We are just entering into the sign of Gemini. Gemini is related to the mind. So for the picture of this month I tried to illustrate an aspect of the universal mind principle. Our mind is its reflection. And both unfold in great cycles of time. Sounds complicated? So come on for an exploration.

The Eastern wisdom describes the unfoldment of the creational activity in tremendous time cycles called Manvantaras. They cover periods far before the creation of our present earth and go into cycles of far distant future times. A Manvantara is ruled by a solar intelligence called Manu and the Manu presiding over the present cycle is called Vaivasvata. Vaivasvata is the son of the Sun; he is the mind of the Sun and is also called the light of the soul. The Sun is called the weaver, Vivasvata; he weaves the globe of light around itself. The very meaning of Vaivasvata Manu is “the weaver of the light of the soul”, of the divine plan on earth.

This painting visualizes Vaivasvata Manu as emerging from the Sun in the background. Behind his head you see the radiance of the solar light and his headpiece has the form of the solar material shown in images of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT). His youthful face reminds of him being the son of the Sun.

The sages describe the creation as emerging from out of a golden egg. You see a golden egg-shape in the background and the Manu surrounded by a wheel of 14 egg-shaped figures each containing the colours of the rainbow, representing the 14 Manvantaras and the 7 planes of each creation. The whole is contained in a huge lotus, the symbol of unfoldment. Vaivasvata is in the midst of the lotus, and inside the Sun you see a higher octave of the lotus out of which the Manvantaras emerge.

Creating this picture was a strange experience. It seemed that it didn’t want to come out. And while working on it, I wasn’t satisfied with the way it developed and on several occasions wanted to destroy it. In the end, I realised that my concepts of how the picture should look like were blocking its emergence.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings.

09 February 2014, pencils and photo work

Whenever I experience Sri Kumar doing a fire ritual, I feel a fascinating magnetism spreading throughout the space and uplifting all who participate. I once heard Sri Kumar explain that invoking the presence of the Devas creates this magic appeal which does not manifest otherwise. Yes, that’s the energy of Agni, the foremost of the Devas, the Lord of Fire on the various planes of creation. (Last year I did a blogpost on a case study of the environmental impact of the fire ritual.)

I love the fire ritual but what Sri Kumar does is a complex thing. However, today 14 years ago, at Taurus Full Moon 2000, he gave a short version of the fire ritual, saying “You can do it once a week, once a fortnight, or once a month.” He further explained that it is thought for all and does not take more than seven minutes. He explained some more details and taught us the easy version with a step-by-step introduction of the intonation (MP3).

Sri Kumar and his wife doing the fire ritual in Kandersteg, May 2003

I was “fire and flame” and said to myself, this I will do! The next days I started learning the details. I bought a small vessel and camphor, cut pieces of pine-wood, prepared ghee, and, on 28 May there was the first test run – it worked. So on May Call, 29 May 2000, I did the first “real” fire ritual. And continue to do it regularly till today.

However, there were some difficulties: The burning pine wood made noises and sometimes pieces of the little wooden sticks jumped out of the pot so that we had to be very alert. Later we did it with birch wood which burns quietly. During a later visit to India I also bought a little larger copper vessel, and to avoid a cumbersome cleaning of the vessel I used covering it with aluminium foil.

Our family was living in a 4 room apartment without a chimney or anything like a fire place. Doing fire rituals is not just what an ordinary Swiss family would do, to say the least (on many terraces and balconies you see barbecue devices for that kind of fire rituals), and what about the house administration?

So I decided to do it in my office room with the roller blinds closed. I constructed a canopy with curtain fabrics and an insulation film to catch the soot. This only worked to a certain degree – slowly the soot settled all over the room. I tried to keep it clean but… all 2 years we secretly painted the room.

One day in the last year at that place I got an e-mail from the neighbours living the floor above telling that there were strange clouds of smoke coming up and we should please stop it! Oh, we gave them a big excuse – and aired the room now from the other side of the apartment… When in 2011 we finally moved to another apartment , I had done 4 painting sessions with the office walls – and we got a painter doing it again before handing over the apartment…

Luckily the new apartment had a chimney, and I enjoyed it very much. When we knew we had to leave this place the first months of 2014, a chimney was at the top of my wish-list but we couldn’t find such an apartment – they were too expensive.

