Last Sunday afternoon I set out for a 4 weeks’ journey to Argentina to join the tour of Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar through different parts of the country. At Zurich airport I met an old friend with whom I had already been travelling several times in India. In Frankfurt, we were supposed to meet two other friends for the flight to Buenos Aires but we did not see them there, neither when we landed in Argentina after a long night flight of over 13 hours. We searched all around in the arrival hall, asking at different offices but in vain. However, we found another lady of the group , from Spain.  We finally decided to leave the airport without the two German friends.

The elderly taxi driver corresponded totally to my cliché of an “Argentinian”. He was very jovial, spoke a lot about his country and gave each one of us a small Argentinian coin as a souvenir and for good luck.

In the hotel we came to know that the feeder flight of our German friends had been cancelled shortly before the start due to a technical problem. They had to take a taxi instead and arrived some minutes too late for check-in. Though we were a bit tired, we decided to join the group of friends who already was at the hotel for a bus trip through the city. Deborah, an Argentinian friend, whom I had met 2 years ago in India, was our tour guide, and it was very nice. We took a 24 hours tourist bus ticket and sat on the top of a double decker. It was a bit chilly but the weather was fine – after days of rain.

At several places we got off the bus to see some old quarters with art markets and colourful houses. We stopped at an art centre where the World Tango Festival going on. We had the good luck to get tickets for free and just arrived in the hall for a Tango concert – an outstanding event. 5 musicians plus some special guests enchanted the audience with their enthusiastic representation. It was a concert without Tango dance but of a great allegresse. The festival went on for the rest of the day but we left after this section. We had a look into an improvised Tango hall set up under a highway, where many people were dancing to the music in rapt attention.

The trip continued to some other quarters of the city. We finally got off near the Rio de la Plata, had an Italian dinner, went along a channel for a while before going back home.

Later in the evening Dr. Kumar and his wife arrived at the hotel, where we awaited him together with some Argentinian friends. It was a warm welcome. Afterwards we dropped into our beds, very tired from the jet-lag and the long day.

Occult symbolism is a way of describing subtle truths, which to a common understanding appear as contradictory or nonsense. An intuitive approach helps gain deeper insights.

Virgo stands for the slow unfoldment of the soul on the spiritual path, secretly growing through crises in the womb of material life. The aspirant is compared to a child, whose soul / Sun silently develops a pure, virginal nature under the protection of Mother Nature. Nature again is a reflection of the spirit and thus is compared to the Moon, who is the ruler of Virgo on the subtle planes.

Meditating on the painting for the month of Virgo, I received the image of a chasm at the bottom in which there was the soul and at the top the head of the Divine Mother. The chasm was like penetrating through the seven planes of creation. A few days later the hint came, Isis and Osiris. I googled for a statue of these two Egyptian gods and studied about their symbolism. In the plethora of meanings I found that Osiris, the “Lord of Truth”, is compared to the Sun. Isis is described as his wife, his sister and even his mother, and also as the Virgin Earth. I found the image of a grey stone statue with Isis protecting the child Osiris. Her headgear is like a solar disc hiding the true spiritual sun, thus being the “moon” to the higher sun, which is carried by Mother Nature. Osiris wears a headgear like a receptacle receiving the divine flame.

I transformed the statue into golden colour and did some digital restoration. I then created the chasm penetrating through the seven planes and surrounded Isis-Osiris by an aura of radiating energy – the veil unveiled. When the clouds of conceptualisation are left aside, the symbolic presentation provides a view of Mother Nature protecting the Solar Child.

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.

14 May 2015, pencils and photo work

It is a commercial but well done, and the message is spiritual: “We are greater than I”.

The description of the video spot of Samsung created in partnership with the World Surf League says: “It shows how we are all connected, intrinsically co-dependent, and tied together for better and for worse.” And further:

“No individualism here, no ego, no celebration of one hero. In surf, as in technology, one cannot reach the next level alone. Without the people around us, without “We”, without “Us”, “I” is nothing. Together, we make each other better. Together, we push, we inspire, we challenge and redefine each other. We Are Greater Than I.”

May it be so with Samsung, the surfers and with all of us: no ego, no celebration of one hero… And not a side-blow to a competitor who uses “i” in the names of his products.

This viral video got over 5 million views within a month.

