Continuing the blog-post from Jan. 10th.: When returning to the Guru Pooja compound from the afternoon-nap in the palm forest the dais with the altar was ready, the chairs were all standing in rows and the chasing LED-lights at the roofs gave the impression of hosts of devas rushing to finish teh preparations on the subtle planes. We also rushed to the front to put up the equipment for translations. (I had the laptop ready, but the voice of our Indian brother translating was so low that, though I was sitting directly in front of him, I couldn’t hear, just the voice of Dorle giving the German translation, but when trying to write, I was too far away to follow. So I only got a few notes…)

At 5 PM Sri Kumar and Kumari-Garu arrived in the back to conduct a little ritual of lighting the butterlamps at the Ganesha statue in the back of the hall – the elephant-headed God, my special friend, is always being worshipped first – to clear off all obstacles and allowing expansion of consciousness.

And when the hymns and the OMs of the evening prayer started, I thought, yes, there it is again, the typical marvellous Guru Pooja feeling, so uplifting and inspiring, which makes me come here all the way to be in this presence. Experiencing the energy of the Masters is something thrilling which words cannot convey.

In the evening a quick dinner, then back into the busses to go back to Visakh for a short night.

I din’t sleep well. Was it the Indian tea, was it the energy of the Guru Poojas? No matter, there will be plenty of time during the day to relax and bathe in the energies, I thought.

I got up at three, took a shower and did my asanas – while the bathroom was busily used one after the other… My netbook was still sleepy when I tried to answer mails, format pictures and post an article for the blog… I finally arrived with the blogpost, some minutes before leaving. But when sitting in the bus I realised that the transformator still was in the room and that the netbook had been running on battery, which was down. OK, I thought, today I will have to use my “note-book” in the old-fashioned pencil-style. And type the notes later…

Meditation, lecture breakfast. And then there was the initiation of children into first writing and intonating the mantram OM Namah Sivaya, for a better control of the senses when regularly sung.

Afterwards the fire ritual started. I will continue with the post tomorrow… We are leaving soon fromt he retreat centre.

Returning very late from the Guru Pooja celebrations and getting up very early / departing to the Guru Poojas I cannot answer individual mails, having no internet access there – and my netbook was down today, I just made hand-notes, so there won’t be a posting about today’s happenings now.

Many requested about details, please see here.

I just saw the post of Srikanth on WTT Facebook, he wrote:

“For invitations and information relating to Master’s discourses (Live and recorded), please email wtt-live@masters-call.net or admin@masters-call.net respectively.”

I will try to answer again the mails in 3 days, in urgent cases before. Thank you for all the many feedbacks. I’m tired and need the short night…

Two old busses took all of the group and we drove along the beachside of Visakhapatnam before continuing via a new bypass around Visakh to Simhachalam. Then the busses climbed uphill to the temple compound lying in a little valley near the top. The went further up a stair to a place where we had to leave our shoes and bags – no cellphones and cameras allowed inside the temple – but I took my camera inside the pocket.

Leaving the busses

The stairway up

The outer premises of the templs

A calf before the entrance

There are three entrance lane, one for free, where normally are many people – the “slow way to heaven”, one for 20 rupees, which the group took – where you can go near the innermost of the temple, and one for 100 rupees where you can enter the innermost – the direct way to heaven, as I jokingly said.

You enter through a side-tower into the outer part of the temple, there is a little temple with pillars hold by lion and elephant figures. The central temple is at the site of a very old and sacred place, but seems to be not so very old. Inside taking photos is strictly forbidden and I knew from previous visits that they really don’t like and I didn’t like to be discovered taking a shot…

Raviskankar, an Indian member accompanying the group discussed with the guards and finally the whole group was allowed to enter the holiest of the holy of the temple.

The name Simha means lion, and the temple is dedicated to the avatara of God as the man-lion. I was asked by the group to explain the symbolism, the story expressing the opening of the heart centre by killing the “demon” who had taken over the rulership of the “earth”, or the human body – a story of the soul triumphing over the personality.

The Avatar Narasimha, the man-lion, opens the heart of the demon king Hiranyakashipu – our own heart

Afterwards part of the group took a bus back to the valley, while I joined the ones who descended via a long stairway of about 1000 steps. I love this way along little statues, symbols, holy trees and a small waterfall.

Descending via the beautiful stairway

My favorite Ganesha, overgrown by a tree

In the village at the bottom end of the stairway,on the site where the Guru Pooja celebrations are to begin tomorrow, the preparations were at full swing – incredible how they want to finish all the work till this evening. After having a delicious meal served by the Indian members to us, we went to a nearby lake with a little temple surrounded by lotus flowers. Then we continued to a palm grove where I write these lines.