When we found the one we are now living in, I saw that it has big flower boxes in front of the balcony and that it was possible to remove the barriers. I did some web search and finally found a potter not far away doing nice earthenware terrace ovens. I gave her a ring and she said that 10 days later she and her friend would be on a craft fair at the Berne cathedral. The oven she brought there was too small but they had a used one, just the right size. They told me that in the morning the police had stopped them doing fire on the market but I could get the oven for half the price of a new one – and in the evening, after the market had closed, they brought it to our home…

Now I enjoy doing the open-air fire ritual early Sunday morning – with sometimes a curious eye from a balcony of a neighbour house. The fire in the little oven is burning well, even when there is wind and rain. Also this morning.

An Indian friend  wrote me a comment on the last blogpost and added, “Please keep sharing your experiences in the path, as much as you are permitted to.” So I will pick up his proposal. This blogpost is about another crucial time in my life.

Precisely 14 years ago, from 16 to 21 May 2000, a seminar of the World Teacher Trust (WTT) with Sri Kumar was scheduled in Kandersteg in the Swiss Alps around Taurus full moon (18 May). The location is about 70 km from where I am living.

End of April I had left, or was thrown out of a group where I had been for over 10 years, but this is another story. For me it has been a challenging and partly traumatizing time. The last 3 years I had been in contact with Sri Kumar and the WTT, together with the other group. The group rules, however, did not allow me to follow another group.

Now I was free. I wanted to participate in the seminar but felt uncertain if I might be permitted. Tiziana, who was organizing the seminar, said to me, “You come!”

When I entered the seminar hotel, Jesús, Tiziana’s husband, was in front of the staircase with an armchair and asked me: “Can you help me carrying it up?” I took the armchair and followed him up the stairs. We went along a corridor until he opened a door. We entered.

To my utter surprise there was Sri Kumar sitting in an armchair, just like the one I was carrying. “Welcome”, he said with a smile. And pointing to the armchair which I was still holding, “Please sit down.”

I wanted to tell him that I just had left the other group. He answered, “Yes I know”, explaining me some things about the backgrounds. “But here you are warmly welcomed.” He continued telling that at the seminar he doesn’t have much time but invited my wife and me to meet him in Zurich, at the home of Tiziana and Jesús, after his return from the May Call seminar in Iguaçu, Brazil. From this moment on I felt part of the WTT family. It had taken me 19 years from my first hearing about it until that point. It was not something outer that happened, something had touched me to the innermost core. I felt that many different strands of my life met in synthesis, a feeling of coming home. Though in the course of the coming years there were many challenging situations and crises, this innermost touch stayed.

After the seminar I thought of starting a WTT-group in Berne. I intended to ask Sri Kumar for a name but also wanted to start the group on May Call Day, 29 May. So I took “Circle of Good Will” as a provisional name, feeling inspiring by the Indian project of the same name. On 29 May I registered a postal account in this name, as a physical anchoring of the future group.

When beginning of June I met Sri Kumar in Zurich, he suggested that we should stay with this name, being a very good inspiration. I asked him, “We are just 2 persons – is it a group?” He answered, “I am the third one.” That is how the Circle of Good Will started.

He further proposed that I should do a monthly newsletter to come out for full moon. When I sent him a draft about the “Full Moon Round-Letters” some days later, he answered, “You decide, I am behind you.”

So with Leo 2000 the first newsletter came out. From the beginning it was a monthly mailing and a page on the newly created website (here a historical view from the internet archives of the Way Back Machine). For 4 years I wrote about the qualities of the zodiacal signs on the basis of the teachings of the WTT. In February 2004 I suggested to open the newsletter to more general spiritual topics and he gave the name “The Lunar Messenger“. They started with Leo 2004.

From the beginning, I wrote the newsletters in German and translated them to English. Autumn 2000, a 84 years old group member from Argentina, a former military and a very focused spiritual person, contacted me and proposed to do the Spanish translation. I was very much impressed by his clarity and directness. He did the translations for 9 months, before his eyesight receded and a member from Miami took on the job till today. And 2 years later, a French translation started. For some time there was even a Russian translation an a few Bulgarian issues. All the texts are published here. And with the blessing of Sri Kumar you find them also as Wisdom Teachings on the WTT-website since January 2014.

Extract from a group photo with Sri Kumar and his wife Kumari, Mt. Rigi, 1999. Somewhere you see my wife and children, and me.

Often you don’t notice when you pass over a threshold in your life, only later you realise the impact of a seemingly small step. But afterwards life is different from what it has been before.

