An Argentinian friend sent me the link to a touching CNN video about Narayanan Krishnan, who was an award-winning chef with a five-star hotel group, on the way for an elite job in Switzerland. Before going to Europe he visited his family and there saw an elderly man lying on the side of the road, starving and filthy. Narayanan bought some food and gave it to the old man: “As he ate the food, his eyes were filled with tears. Those were the tears of happiness.” He decided in this moment that helping this man and those in need would be a life well-lived He started feeding starving people and founded the Akshaya Trust in Madurai, India, to restore dignity to people in need. You can also see him in a TEDx-talk about the joy of giving.

In 2010 Narayan was recognized as one of the World’s Top Ten Heroes of 2010 by CNN. An inspiring video about the power of good will.

Krishna Narayan (c) from the video of CNN

The wisdom teachings describe dawn and dusk as very favourable times to practice meditation and to work with sound. There are Indian Ragas (melodies) specially composed to be played at dawn or dusk.
The French call the time of dusk “l’heure bleu”, the blue hour, since there is a particular quality of the light around sunset. In our latitudes this time is much longer than in the tropics, where darkness sets in quite fast.

Yesterday evening I was at a live performance by Mich Gerber on the River Aare, in our village. For three evenings he was giving free concerts on a little ferryboat of the Bodenacher-Fähre. He is playing electric double-bass, generating the background music with his own tunes repeated by a computer program.

When I arrived at the river around a quarter past 8 pm there were already many people sitting on both sides of the river. A few minutes later the ferryboat set out to the middle of the river and Mich started playing. The background was a tampura-sound, and he played a melody like an Indian raga.

The atmosphere was full of magic – the light of the setting sun in the background, the sound of the flowing water and the amplified vibrations of the strings of the double-bass. Other songs followed, reminding of Arabian tunes, classical songs from Europe or Jazz improvisations.

People around me took out their mobiles and started making videos. I, too, tried to do a little video with my camera, but it wasn’t good. However, the camera generated a magic picture of the “blue hour”:

While it was getting dark it started raining, adding to the mystical ambiance with the lampions on the boat and along the board of the river, made by simply putting candles into white paper bags.

People were moving to the sounds – a young father besides me was rocking his baby-son. Mich played for an hour, and I felt very happy that I had decided on a short notice to see this beautiful concert.

On his website he says about these concerts:

“Mich Gerber celebrates ‘L’heure bleue’, the blue hour. Concerts on magic locations during the blue hour, when the sky turns blue after sunset.

The blue hour comes from the French expression ‘l’heure bleue’, which refers to the period of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness. The time is considered special because of the quality of the light at this time of day.

The blue hour is the gift of the day to the night. Different cultures celebrate the blue hour in their own special way. For many of us, it’s the most beautiful hour of the day as it slowly draws its curtain and the evening begins.

It is the hour of transition when the indirect light of the evening colours the night sky. Nature’s wonderful play of light is displayed. Every evening anew.

This is the spectacle that Mich Gerber interprets during his series of L’heure bleue’ concerts. They have been taking place since a few years on special places on the water in summer time.”

Here are some videos of previous concerts on the River Aare  (YouTube-videos): A Waltz,  A silent tune, A tune with an English text, Music and Swiss German interviews, another song. And below there is a video uploaded in his name.

A little P.S.: This is the 1111th post in this blog.

Yesterday a friend and I went to Flüeli-Ranft for a concert of Sri Ganapati Sachchidananda Swamiji from Mysore. For 3 days he stayed for a seminar in Flüeli, organised by the Dattayoga Centre Switzerland. I had seen the Swami last January in his Dattapeetam Ashram in Bangalore on the way to the Nilagiris and blogged about his feeding birds in Shuka Vana. And I had been in Flüeli-Ranft the last time in May 2012 for the May Call Day seminar of Sri Kumar.

We went to Flüeli in the early afternoon to have some time for a walk and evening meditation. It was a beautiful summer day and the way over the mountains was gorgeous. We found a beautiful spot overviewing the valley for our evening meditation.