The lake with the lotus flowers

Under the palms

I’m posting this some minutes before leaving early morning to Simhachalams

In the retreat centre the morning starts early. Trying to get in time a place under the shower, quickly doing some asanas so that the body doesn’t start to rust, then after a sip of tea down into the seminar hall, which by now is cramped with chairs. The about 115 group members from the West (about 85 of them Spanish speaking and a bit of Southern vitality 🙂 )are quite disciplined, but besides the chit-chat there is the “waterfall music” of the ventilators and the dogs and birds from the outside, not to forget the horn and other noises of the cars.

An early morning musician

The altar in the lecture hall with the pictures of the great masters

Lakshmi, the goddess of fullness, giving us her blessings

At the backside of the lecture hall there is a huge new poster of a fire ritual

Sri Kumar welcoming the groups yesterday afternoon

I try to use my imagination visualising that we are not in a mega-city – though not in the centre – but in some forest ashram at the times of the old rishis 🙂 This visualisation strongly gets vivified when at 6am the sound of all the voices unite for intoning the OM 7  times and then the invocation of the Masters. It is lifting up, high above the lower spheres, reminding me of the description of Master DK in Occult meditations that through intonating the OM a cone is formed in the ethers opening up to above and that through this funnel energy can pour in – and this in a concentrated group meditation here is very inspiring.

Afterwards quickly washing some laundry in the bucket and putting it on the strings on the balcony. Mine is filled with some garbage of the retreat centre which obviously didn’t find any other place. But there remains a little space for the clothes.

Morning laundry sunrise over the neighbour balcony

And then coming into the dining hall, it is difficult to get a place at a table, but I succeeded – sitting among a group of Argentineans. Soon the plate is filled with idlis, sambar and toast. And since there was no milk, I improvised my “survival muesli” with chai – inter-cultural fusion of east and west.

Another “survival item” for my Indian tours is a vegetable paste from Switzerland, Tartex, which was tasted by the neighbouring Argentineans with keen interest.

You never see an Argentinean without the obligatory cup of Mate, which is being refilled with water and passed around.

The Indian cook in action – preparing idlis in a little stove and cooking with gas fire sometimes flaming up.

View of the kitchen- here the food for all of us is being prepared – with very simple means and ways of cooking…

Murthi, the good spirit and caretaker of the house – meditating in action? 🙂

In an hour we will start for Simhachalam, where the Guru Pooja will begin this evening. Today at noon we will visit the old temple at Simhachalam uphill – something for the next blog-post.

This afternoon Sri Kumar wanted to see the groups from the different countries, especially to give a welcome to those who came here for the first time. Having two passports 🙂 , I joined the German group (the Swiss is virtually too small to really be a “group” here…

Four members of the German group had just come from a visit to Benares / Varanasi and told about their experiences. As Sri Kumar had suggested them, they had been at the place where Trailinga Swami lived. He mentioned that the Swami was a master of the Ashram of Agastya, in the Nilagiris – and I remembered having a picture of him, in a collection of the pictures of the Guru Pooja altar. I showed Sri Kumar the photo of this extraordinary yogi and he confirmed that it is he whom he was talking about.

Trailinga Swami was known all over India for his extraordinary yogic powers. He had brought a huge lingam out of the waters of Ganges, which the four members had seen in Benares. At other occasions Sri Kumar had told the sotry of how the swami had been locked in prison because of running around nude – only for the prison personnel to seem him a short while later sitting on the top of the prison – naked. Again into prison, and again he was sitting there on the top as natural as nature made him. He was a very voluminous person who reportedly lived several hundred years, and he left his body in 1887. You can read in Wikipedia other extraordinary things about this Swami about whom well-known persons like Ramakrishna, Lahiri Mahasaya / Yogananda wrote; here is an extract:

“On many occasions, he was seen to drink deadly poisons with no ill effect. In one instance, a skeptic wanted to expose him as a fraud. The monk was accustomed to breaking his long fasts with buckets of clabbered milk, so the skeptic brought him a bucket of calcium-lime mixture used for whitewashing walls instead. The monk drank the entire bucket with no ill effect—instead, the skeptic fell to the ground writhing. The monk broke his usual silence to explain the law of karma, or cause and effect.

According to another story, he often walked around without any clothes, much like the naga (or “sky-clad”) sadhus. The Varanasi police were scandalized by his behaviour, and had him locked in a jail cell. He was soon seen on the prison roof, in all his ‘sky-clad’ glory. The police put him back into his locked cell, only to see him appear again on the jail roof. They soon gave up, and let him again walk the streets of Varanasi.