14 May 1974 was such a day for me. And its 40th anniversary, which happens to coincide with Taurus Full Moon, the Vaisakh Festival, is thus a special personal festival, the start of my meditation journey. That day I was initiated into “TM”, the “Transcendental Meditation” of the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. So I’d like to tell you about the strange circumstances of this event.

Thomas or, as we called him, Tom and I were studying at the University of Münster, Germany. We felt much inspired by the Hippie movement – long hair, dancing to rock music, and of course, regular smoking of dope. When in April 74 I met Tom in his students’ hostel, he told me he had stopped smoking hash and started meditating: “Meditation gives you a ‘high’ that is better than smoking dope and your experience of listening to music will become better.”

Quite a strange motivation from today’s perspective but what Tom told me rose my interest. I just went through times of big changes – that April I had changed the direction of my studies from economics to philosophy and Romance studies. And together with 2 friends I had moved to live on a farm, our little “free community” which we had decorated with colourful paintings. We were doing experiments for what we called “expansion of consciousness”, with “macrobiotic food” and alternative lifestyle. I had tried meditation practices from Zen and autogenic training but without sticking to them.

Tom told me that the Maharishi was the guru of pop-stars like the Beatles or the Beach Boys – so he seemed to fit well into our hippie culture, also his outlook:

Extract of the passport of the Maharishi, from Wikipedia

At the university there were posters inviting for information lectures about TM; I went there end of April. The lecturing TM teacher said, “Before getting initiated into meditation you have to be ‘clean’ for at least 2 weeks, no hashish and alcohol.” I thought, ok, let’s give it a try. I didn’t suspect that it would profoundly change my life.

On 14 May I came with some fruits and flowers to the initiation. I loved the ceremony – the incense, the singing of the Sanskrit pooja and the waving of camphor light in front of a picture of Maharishi’s guru created an enchanting ambiance. When I was given a mantra as a “secret word”, I quickly dived into profound silence. It took some time to come up again – a very fascinating experience. It repeated during the next meditations – an inner call had surfaced. I told my clique of friends about it; some weeks later nearly all of them started meditating.

Quickly I decided to become a meditation teacher. It was also the start of a strange life parallel to my studies. It rose a lot of dreamy fantasies, fuelled by the TM movement and their lofty promises – cosmic consciousness? will take 5-6 years; Yogic levitation? “In 3, 4 years the meditators will fly over the Lake Lucerne”, I heard the Maharishi say 1978 in Seelisberg, Switzerland. (Here you might read two anecdotes of my time with the Maharishi or a post written at his passing and one about flying mystics.) I went through the whole TM career – TM teacher in 77, head of a TM “Academy of Vedic Science” in 78, “sidha”, “governor”. And after my MA exam I got a small job at the office of the “Maharishi European Research University” in the German TM headquarters in 81.

There I realised that my life was moving in a strange direction, leading me into a dream-world full of boosted claims in various garments. Some of my friends totally lost contact with physical reality, facts which were ignored by the TM people; they landed in psychiatric treatments or even committed suicide. I had profound meditation and energy experiences but at the same time observed great discrepancies between the teachings and the practices of human relations.  So I decided to get off. 2nd August 1982 early morning, from one day to the other, I left the TM headquarters and movement never to return again. Turbulent months of reorientation followed.

But the fire of regular meditation twice daily had been kindled and I kept on, though the methods changed. My understanding of the path also underwent many changes. I still feel grateful to the Maharishi for having me taught the importance of rhythm and regularity and for having me given the initial spark for the search of the eternal wisdom.

I kept on experiencing a deep attraction and repulsion towards “Indian” spirituality – often a mix-up of profound wisdom and living experiences together with vacant “spiritual marketing claims”, self-centredness and ignored shadow-sides of “double standards” – these not being specific “Indian” shadow parts. Only slowly I gained discrimination and a deeper understanding – through practice and especially by observing Sri Kumar, my teacher, of the last 17 years. And I learnt how the “outer” experiences I go through are reflections of my own inner inclinations.

Meditation has accompanied me ever since the beginning, like a thread running through my life, linking me to the core.

A lotus, India 2012

The most extraordinary person about which I came to know in my life is Master CVV (1868-1922). However, it took years for me to realise it. When I first read a book about him 18 years ago, travelling in the underground of Hamburg, it was a like a thunderbolt. It had a lasting effect on my life.

Today, 12 May, is the day of the departure of Master CVV in 1922. He said that it won’t be his death but his physical disappearing. He repeatedly demonstrated deathlessness and said that all who follow him will also experience deathlessless.