(C) Samsung, from the video

Leo is related to the heart centre; it is the heart of Spiritual Hierarchy. In the Vedic symbolism Leo is called the dog, meaning the Dog Star, Sirius. Our planetary Hierarchy is a replica of the Great White Brotherhood on Sirius whose Lord is Dattatreya. He is the teaching principle in the universe.

The Eastern Puranas compare the space globes of the universe with the fruits of a banyan tree and the suns with the seeds inside the fruit. Many trees line the roads to the garden of God. This reminds me of the astronomical concept of superclusters of galaxies called Laniakea (Hawaiian ‘immeasurable heaven’) which look like flows or branches of huge trees.

In the background of the painting I put a clustered photo of the known universe and super-imposed on it the structure of a tree. I made a photo of the statue of Dattatreya on my meditation altar, depicted as a being with one body and three heads, symbolizing the divine trinity coming out of unity. He is always depicted with a cow, symbolizing the universe. In his six hands he holds various symbols representing cosmic dimensions. In the branches of the tree you see two galaxies and in the centre a star nebula also called the “eye of God”. I placed a picture of Sirius into its centre.

In the foreground you see the symbol of the cosmic teaching principle, the triangle within a circle and the central point, which is placed at the heart centre of Dattatreya. The circle is surrounded by 12 stars, representing the twelve aspects of the zodiac or of the one original light, Aditi.

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.

17 April 2015, pencils and photo work

Awesome views of the Himalayas in highest quality, filmed from a helicopter with a crew flying from Kathmandu at 1400 meters up to 7300 meters on supplemental oxygen. This is the first ultra HD footage of the Himalayas showing crisp clear aerial shots of these mountains ever released, which include Mt. Everest, Ama Dablam, and Lhotse. The aerial cinema experts of Teton Gravity Research took the pictures with the most advanced gyro-stabilized camera system in the world

Image (c) Teton Gravity Research, from the video

28 June I went to a meeting of Dr. Kumar with Swiss group members in Hergiswil. Besides the Master and his wife Krishna Kumari and Ramana, we were a small group of 11 persons from Switzerland, 2 from Austria and 1 from Germany. As already in the previous years it was an inspiring encounter. He first gave a talk on “Journey into the Unknown” for 1.5 hours, and as usual, I typed what was being said:

“Many times there is an unconscious pull which becomes conscious later. The unknown is always bewildering and keeps us engaged… Many times we move by impulse. Impulse is the inner push. It comes from the unknown side of our being, and after we make the movement, when the conscious side of the being says, Why all this? Many times we don’t find an answer. The question comes from the conscious part of being. The super-conscious which is not yet conscious, which we call unconsciousness, pushes us. We are already moved by the super consciousness… The unknown cannot be structured; as it comes it can be given to language. The language is not adequate but it is the only way….”

After the talk we had a question-and-answer session for an hour. And afterwards we had Spaghetti together before returning home again.

As a short glimpse here is the answer to the question: “What is the meaning of a retrograde planet?”

“Normally when a planet is retrograde people say it is retrogressive but from spiritual point of view it is the planet to work out your spirituality. Spirituality means to work out all that is in the past. A man that is in the progress of objectivity, a retrograde planet enables you to regress into subjectivity. A planet retrograde, that function can be put to spiritual progression. You take the quality of the planet and it enables you to retrace. What is an apparent challenge can be made to a positive thing. If you turn the sail in relation to that function it becomes a favourable character. That is how you need to utilise setting the right sail in relation to that planet. If Jupiter is retrograde, in the normal astrology they say, you have no kind or right eating, your comprehension is not good, you cannot expand until the retrograde one orients rightly. Instead of setting the sail to objectivity set it to subjectivity. So you can get a much better inner understanding and you have no problems with eating. If you go on in retrograde it is not helpful but if you go inside it is good. It means either into objectivity or subjectivity. A normal astrologer when he sees, oh you have so many retrograde planets, the other person is half dead. All occult sciences must be expressed in their positive dimension never in their negative. This is a different astrology.”

