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y the long row of people. The weather has changed<br />
and the sky is stormy black. During the eight hour<br />
drive to Munich on the highway it rains again and<br />
again with monsoon intensity. Sometime, somewhere<br />
on the A9 south I see nine geese flying in the sky<br />
reminding me of the birds I often see in the sky over<br />
Sri Swamiji’s Ashrama in Mysore. As we get closer to<br />
Munich the landscape changes and it becomes more<br />
Swiss-like, more hilly and feels more like home than<br />
the wide open spaces in northern Germany. Suddenly<br />
I see that everything – highway, landscape, trees, sky,<br />
earth, everything that we see, in which we breathe,<br />
live, that which seems so naturally to be the reality –<br />
is a third- or fourdimensional projection of THAT. It is<br />
a completely different way of perception: As if I could<br />
perceive the light which creates – similar to the movie<br />
projection in the cinema – this apparent reality. And in<br />
this «movie» we are – unlike cinema – contained:<br />
Breathing, living, thinking, acting.<br />
That slowly fades away as we needed all our concentration<br />
– it has turned dark – to find our way through<br />
the big city to our hotel, just in time to get our room<br />
key.<br />
«You must control»<br />
The next morning we go up to the castle. How different<br />
it looks to the first time we came here in January,<br />
22<br />
when it was wide and white under snow and freezing<br />
cold. Although being completely non-aristocratic I<br />
feel comfortable in Nymphenburg, which astounds<br />
me, until I get clear in what role I might be here. An<br />
hour before the start of the concert one cannot<br />
believe that everything will be ready on time, and<br />
again I feel this amazement at how Sri Swamiji manages<br />
again and again, to ensure that everything is<br />
suddenly in the right place. What was lost appears<br />
again, the roses all join up in the garland and everything<br />
that was lying around in the entrance where He<br />
would enter the Hubertussaal hall is tidied up.<br />
Only my mind is confused. Perhaps I am drunk from<br />
the scent of the thousand roses and white lilies. Full<br />
of anticipation of Sri Swamiji’s arrival, I think I can<br />
quietly put on clean trousers. Before doing this the<br />
thought passes my mind that it is perhaps better to<br />
wait until Sri Swamiji and His entourage has passed by<br />
on the way to the artist’s changing rooms. So I throw<br />
my trousers over a stool - there is a loud crack as the<br />
glass bottle with rosewater and the imprint «Sadguru<br />
leads you from darkness to light» rolls out of the<br />
pocket and smashes into pieces on the floor. Before I<br />
realize what had happened, Sri Swamiji swiftly comes<br />
around the corner. He smiles and I experience once<br />
more how He, even when we make the most impossi-<br />
Daily:<br />
Sri Chakra<br />
Puja<br />
Dicke Birken, Geseke: Bye, bye Sri Swamiji!<br />
ble mistakes, uses this for an unf<strong>org</strong>ettable lesson.<br />
And the court fool, now in the fragrance of the rosewater<br />
from the broken bottle, wonders about the<br />
grace of the supreme king.<br />
That the concert had already begun, I only realize as I<br />
hear the applause. So I have to sneak through the loud<br />
squeaky door right next to the stage in the Hubertussaal.<br />
I have never had such a loud creaky floor under<br />
my feet, as I make my way around the whole audience<br />
to finally take my seat on the other side of the hall.<br />
And I understand a bit more what Sri Swamiji means<br />
when He says: «You must control.» That will become a<br />
daily training after Guru Purnima.<br />
Timeless joy<br />
On the following morning an unf<strong>org</strong>ettable follow-themaster-drive<br />
to the airport where a handful of tired<br />
and overjoyed devotees say goodbye to Sri Swamiji<br />
who is flying on to Denmark. We stand there and wave<br />
as Sri Swamiji with His three companions goes through<br />
passport control and slowly disappears out of our<br />
view without once turning round. Then He takes two,<br />
three steps back and – I can really feel His smile –<br />
turns around to those of us still standing there and<br />
waves.<br />
We stay a while longer in this «no mans» land<br />
between coming and going, between landing and taking<br />
off. «Joy is timeless», is written on a blow-up high<br />
up in the hall. We also manage to say goodbye to each<br />
other. With joy, nostalgia, in peace and contentment<br />
even with everything that was difficult and didn’t<br />
function as one had imagined and hoped it would.<br />
Someone remembers the story that Sri Swamiji has<br />
also mentioned in Geseke: When you get an apple, you<br />
do not throw it away only because it had a little black<br />
spot on it. You can cut out the black spot and grateful<br />
enjoy the apple as a gift. « It is He who makes us do<br />
wrong things», said Hira Duvvuri, «so that we learn<br />
from our mistakes.» (19)<br />
23
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