Below is a short extract from two lectures of Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar about the departure of Master CVV.

Master CVV announced his disciples that 12 May I depart. They didn’t mind because he demonstrated departure and arrival, 18 times. He demonstrated there is no death if you follow the path of yoga. You can gain the body of light and live eternally. To ensure gain enough trust, 18 times he departed for hours and came back. He said, “On 12 May 1922, I depart.” Disciples asked, “Master will you come back?” – “No, this time I don’t come back.” – “How can you leave us?” – “I don’t leave but you won’t see me in this body.” – “Is it final decisions?” – “Yes.” They were all in tears.

He said, “Don’t weep. You too can gain it if you follow me. That you can depart and you don’t have to die.”

They all gathered around him on that day – he said, “All who will weep can stay out of the room.” One disciple said, “Will you give me the garment so that I can keep it as a memento?” He wanted the robe of Master. He said, “I wanted to give you a golden robe, why do you want a cloth robe?” He gave it anyway. “Follow me, you too will get a golden robe. I am moving into golden and diamond robes. Even from those robes, I divert myself. I permeate all around the earth. And whosoever invokes me, I shall directly relate to him. And work with him to form the golden body so that you will experience there is no such thing as death. At 10:28 in the morning, I’ll depart.” And he did.

Before Master CVV departed he said, “Don’t burn me, sink me into the river of Cauvery, the Mother Cauvery will take me.” The family did not agree; there was the tradition to cremate. They did not see the grandeur of the father. No prophet is known in his own land, less in his own house. They did not give much credit to his wish. They prepared the fire, they lit it, but there was suddenly a torrential rain. The river Cauvery swell and took away the fire and the body, so there was no way to do the cremation. That happened in the early 20th century.

Master CVV and his wife Venkamma

The Vaisakh Festival (also written Wesak) is an important annual event for receiving the cosmic energies of Will coming from the “Eye of the Bull” and giving us a fresh dose of Will energy to carry out the work of good will. The festival is celebrated at Taurus Full Moon. The full moon phase is from 13 May, 10:45pm – 14 May 09:16pm CEST.

You can read more about the significance of the festival on the WTT website. In the book “Mars – The Kumara” by Dr K. Parvathi Kumar there is also a chapter about the deeper meaning of the Vaisakh Full Moon. Here is an extract as a PDF.

The Lucis Trust has just released a new beautiful video about the Wesak Festival 2014.

Taurus – The Vaisakh Festival, (Images of Synthesis 2010)

The 8th of May we celebrate “The White Lotus Day”, in loving remembrance of the departure of the great soul that we know as HPB or Madam Blavatsky.

She was a fearless fighter for the Truth; she started her book “Gems from the East” (London 1890) with the words:

“UTTISHAT! Arise! Awake!
Seek the great Teachers, and attend! The road
Is narrow as a knife-edge! Hard to tread!”
“But whoso once perceiveth HIM that IS –
Without a name, Unseen, Impalpable,
Bodiless, Undiminished, Unenlarged,
To senses undeclared, without an end,
Without beginning, Timeless, Higher than height,
Deeper than depth! Lo! Such an one is saved!
Death hath not power upon him!”

– THE SECRET OF DEATH (from The Katha Upanishad)

In the book “The Golden Stairs”, Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar describes HPB with the following words:

“Madam Helena Petrovna Blavatsky is as tender as a freshly unfolded white lotus. The tenderness of her being cannot be expressed in any language. In her case incompatibles have become compatibles. She is as fiery as she is tender. Her being is essentially and naturally tender and extremely motherly. But at work she is an embodiment of fiery Will. She was the chosen darling of the Hierarchy to inaugurate an era of enlightenment. She did her job ruthlessly, dedicating her life to the noble work of the Hierarchy. She has broken many distorted and crystallized concepts of TRUTH. She synthesized the universal wisdom; she presented afresh Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis, which are the world scriptures for posterity. She explained dexterously the story of man on earth. Through the key of Manvantara cycles and races she reintroduced the most ancient wisdom relating to globe chains, the seven rays and their universal application. She skilfully utilised the keys of astrology, etymology and cycles of time to unlock wisdom from the most ancient manuscripts of cave temples that exist in the Himalayas. She was as much in the subtle as she was on the physical and was therefore able to grasp the truth in its variety of dimensions. She was a fully inspired lady who inspired many through looks, through speeches and through mere presence. She was even seen as a reincarnation of Buddha in places like Sri Lanka.