Around summer solstice there was a 6 days seminar with Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar on “Astrology and the Path”, in Billerbeck near Münster, Germany. Over 150 persons from different countries of Europe, the Americas and India had come to this group living. Many of them I knew, and so it was a beautiful “family gathering”. For me it was a very intense time – besides the discourses there were several organisational meetings, and of course lots of exchanges. I took particularly time to meet persons who I don’t know yet or where there is not much contact. The main purpose, however, was to go into a deeper understanding of the wisdom teachings in their astrological dimension, and to dive inside with profound meditations. I appreciated this very much. Other highlights were the marriage ceremony of Anwar and Susanne and two fire rituals. The group also visited the Gulab garden, a rose garden of the WTT group of Münster inspired by Master Morya.

In his discourses Sri Kumar gave profound insights into aspects of Spiritual Astrology, commenting the introductory pages of the book and elaborating on questions of the participants. I gained new insights – into the effects of the north node and south node, into working with Pluto, Neptune and Uranus, ways of reading the chart and, of course, the importance of Cancer solstice. Below you find an extract of my notes on the north and the south nodes (they are incomplete and might contain mistakes), and some impressions of the seminar:

“The north and the south node, as we all know they are shades but are not planetary principles. They happen on account of the movement of Earth around the Sun where sometimes Moon comes in the way to cause solar eclipse and Earth comes in the way to cause the lunar eclipse. Therefore, these are shades emerging relative to Earth. A shade that we experience during the solar eclipse, where we see the partial Sun, or we may not see the Sun if there is a total eclipse. Likewise, when Earth comes in between there is the shade on the full moon where you experience gradual decrease of Moon and again coming back to its original form. These shades are considered as shades on consciousness. These shades are of particular importance as visualized by the seers of wisdom.

The positive node, which we call in Sanskrit as Rahu, is similar to Mars; while the negative is similar to Saturn. A positive node is stronger than Mars. The negative node is like Saturn. Saturn itself is a very strong energy. What do they do? The positive node has a very strong grip. To grip anything the energy that exists with us is the positive node. Mars works as force and the node enables gripping it. This grip is generally misused than used properly. That’s where the quality of shade prevails. Instead of gripping the right thing we tend to grip the wrong thing. To grip what is beneficial for the soul does not happen. The grip enables eclipse to the soul. That is how eclipse to the Sun happens. We do things which are not desirable and we grip them strongly. What are desirables for us we don’t have such a strong grip over it. The grip on virtues is not so strong as the grip on vices. That’s how we can give a pass-by to a prayer now and then but not to a breakfast. Breakfast we don’t give a pass-by. We make sure that we have a breakfast. But we don’t make sure of a prayer as regularly as breakfast. What is valuable is not gripped, what is not value for the soul is gripped. That’s how it causes an eclipse to our consciousness. For example, in the world certain things are necessary to be gripped. For that positive node helps. But if you grip anything too much, it has the counter effect of the grip. Like people gripping money, there is a counter effect of money gripping them. People gripping the power, people gripping the other gender, people gripping certain views strongly and move forward whether right or wrong.

This grip of node has its positive dimension and also negative dimension. Its negative dimension damages the person, it afflicts the person. That’s how people are power-blind, gender-blind, money-blind. Excessive grip is the negative dimension of positive node. Generally, what is not desirable is gripped. For example, the grip over the body, which is the ultimate grip. In the advanced age even when we feel like getting away from the body because it is no more functional, you have many difficulties for a smooth functioning of the body, and we feel it is enough to be in this body; you wish to move but there is a grip. This grip is an undesirable grip. It is a grip that continues to give unhappiness to the soul. This grip exists in personality, but also at the body level, at the mental level, at emotional level, at all levels. What is to be gripped is not gripped, what is to be not gripped is gripped.

Therefore, the node and anti-node both, if they are in the negative houses they work positively. That’s how we interpret in astrology. For example, if you have the positive node in the twelfth house it is useful. Because a negative principle in a negative house works much more positively because two negatives makes positive. Likewise, eighth house, especially sixth house, and twelfth house. These are the houses which are considered very favourable to the node and the anti-node. If this node or the south node or negative node is in the fifth house, you have trouble conceiving, you have trouble in delivering. In any other house it is trouble. Mostly, if you see the node and anti-node in the charts these days, it is in the first and seventh house. That’s why most of the marriages tend to be very difficult to continue. The wedlock does not continue long because the node, anti-node cause where they have to be together the couple are not together. They meet on the ground where there are differences more than on the ground where there are agreements. That’s how it works in the first and seventh house.