View down to the valley from Flüeli Ranft

While walking around images of last year popped up – the time was now so different, and there was a profound peace in the air.

The Melchtal Frutt valley behind Flüeli

Two dwarf goats were observing us and we chatted a bit with them.

View of the village hall with the church and the hotel Pax Montana where we had stayed last year.

There were already many cars around – but we had good luck to find a last free parking space on our arrival. We had our evening pick-nick at the centre of the village and we could spot out the people belonging to this group – ladies in flowing dresses, saries or panjabis, men with a colourful cloth around the shoulder or otherwise easily  identifiable. It somehow felt familiar, though we didn’t know anybody of the people inside the hall. It was fascinating to observe. On the sides of the hall there were posters with photos of the social activities of the Swami in India – schools, hospitals and other benevolent activities. The concert was also a benefit activity, the receipts will go for financing social aid activities. At the entrance there were tables with many of the CDs and some books of the Swami – and you could also buy cuddly parrots, the proceedings were meant for Swami’s  new parrots park in Mysore – I had seen the birds park from the outside, visitors weren’t allowed.

Inside, the hall was beautifully decorated – a tree with paper flowers was hiding the climbing wall on the backside. And on the stage there was a golden disc with golden cloth draperies.  And before there was the synthesizer the Swami Ganapati.

It was announced that this concert, Nada Sagara – Ocean of Sound, was the first solo-concert the Swamiji gave in public. He has been touring the world over during the years, and in the entrance hall there was a poster announcing his next concert in the Royal Albert Hall in London in September. The speaker explained that the music has a healing effect and eliminates blockages in the nervous system as well as in the subtle energy system of the Nadis.

When he entered the hall the air was filled with rapt attention. As a welcome he received a garland of flowers, which he showed to the public and threw to the floor – after the concert another garland was presented to him. He shortly wore it, jokingly looked through it and put it away…

He started his concert with some explanations about his music and then started playing. Cosmic sounds were weaving a musical carpet in the air and it seemed that all were absorbed in the musical vibrations floating through space. And I, too, was carried away by it. A very special kind of music, changing in melodies and rhythms, played in a highly intuitive way.

He played uninterruptedly for about 1 hour, and the last 5 minutes his play was accompanied by rhythmic clapping of the audience. There was a magic spell in the audience. Some of the ladies got up, full of enthusiasm. Swami Ganapati received a gift which seemed to be a bird in a bowl, and a set of tuning forks. Then he disappeared through the stage-door.

When we came out the moon in its 12th ascending phase just looked over the mountain, and it appeared as if it was burning – maybe also filled with some cosmic ecstasy.

You can find a lot of Swami’s music on YouTube, here is a video of “Healing Music” from a music concert at Hyderabad.

Friends had invited us to Munich and so we went there last weekend. It turned out to be a very intense time.

It was a rainy day when we stopped for a short nap at a highway parking in Bavaria. My wife wanted to sleep a bit longer, and so I strolled a bit along the parking area, which was longer than other places. I suddenly realised that 4 years ago, on the way back from our last trip to Munich we had stopped on the other side of the highway. On both sides of the road there was a work of art, a small chapel and a grey shelter in the form of a half-chapel. A path in the form of a big “8” connected both. I suddenly was captured by the atmosphere: I was touched by a sublime presence and though it was directly next to the highway, it felt like a sacral space opening. There was a beautiful view over the fields and forests, a very soft and pleasant ambiance. I sat down in the shelter for a short meditation and later went there again with my wife. Strange, how “from out of the blue” (or better “grey”, because it was raining) there can be an opening into subtle spaces.

In Munich we stayed in the apartment of Benjamin, a friend and his family. He is a consultant and a programmer. Since years he is intensely working with spiritual astrology and has created a very good program for spiritual astrology and the 7 rays, which he had given me as a gift last year.