Thousands of people reportedly saw him levitating in a sitting position on the surface of the river Ganges for days at a time. He would also apparently disappear under the waves for long periods, and reappear unharmed. Swami Sivananda attributed some of his miracles to the siddhi or yogic power Bhutajaya— or conquest over the five elements, “Fire will not burn such a Yogi. Water will not drown him.^“

The fourth floor of the retreat centre, where I’m living at the moment has been transformed into a huge library: A number of huge book shelves containing all the books of Master EK have been shifted here – and in the first floor there is now also the office of Kulapati Editions – the other place has been closed.

Spiritual books from Master KE’s library and linen

The energy of Capricorn was very present during the evening prayer. Sri Kumar proposed that we go to the beach and enjoy there the presence of the full moon. Together with an Argentinean friend I joined a group of Spanish members who wanted to do a full moon meditation on the balcony of their apartment at the beach road. The magic spell of moon light enchanted the atmosphere – and the sounds of the night traffic along the sea seemed to fade away in the silent merging with the Capricornian ethers.

This morning we had a full moon fire ritual after the meditation. The room was crowded with the big group which had been still extended to a number of Indian brothers and sisters sitting close by close.

The ground for the fire ritual was well prepared with a mandala on white sand, and Kumari-Garu, the wife of Sri Kumar, added further decoration.

After the silence of meditation they started intonating singing Vedic hymns – Purusha Suktam, Sri Suktam and more, before the fire was lit.

While the air was filled with the mantric sounds, the flames rose higher and higher and cast beautiful devic forms into the ether:

This form reminds me of an eagle, the eagle of the spirit, ready to land on the fire place.

In the background you see the altar with the pictures of the great Masters beautifully decorated with fresh flowers.

Fascinated by the magic of he fire – the grand-daughter of Sir Kumar and Kumari with her mother

It was a very extensive ritual. Atfer about two hours the flames slowly died down and the air filled with beautiful smell when some hands of frankincense were thrown into the glowing ashes.

Kumari taking out some ashes for distribution

Afterwards some spicy rice was distributed to all as “prasad”, and people paid their homage to Sri Kumar. He smiled at me saying: “I have read all of your letter, very good.” At the arrival I had given to him a long letter with a number of observations. I felt a great relief.

Getting up this morning at about 4.30, taking a shower, doing asanas and then the morning prayer / meditation at 6 o’clock with Sri Kumar guiding – a soul-stirring morning – the noises from the outside and the cuckoo-clock violently ringing – nothing could disturb the soul-thrilling ambiance. Afterwards preparing breakfast. Many new-comers were standing around and didn’t know what to do and that it is a “self-service” – meaning you have to prepare everything yourself. So I started cleaning and then getting a translator to give instructions to the newbees – where to place the marmalades, how to install and operate the toasters, where to put the coffee etc. In the kitchen an group was busily preparing fruits, and Murthi with the cook doing idlis and sambar. The smell was spreading all over, and quickly the room filled with a sprightly morning chit-chat.

These days before Guru Pooja there isn’t yet any program, just “relaxing. Many wanted to do some shopping -not me. So after breakfast I was about to organise a taxi to go to the planetary healing centre, but I dropped into another deep conversation… I thought, oh, I won’t be time to go to the healing centre this morning. But when I came out of the room, a Spanish friend told me they would like to go shopping and then to the healing centre, if I would like to accompany them. I said, beautiful. And then other friends came and invited me to a direct ride to the centre, without shopping, and so we sat some minutes later and started on our little tour.

Visakhapatnam has incredibly grown the last years. I heard at noon that during the last 5 years they grew from 4 to 5 millions – al the main area. And you could see it on the way all along the coast – a big Novotel at the beach road, many more houses, all the palces where a few years ago there had just been bushes there were now apartments nearly till the place of the healing centres about 15 km away.

But the site of the centre is still so thrilling as it was, and even more, the place was very well kept this year, people were cleaning the ground, the centre building with the dome was freshly painted and even the place with the Maitreya statue was again under the shadows of a huge branch of a tree, where another tree had died 2 years ago. I gave a quick visit to Lord Maitreya and Lord Buddha, enjoying their presence.

Lord Maitreya blessing

Lord Buddha blessing

Then we sat in silence in Planetary Healing Centre, vibrating soul-stirring energy. After a while I started intonating 21 times OM, and the others fell in line – expansion, merging with the sound

In the silence afterward I suddenly started to hear a beautiful music coming from somewhere outside. We all sat there in this blessed ambiance.

The central pillar with the onyx globe from South America

Photographing the centre of the centre

Afterwards we went around the centre and to the littpe private ground where the owner and caretaker of this site is living in a beautiful roundhouse with some outer round houses.

A very organic architecture in this little paradise garden

The entire ground was very well kept, with beautiful flowers growing

Of course some photos of our little group had to be taken – and also of me…

Afterwards we sat for a while in front of the Maitreya statue and intonated the Maitreya song and the Narayana mantram, while some crows and a couple of birds of prey – probably kites –  flew around – messengers of the Spirit.