Coming back to node itself, node causes gripping things which are not beneficial to the soul and progress of the soul – except when it is in the negative houses of the native. When it comes to the south node, it does the opposite. It causes, for example, if I hold something… you know many people when they hold spoons, when they hold forks, or when they hold something in their hands, things fall from their hands. That is a very clear indication that anti-node is at work. We don’t intend to throw them but they slip from our hands. In life, many things people lose on account of lack of grip. This is what south node does. It releases when you don’t wish to release. People lose on account of this. People lose memory. The loss of memory is also an act of south node. You tend to be more and more forgetful. It is OK if we forget unnecessary things but those are not the things that we forget: necessary things we forget, unnecessary things we hold. All those which are valuable to you, helpful to you, support to you such things the mind loses. And only things which are unnecessary, non-essential, and sundry things, they are all held. In fact, sundry things, unnecessary things should be eliminated. What is to be eliminated is held what is to be held is lost. This is how the south node functions, especially on mind.

The north node functions especially on the Sun that means consciousness. The north node is deeper and the south node is at the mental plane. When the south node is properly placed in the horoscope it is easy for you to leave the body. An eighth house south node is very helpful to leave the body. A twelfth house south node is very easy to get away from the world, meaning easy departures are there. If you have south node in the eleventh house then you would have associations with saints, sages, and mendicants. You are not more with the material world, you are more with the philosophical world. Like that, it tends to give certain dimensions. Basically, south node causes one kind of loss by not holding what is to be held. North node gives problems by holding things which you are not supposed to hold. This is how the comprehension is eclipsed.

To overcome this eclipse, what is generally suggested is to think of a serpent standing on its tail. A serpent standing on its tail is worshipped to overcome the ill effects of the south node and the north node. For both nodes it is the same sign. Why? Because north node is said to be the anterior part of the serpent while the south node is considered as the posterior part of the snake. And they always move in that direction — in one axis they move. These shades when they fall upon Moon or Sun, they have an impact on your comprehension and your mental memory. When solar eclipse in that sun sign where you are born, let us say Leo, if you are born in Leo and if there is a solar eclipse in Leo that year you have to be particularly alert to ensure that you don’t lose related comprehension. For that, you are asked to relate to this symbol. Likewise, a lunar eclipse also has an impact on your Moon. If there is lunar eclipse in that sun sign of your birth Moon then it has a greater impact on you. This is how these nodes are observed.

When we think of compatibility between two persons, the two persons when they are in togetherness, three things are important. One is the seventh house which gives us the compatibility of being together – be it a partnership or be it a man-wife relationship, any persons together is a relationship. This relationship is seen through first and seventh house. If there is anti-node or node in any of the first or the seventh house of any of the two persons, there is an indication of a problem there. Most of the cases where divorces happen, if you look into the chart, you would have them – either node or anti-node either in the first house or the seventh house of one person or the other. This would cause the separation because there is already a shade that causes separation. Likewise, in marital relationship or in partnership, what is intended is to bring forth certain fruitful productions. In the case of business partnership it is the ability to work together to bring out good products and good profits. In the case of marital relationships it is bringing up good children. There the node in the fifth house, if there is anti-node, please note such persons would be denied ever of good fruits unless remedial measures are taken like meditation upon the snake on the background of a black colour, a white snake has to be maintained, and that has to be daily looked at.

Sublime music can raise the consciousness beyond the mental to the level of the soul. This quality is related to Cancer. When music is properly used, it can open the awareness to cosmic planes of consciousness. Such experiences of oceanic consciousness are governed by Neptune. The cosmic teacher working through the power of divine music is called Narada. He is the cosmic musician whose thought, word and deed are musical. He bestows the word of the Lord with the sounds of his musical instrument, the Veena.

Pondering on Neptune, an image came to my mind which I had seen some decades ago, a round stone with a face. I finally found it googling – it was the famous “Mouth of Truth”, a stone face from an ancient Roman fountain probably representing Oceanus. I used it as the starting point, reworked it and merged it with a photo of Neptune. I surrounded it with a huge greenish wave in the vastness of the star-strewn space.