This was the beginning of a friendship, though we had come into contact via the web about 10 years ago. The last 10 months we had been working together on the relaunch of the WTT-website. For me is has been a very inspiring cooperation, and now the team of collaborators has increased to 7 persons – the first site I still had done myself, but it had grown over the years. It will take some more months till the launch, there is no haste…

From his home we went for several other visits. I first went to a friend who gave me a small Moringa-tree, originating from the Himalayas, which is a very healthy plant. In her room I saw some “waste mandalas” she had created with garbage she had fished out of a river in Munich:

She had a set of 6 videos, “Music of the Soul” published last May Call in Bangalore, India, about Master CVV and Master EK. It’s a very good presentation of their biographies. So I borrowed the DVDs to copy them (I should have got them in June, but a “mix-up” made them go to someone else – but this way they arrived at me); I enquired in Bangalore and came to know that soon these videos will also be published on YouTube – I’ll let you know… I copied and saw the videos at home, they are really very inspiring and well done.

Master EK and Master KPK, a screen-print from the video (c)

In the evening and next morning we met in the house of an artist-couple and had some intense talks. Later I was invited to a 86 years old friend, a well-known spiritual astrologer and former opera-singer. She had invited Master EK to come to Munich in the early 80ies. We had heard from each other years ago but it was only in the last weeks that we had some e-mail exchange. She gave me a fascinating reading of my chart, and afterwards we sat together for a dinner with some friends. In the evening Benjamin took me for a walk through the city of Munich.

The Bavarian lion on the portal of a university building

A false colour “violet ray” pic of the park

Dancing in the park

Munich sunset

The next day I stayed together with Benjamin and his family while my wife was visiting friends. He explained to me some astrological intricacies and we had a beautiful walk through the nearby Westpark before finishing the day in a Vietnamese restaurant and going home again the next morning.

Balancing in the Westpark, Munich

This year there are 2 full moons in Leo, the second one is on 21 August. So I did a second painting for this sign.

The Eastern wisdom teachings describe the most sublime plane of our planet as a field of radiant light. It exists in us as the plane of pure existence, the diamond consciousness in the head centre. It is also called Sweta Dipa, the White Island, full of divine brilliance and splendour. Another name for it is Shamballa, a hidden place on the etheric plane of the Gobi Desert. Sanat Kumara, the Lord of the World and the highest being on earth, lives there, and within his forehead there is the beautiful gem of Chintamani, the philosopher’s stone of heavenly origin. He and his team of sublime beings incessantly assist the evolution of the beings on earth.

I tried to depict the White Island in an ocean of bluish light, rising above the earthly sphere. In the lower part of the picture you perceive the outlines of India seen from space at night, with the lighted centres. Above the island you see the head of the Lord of the World, with the resplendent jewel of Chintamani on his forehead. For this I chose a photo of a Buddha statue from Tibet taken by a friend, and I transformed it a bit. For the jewel I used several layers of a photo of a blue diamond. Sanat Kumara is surrounded by seven flames in rainbow colours, symbolising his team of collaborators. I created them based on photos of prismatic reflections on the walls of my room. The whole scene seems to be floating on a field of dark night blue, representing the background of existence.

In the booklet “Wisdom Buds” by Dr. Sri K. Parvathi Kumar you find a lecture on “The White Island” explaining the symbolism in more detail. And you find more paintings on my website. Or send the picture as a postcard.

“The White Island”, 6 July 2013

10 days ago we had a visit of Argentinian friends. We took them to a mountain hike at the Schynige Platte. In the valley it was hot – 36 degrees C, on the mountain the sun was also blazing but the scenery was gorgeous. There is a beautiful garden with alpine flowers which now were in full bloom. In this grand natural scenery you feel very close to the subtle spheres. Here are some impressions.

View from the Alpine garden

The Lauterbrunnen Valley with Wengen

Jungfrau and Mönch. In between the mountains you see the Jungfraujoch, “Top of Europe”

Identifying the mountains

A mountain thistle

Bavarian gentian

Alpine roses

The panoramic path

View down to Interlaken

The lake of Brienz in turquoise colours

Little stone towers – souvenirs of hikers

The rock in the centre of the panoramic path

Some rare photos of the earth seen from Saturn circulate the media – taken on 19 July 2013 by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft – showing ed Saturn’s rings and our planet Earth as a small dot in dark space. And there is another pic with the raw material of the photo taken at the same day, just showing the raw photo of the earth and the moon seen from 1,44 billion kilometers away. This is only the third time ever that Earth has been imaged from the outer solar system.