Probably a kite – as a friend wrote me

I first wanted to take a bath, but the others didn’t want to come – the sun was too glaring. People also had told me that in the bushes near the beach there are living several poisonous snakes, so I resigned from my favorite swim in the ocean.

We woke up the taxi driver who had slept all the time in his car and so he brought us back to the city. In the meantime a part of the Argentinean group had arrived and lunch was already waiting for us.

Flying to India in January is always a very special experience for me. Starting with the train, ther had been fresh snow outside, after a night of storm. In the train I try to observe who will be traveling to Zurich airport like me. There was a young lady opposite me whom I later met in the airport restaurant and later at checkin to Dubai – we smiled to each other.

Entering my “flying caravel” heading to India

In Dubai I was looking out to fellow travelers to Visakhapatnam, but there was none, neither in Hyderabad. But while I was reading infront of the checkin a thrilling book, “Odonate“, by Julie Oxford (she sent it to me as a gift in December), on how she came into contact with theosophy and the Masters of Wisdom and also the World Teacher Trust (I was thrilled to see that when telling about her discovery of WTT she just took from the WTT website several point I found most thrilling when I did the site 5 years ago…), suddenly an Indian came to me and asked me, “Are you going to the Guru Poojas of World Teacher Trust? I will be there, too.”, I smiled and replied “Yes”. I knew I was being guided well. Outside the temperature had changed to 35 ° C- a bit warmer than at home. (I later heard that this year January is hot as never since long…

In Visakh Murthy was already waiting for me with a taxi – a great service. We tried to pick up another friend, but she wasn’t on her flyer.

And then the arrival at the retreat centre. So many “hallo’s” and “NIce to meet you again”. This year there will be more people than in the previous years, about 115, mostly from Argentina, but also many from Spain. The retreat centre being much to small for all of us, a number had to stay in a nearby hotel and in appartments at the sea. I thought I would “camp” in the hall, but I got a small single room in the 4th floor – how happy I was. And on the table there was a nice orange tableclothwith golden embroderies – and the beautiful spiritual symbol of Lord Venkateshvara – I really felt blessed. After such a stressful time having come “home”, tears shot into my eyes, I was deeply moved.

The symbol of Lord Venkateshvara reminds me much of a theme I used in my paintings in the 80ies.

In the evening Sri Kumar came to guide the evening prayer. Afterwards he just greeted us saying: “I wlecome you all to a very enlightening group life.” We then had a small gathering with him, just a few members from the national groups. Sri Kumar said, “The groups really inspired by spiritual hierarchy just have minimum outer structures, there is inner growth and just the minimum growth inthe outer. We are also nearly not known here in Visakh, the work is more done in silence. We don’t have big structures to accomodate people, we donb’t have an ashram. We rent the locations for Guru Poojas. Nobody knows how much the movements grows, it is mostly in the homes of the people, not in any outside structures where the eyes of the public, the govrnment and politicians fall upon. We believe in inner growth and not much in outer. It is the same with our groups. ” (notes by memory)

Tomorrow many more people will arrive. I’m tired but happy to be here.

(I didn’t have internet connection yesterday, so this post had to wait a bit. For want of time I don’t answer for the moment all the mails I get….)

In half an hour my son will bring me to the station – the journey to India begins. This afternoon I’ll fly from Zurich via Dubai/Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam to attend the seminar and Guru Pooja celebration of the World Teacher Trust (WTT). It’s my 13th journey to Visakh and the 17th to India, but each time it is a little adventure.

Yesterday a Swiss friend skyped me from Visakh and told me that because of the scarceness of rooms in the Retreat Centre I will be “camping” in a hall. OK, I thought, better to be there than to stay outside. There are more people coming this year than the other years, mainly from Argentina – I saw the lists of participants and look forward to meet a number of old friends. I’ll try to blog a bit about the journey.

I’m really looking forward to this journey – very turbulent and challenging weeks at my office kept me on high speed the last months, with a climx in December. 2 days ago I talked with our director and he understands the difficulties – we will deal with them in February. Directly after my return. I will have a talk with him and my superior to see how we can find a solution. So for the moment the job has a little pause and I’ll take off…

The last weeks I enjoyed digitally restoring my old paintings from the 80ies – fruits of an intense inner experience in 1981. Every day, also this morning, I had been publishing a picture with some lines of comment. There will be a bit over 100 paintings, 70 have been published on Flickr and about 35 are still waiting. I wonder whether I will find time to continue my project in India.

Here is one I did in August 1987 – “Spiritual Hierarchy VI – The Ascent”. You can read my comment on Flickr, if you like – and also post a comment, or on my Facebook profile. Enjoy

A video with the sublime sounds of Tibetan Singing Bowls (48 min.). Sit down and relax.