In the foreground you see Narada carrying his celestial Veena, a seven-stringed musical instrument representing the seven planes of creation or the seven tissues of the body. It is said to sing by itself and elevate people to the state of pure experience. I extracted the form of Narada from a vintage print and fused it with the surrounding waters of space.

26 March 2015, pencils and photo work

A month ago, while searching the web for the paintings of Grev Kafi, I came across a website with most sublime sculptures of a young Ukrainian artist, Alexey Leonov (when you search his name, you find only pages with the Soviet cosmonaut of the same name).

Not much substantial information is given about him on the website except:

“Alexey’s arts have a meaningful positive charge, inducing people’s unification, heartening people to moral and spiritual ideals. For the period from 2005 through 2014 there were more than 50 personal exhibitions in the cities of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. His works now can be found in more than 30 cities world over, such as Chicago, Houston, Strasbourg, Le Bourget, Cologne, Varna, Mumbai, Calcutta, Beijing, Astana, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Irkutsk, Kaluga, Kiev, Simferopol, and others.”

His artwork shows a great mastery of subtle form-giving, and the content of his sculptures speak of his profound background: You find a great number of statues and portraits of great spiritual personalities of East and West, of Masters of Wisdom like Morya, Koot Hoomi, St. Germain, of Rishis and Avatars, of great outposts of culture and society. Among his sculptures you find great heroes and teachers of the Orient and Occident – Pythagoras, Plato, Akbar, Ramakrishna, Helena P. Blavatsky, Helena and Nicholas Roerich and their children, Krishna, Arjuna, Buddha, but also a series of sculptures of Christ and Christian saints and angels.

Most of his works are in chamotte (firesand), but also in bronze. He also did a number of monumental sculptures.

I wrote to Alexey asking for permission for publishing some images of his sculptures and he consented – thank you! (and thanks for Google translator helping to understand Ukrainian). On his website, you also find 2 YouTube videos. And you can download the images in high resolution.

May the beauty of the spirit expressing through the sculptures of this great artist uplift those who see them.

Saturday at noon time during the group living at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona it was very hot. Nevertheless I wanted to go for a little walk. I saw nobody who would like to accompany me but I had the feeling that I would meet someone. From between the university buildings I saw a path leading down from a forest to the valley and I decided to go into this direction. The forest was very dry and the smell of pine resin was in the air. After 200 meters I saw somebody sitting under a tree. It was Reyes – whom I have several times met in India and also once visited in Spain. I asked him what he was doing there and he said, healing trees.

He explained to me that through the impact of human destruction of nature – often by putting buildings into nature without taking care of the subtle dimensions of nature – many trees withdraw their energy and they are no more radiating it into the surrounding. He told me about the work of Damanhur and the “Global Tree Network” – “Celebrating the Relationship between Humans and Trees” –a collaboration between Damanhur and Wisdom University. They call the work Reyes is doing “Orienting trees”. On their website they write:

“Trees are the living antennae of our planet and, consistent with Damanhur’s and indigenous understanding, they have a special energy interaction with cosmic forces on the Solstices. At the Summer Solstice they send to the cosmos information on the state and complexity of life on our planet, and at the Winter Solstice they receive a signal in return. For many hundreds of years their message has been a cry of despair. The Global Tree Network is fully committed to transforming this cry into a concert of happy forests.

The Global Tree Network (GTN) has arisen out of a collaboration between Damanhur, Federation of Communities, and Wisdom University. The purpose of the Network is to launch a global campaign of awareness and celebration of the relationship between humans and trees. At the core of this initiative is a specific technique devised in Damanhur, and people from all over the world are invited to participate, adding their unique artistic, cultural, and spiritual approaches.”

Reyes then showed me what he was doing: He was using a special pendulum with a battery at the centre and he was circling it three times around the stem of a tree. He noted with his subtle perception the energy change of the tree. After having done so with a number of trees, he notes it down in his mobile and sends an information to the Tree Network. They regularly do rituals to strengthen the energy field of all related trees.

I became curious and so Reyes made me feel the energy field of a tree before and after his treatment. And yes, it seemed to me that there was a significant change which I would describe as a more ordered and radiating field. I observed him doing this small ritual with some more trees before we went back to the hotel. Next day before we departed, I asked him to go with me again to the place of the trees and there I took the following photos. An interesting project.