French Tour 2008

Briefly tuned in to Swamiji's satsang webcast from Australia. Swamiji keeps talking about plastic bags as if they were the biggest environmental threat there is in the world today.

Weekend seminars with Swamiji I did not attend were in September and in October. Those seminars were not in my Karma, apparently. Also sometimes I have not the power to disregard the baseness of ambition which is so evident when people are in contact with a person they see as bigger or more powerful than themselves.

on Oct 1st bd 2nd, I have attended Jasmuheen's seminar in Vienna. First thing to note, I like the venue every year more. At first I was not so comfortable there, I thought because Prater is a somewhat traditionally seedy shabby part of town. Now with the third Jasmuheen seminar I have experienced there, it has become lovely to me.

on Satyagraha and Mahatma Gandhi, on occasion of Yoga In Daily Life's Gandhi Jayanti celebration.

We have taken part in a Yoga weekend seminar with Swamiji, from Friday evening until Sunday noon. It was quite interesting. Many energy currents were around. I have experienced a good transmission from Swamiji. My capacity for sitting straight in front of the master without pain or boredom has grown.

I have taken part in an intensive retreat which was held by Jasmuheen in Mantak Chia's Tao Garden in Thailand. Mantak Chia there has a facility, which is a large house the inside of which is totally insulated from any light source at all, which permits dark room therapy to be done there. Our retreat lasted for eleven days in total darkness and with no food except for fresh fruit juices three times a day for those people who desired them, me among them.

Lack of animal rights is our most sordid as well as pressing social problem.

"Satsang" is Hindustani and means "community, or gathering, of the truth-seekers". For me, it's a weekly gathering of some ten or twenty yoga disciples, with wife and me among them. We sing spiritual songs in Hindustani, so-called bhajans, watch a video of a yoga lecture, sing a long, heart-felt prayer in Hindustani, and then disperse again, subtly refreshed. Ideally, we don't even talk much, then the magic of Satsang seems to work best.

every Friday from 18:30 on, in Guruji's Ashram, Trubelgasse 17, open to everyone.

Eckhart Tolle, "Eine neue Erde", a period of pure bliss while reading this treasure, i.e. being in the vibration of Mr Tolle

Martin Lowenthal, "Dawning of Clear Light: A Western Approach to Tibetan Dark Retreat Meditation", lovely, earnest, deep

Nicole Schöfmann, "Katzenflüstern. Tierkommunikation und natürliche Heilung für ihre Katze", lovely, tender, spiritual, and I understand tomcat Elvis already better

There are back doors to the spiritual world, for example Stropharia Cubensis. 10g of dried self reared Stropharia Cubensis, a lonely spot in the woods, because trees and other plants share the simple joy of being easier than humans, faith in destiny: bestows the acute awareness of how imagination creates reality, how every reality is preceded by imagination. How easy it is then to be happy and fulfilled, because when everything is made of thought, happy, fulfilling, giving, selfless thinking is all it takes. A wonderful miraculous connectedness follows. Thinking/imagination is also communicating, mind touches mind, so there can be no loneliness. Living is pure bliss. Those who come in through backdoors may not stay forever, even if they liked to, so one leaves again, happy in the knowledge that everything is good. A slight headache the next day, and an inner smile that will last long.

We were at Jasmuheen's weekend seminar. It was wonderful. She says, everything is easy. So what she says might sound flippant were it not for the deep emotion she speaks with, emotion which comes from her experience. I love her.

Being mean by putting down other people's well-meant work, I say "A love song for Bobby Long" with John Travolta and Scarlett Johannson (pretty) is a romanticisation and glorification of alcoholism - a fitting theme for a fiftie's French "film noir" - ugly for lack of truthfulness, anachronistic in 2005.

Am reading "The Field" by Lynn McTaggart. Quote "A substructure underpins the universe that is essentially a recording medium of everything, providing a means for everything to communicate with everything else." I can feel it, too.

"TimeOut for Sleep" is the CD I do every day. After work, a 45-minute nap restores me for a nice evening program, enables me to meditate, for example, where I would otherwise fall asleep.

"TimeOut for Sleep (CD): Allows you to sequence its nine programmable tracks to support the kind of sleep experience you desire. Each track replicates a specific portion of the normal sleep cycle, and some include verbal guidance to facilitate the sleep pattern you have chosen."