The imaging team writes: “The July 19 Earth-imaging event marked the first time Earthlings had advance notice that their portrait was being taken from interplanetary distances. It was the also the first time Cassini’s highest resolution camera captured the Earth and its moon as two distinct objects… We may not be able to see individual continents or people in this portrait of Earth, but this pale blue dot is a succinct summary of who we were on July 19 … Cassini’s picture reminds us how tiny our home planet is in the vastness of space, but also testifies to the ingenuity of the citizens of this tiny planet to be able to send a robotic spacecraft so far away from home to take a picture of Earth and study a distant world like Saturn…

Pictures of Earth from the outer solar system are rare because, from that distance, Earth is very close to the bright sun. Just as a human being can damage his or her retina by looking directly at the sun, a camera’s sensitive detectors can be damaged by looking directly at the sun. Cassini was able to take these images because the sun had moved behind the planet Saturn from the spacecraft’s point of view, blocking out most of the light.”

Enjoy the awe-inspiring perspective from out of the vastness of space.

You can see here more about where Cassini is just now.

The earth seen from below Saturn’s rings. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

The earth and moon seen from Saturn. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

A friend forwarded me an e-mail with the following text. It somehow touched me, and it is full of wisdom of life.

“As I’ve aged, I’ve become kinder to, and less critical of, myself. I’ve become my own friend.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world, too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it, if I choose to read, or play on the computer, until 4 AM, or sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 50s, 60s & 70s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love, I will.

I will walk the beach, in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves, with abandon, if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And, eventually, I remember the important things.

Sure, over the years, my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break, when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength, and understanding, and compassion. A heart never broken, is pristine, and sterile, and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning grey, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it).

May our friendship never come apart, especially when it’s straight from the heart!”

A cloud over a meadow near my native town.

Tomorrow the sun enters into Leo, and it is also Leo full moon, with the moon in Aquarius.

In symbolism Leo is connected with the transformation process in the inner cave of the heart. With the help of respiration you enter into the “cave of the lion”, the Heart Centre, where you can encounter the higher self, when the lower self is well adjusted. The cave also symbolises the inner ashram, of which an outer ashram is the externalisation. The image illustrates this entering into the ashram.

The painting shows a circle of 12 stars, symbolising the 12 signs of the zodiac. A woman is climbing a stair, entering through the circle of the “gate of stars”. The point in the centre is represented by a door leading to the Sanctum Sanctorum, and so the entry is a path from the circumference to the centre. At the threshold before the centre there is a white figure representing the Master in the Heart, the Divine Self. Above the centre you see the figure of an angel, the guardian of the ashram and the link to the cosmic spheres. The ashram is represented as a crystal cave. The crystals on the sides symbolise the purified, transparent matter, which can receive the Light. At the bottom on the left, outside the starry circle, there is a group of people waiting for their turn to enter.

The painting is from the series Images of Synthesis; you find more paintings of the series on my website ludgerphilips.org.

17 March 2013, pencils and photo work

Beginning of July, 2013, a new tiny moon of Neptune has been discovered. It is a fast little space traveller of 18 km in diameter surrounding Neptune in less than one day, and he has the non-poetic name of S/2004 N 1 but he brings Neptune’s retinue of known moons to fourteen. He took a good time for his discovery – there is just a precise great trine between Neptune, Saturn and Jupiter in the watery signs of Pisces, Scorpio and Cancer.

By the way, spiritual astrology hints at the link between Neptune and the music of the soul: In a seminar on Cancer Sri Kumar explained:

“The whole creation is the music of the soul, and the soul naturally responds to high quality of music. Our solar system itself responds to the music of Neptune. Neptunian music will put you out of your mind instantly. People are taken beyond their mental and buddhic planes directly into the soul plane to receive the related bliss.” So tune in to the subtle tunes of the sublime spheres.

(c) Wikipedia

Neptune (c) NASA