She is regarded as the white lotus that unfolds afresh the beauty and fragrance of new age wisdom. She is respected as Upasika, the one who is in connection with the ruling light of the planet, which is said to be mysteriously posited in the subterranean regions of Gobi desert of Mongolia.

Inspired by her teachings ever since, thousands of groups sprang up in all the four corners of the globe, trying to find the way afresh with the help of knowledge that she unfolded for the forward march of the present humanity.”

HPB was the first one who not only brought the existence of the Masters of Wisdom, the Mahatmas, to a larger global notice but who also had frequent contact with them. It was part of the divine plan to bring back the eternal wisdom to a larger understanding and to uplift human consciousness – a most difficult task.

On the Theosophical Society Wiki you find a page about “People who encountered the Mahatmas“, a very impressive collection of reports of encounters in the subtle and the physical realms with the Masters, also about HBP. And the Blavatsky Archives also contain a “Casebook of the Encounters with the Theosophical Mahatmas”.

In spite of the many proofs and great evidence there were many sceptics who refused to accept what was before their eyes and even massive attacks from various sides. However, the Path which was opened by the work of Madam Blavatsky has led many serious seekers to strive along the “Golden Stairs” to the temple of divine wisdom.

HPB and her mother, Helena Andreyevna Hahn, (born de Fadeyev), painting from the museum in Dnepropetrovsk
Who would have guessed that this delicate young girl would be a fearless messenger of the new age, a tiny rivulet unfolding to a huge stream?

Some days ago I got a very well done commercial for a Thai telecom company about true giving. It says somewhere that the spot is made after a true story of Dr Prajak Arunthong. It is a message that though you might forget, acts of good will are not done in vain. Enjoy

A screenshot from the video (c)

A friend from Argentina sent me the link to a lovely poetic short film: “LILA” (9 min) – a film without words but with a lot of heart.

In the “Making of” Carlos Lascano, the director and writer, says:

“The story reflects a day in Lila’s life, a dreamy girl who can’t resign to accept reality as flat as she perceives it, using her imagination to modify it. The way we perceive reality often comes as a result of an imagination exercise in which sometimes only changing a little detail we can modify the whole.”

A perfect description of inner visualisation work.

Wikipedia has more about the talented film maker from Argentina now living in Barcelona. He is doing artistic and commercial films using a mixed-technique of animation and work with actors in combination with new technologies.  You can also see the film on Vimeo – when I saw it first there, it didn’t run well, now it seems to be ok.

Lila is visualising subtle bonds of love – a print-screen from the video (c)

2009 was for me a time of a prolonged inner crisis and of signs of a deeper transformation. I experienced a high sensitivity towards people and words. Between June-October I wrote a series of 90 poems; 2 came a bit later, written in memory of a friend who passed over. Then the doors closed again and no more poems came through. In April 1980 I had experienced a similar influx of words leading to my first book of poems, “The Song of Silence” (German). 33 years passed until the German publication of the new volume appeared in 2013.

I called it “Shades of Yous” (Schattierungen von Dus), because “The poems speak of the reverberation of encounters, of wounds and their healing, of dangers of the way and surprises of everyday life.” (from the preface)

People whom I showed the poems often asked me, “What is Yous?” I reply, “The plural of “you”. – “But there is no such plural, you is always singular.”

I know, but each time I met a person and later a poem arose, it was an intimate echo of this encounter with a “you”, and each encounter had a different quality, gave rise to another shade of yous.

When reading the poems you might feel other such irritations. They reflect the inner reactions you might experience in encountering friends or also just passers-by. Often, however, these sensations drown in the currents of everyday life. I tried to save them in these poems. For if you listen to what the irritations want to tell you, you will discover a message, and this message might guide you to a deeper understanding and even show you a way out of a crisis.

Last year I published the German version – in digital form and one as a paper copy –  each poem illustrated with photos visualising an aspect of the respective message. I edited the images in a way that they do not superimpose the poems.

It was an adventure to translate the poems, and often it was not easy to render the content and musicality of one language in another. Vijay Ganugula from New Jersey, USA, helped me a lot through his proofreading and our discussions. He wrote: “Some of the poems touched me deeply – as I noted in my comments on those slides. It is especially very inspiring to see in the 4th part how the tide turns and veils get lifted when you have confidence in the inner/Yous/Master. … Like your paintings, these poems are a true gift from you to people like me. Thank you for sharing this gift.”

You can view the “Shades of Yous” online on my website, download it as a powerpoint or as a PDF. And here you find some words about their creation.