisces paintings.

19 November 2017, pencils and photo work

It is certainly not the purpose of the Lufthansa commercial “Dance with the Arctic Ocean” (#LifeChangingPlaces Lofoten) to stimulate pondering upon the adventure of turning inward. No, this is an amazing video to deliver the feeling of the thrill of extreme experiences. It shows the surf photographer Chris Burkard changing his old life in warm California against a new life in Norway’s ice, storms and cold. The solitude of surfing in the surge of the Lofoten at minus 23 degrees as the ultimate kick, after feeling bored with the most beautiful surf beaches at the top spots of the world: “In this moment I knew: This is exactly what I have been searching for… I came here because I didn’t want to do always the same. Now I know, I don’t want anything else.”

This sounds like the words of someone who has overcome all bodily limitations and experiences the Yogic state of bliss; whose thoughts and desires have been burnt in the inner fire and who is in deep inner peace. Yogis too, are sometimes living in extreme climatic conditions without being touched by them – their path is just a tiny step ahead of the search of extreme sportsmen and photographers.

The inner journey, however, goes deeper than the thrill of ecstasy brought about by all kinds of extreme experiences which many are searching for today. Maybe the craze of high performance sports with their celebration at the Olympic Games or football championships is just a preparation for the ultimate step towards oneself and from there to the One Source.

Photo: Lufthansa video #LifeChangingPlaces Lofoten (c)

Normally, this blog is not the place to speak about private topics. But since yesterday (12 February) my wife and I completed a 30 years of marriage cycle – a bit more than a cycle of Saturn – I would like to share some thoughts. Especially since what I am doing towards the outside would never be possible without her support from the background.

We intensely live together but also in “different worlds”, treading our paths each in our own ways. From the very beginning, our relation was oriented to spirituality; however, it also was a training camp for both of us – partnership, children education, bridging the gaps between the different challenges of life.

We decided to marry in Aquarius, not yet knowing much about the astrological significance. However, it was meaningful and quite a shaping experience. Mutual freedom together with trust is a great value for us. For our marriage, I had created a symbol expressing our relation which we used on the invitation and also on the marriage candle.

When we selected the wedding rings, we chose one which was not closed but open – for us, it meant to be open towards greater things, towards the divine. At the open part, there is a pentagram. In the inside there is, besides the date and our names, the symbol you see at the header of the website with my paintings.

Around the time of selecting the rings in 1987

For the marriage, we designed a ceremony ourselves and looked for a priest who was willing to cooperate, and he was. Besides the exchange of the rings, there was a candle ceremony, where we spoke the invocation of the Tibetan, “We are a small light within a greater Light… and thus we stand.” This “thus we stand” was probably the most important for our path. From the candles in the centre, all participants lighted their candles.

Later, the wedding party took place in a nearby restaurant on a mountain, “Mänziwilegg”; it included the drama of my father getting a stroke and intense snow fall in the afternoon…

For our wedding jubilee we wanted to visit again this place. On the web, we saw that the restaurant had been closed for some years but recently re-opened on a smaller scale by the retired owners. Last weekend was a bit turbulent. Our granddaughter Lina (2) was there during three days; she now has learned to move all different things from one place to the other, spreading them all over our apartment. It is a challenge in which my wife is better than me. She said she can well activate the learnings from the education of our two sons and she is good in dealing with “child management”. We nearly had given up the plans to go to the Mänziwilegg but finally decided to go there on Sunday afternoon.

There was rain mixed with snowflakes in the valley but intense snowfall started on the mountain, like 30 years ago. We nevertheless wanted to walk the last kilometre from a parking. Instead of a beautiful view of the Alps, however, it was partly difficult to see the tops of the nearby trees. But we enjoyed it. We felt a bit like arriving at the South Pole when we saw the “closed” sign of the restaurant and laughed that both of us had forgotten the opening hours – Sundays closed.

We carefully drove downhill, bought an ice-cream in a service station shop and celebrated the marriage jubilee with Lina at home, in our “training camp” or “family ashram”.

On the way back from India we had a stop-over for eight hours at Delhi airport. While strolling through the shopping area with my friend, I saw a shop with devotional objects of a higher quality. A red figurine of Hanuman stood out between various white figures. It was well made but I didn’t want to buy anything. The situation was quickly forgotten in the bustle of the return journey.

Some days later I was surprised to find a little package in the mailbox sent by friends I had met in India. The envelope contained a present, a thank-you for some help. I opened the box and found a little red Hanuman statue. It touched me and I felt I had seen it before… I hesitated a moment and then put the figurine on my meditation altar.

It was only next morning that I realised, Oh, it’s the same statue I had seen at Delhi airport. My friends did not take the same return journey, so they must have found the little statue somewhere else… A subtle network of connectedness.

I pondered on the symbolism of Hanuman, a manifestation of the first Logos, of the Cosmic Fire. I have an inner relationship with him, especially since translating the Sripada Srivallabha biography where a chapter deals with Hanuman. I had no external symbol – so he seems to have come to me in this way.