Berend Lange’s KOMPASS

     Good morning Mr. Mandela,

     Today is your 90th birthday - as always on the 18th of July, I would like to wish you all the best for your health and wellbeing in the future. I am sure you are going to spend your well publicized day of honour with lots of friends, family, children and admirers again, as usual.

     This year I want to congratulate you in writing, however - as a German expatriate who has lived in South Africa for more than 22 years, I feel it is time to show my appreciation in a more permanent way in return for all you have done for South Africa. 

     My thoughts may well reflect the sentiments of many who call your lovely country “home”, as I once did : unfortunately, my confidence in the successors of your office has dwindled and my wife and I have returned to Europe more than a year ago.  

     We often see on TV, or read in the papers about the well-deserved honours you receive all over the world for what you have achieved in your lifetime, and our hearts go out to you in admiration for a man of such integrity, benevolence and stamina.

     These notions are shared in all sectors of society, everywhere. The honours show a universal gratitude for your abilities as a statesman and the exemplary qualities of a human being - if it hadn’t been for your leadership, your country and indeed the continent of Africa would be a far less prosperous place to live in. Many crucial challenges for the transition to democracy have been overcome, numerous others remain.

     I imagine that it must be very difficult for a man of your caliber, wisdom and consciousness to watch the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of poverty, crime and AIDS threatening the fabric of Africa’s culture - and know that a solution could well be reached.

     Fighting against the symptoms of these excesses, as we do, will only give them more power and make them worse - we need to work on the root of these disruptive indicators which are all based in fear, social and individual separation, and the greed for power. Violence as a means to assert control will only temporarily reduce feelings of insecurity and anger.

     As long as we think of ourselves as poor and victims of history, we will continue to experience violent and corrupt struggles for dominance. As long as we don’t focus on service and contribution instead of segregate and competitive ethnic cultures, nobody will feel secure in any country, community or family.

     Irresponsible, even reckless behaviour cannot be condoned, of course - but ignorance needs to be forgiven because the perpetrators simply don’t know better. There is nothing that has to be changed, except our perception - to recognize that our reality is a mirror-image of ourselves. This is the hardest of all things to do, hence the universal challenge to ‘Know Thyself’.

     You know this and have acted all you life accordingly with enormous courage and strength, which is what makes you stand head and shoulders above other world leaders. If more of them had your understanding, the world would be a much better place today. We will eventually get there, but it is going to take time and effort. In the meantime, you shine as a beacon to others.

     So today is one more occasion to celebrate who you are, and I salute you. I wish you, and us, many happy returns of the glorious day you were born.

     Yours sincerely in gratitude and appreciation,

     Berend Lange

Wenn du die Welt anders betrachtest,
dann ändert sich die Welt, die du siehst.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Dr. Wayne Dyer

Liebevolle Menschen leben in einer liebevollen Welt.

Feindselige Menschen leben in einer feindseligen Welt.

In derselben Welt.

“Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.”

Dr. Wayne Dyer

Deine Perspektive im Leben entscheidet über die Welt, in der du lebst. 

Buchstäblich.

Reist du auch so gerne wie ich?

Welchen Teil der Welt siehst du gerade? 

     Four years ago today, Friday the 23rd of April 2004 was a brilliantly beautiful autumn day in Cape Town - warm, sunny and calm.

     The perfection of the universe was showing off in a spectacular fashion and for most people it must have been difficult to see the other, the darker side of the coin inherent in every aspect of the world we experience.

     For me it wasn’t, because my father passed away on that day, just before his 83rd birthday.

     This was utterly unexpected because my father was visibly enjoying his life - he always liked to be active around the house and garden and had the strength to do a million little things every day.

     That’s what he was doing on Wednesday morning, but that night we had to get him to a hospital in a hurry and the fact that he died not even 48 hours later was difficult to understand.

     To cope with a loss is not easy and for most of us, grieving is how we react to a tragic event - we feel helpless and sink into emptiness and despair, questioning the apparent futility of it all to regain our sanity.

     We think that grief and sorrow are inseparable and believe this process is necessary to overcome the pain, to eventually accept what has happened.

     But what if we knew - without a doubt - that there are no accidents in our intelligent universe?

     That we have to experience loss in order to learn a valuable lesson, that we have something to gain even from catastrophe and death? 

     I am lucky in that I never had to encounter any devastating blows in my life, so I am not an authority on the subject. But what if we chose not to suffer over a loss which we will ultimately recognize as beneficial anyway? This is not how we are supposed to react, of course, in our European cultural environment.

     But I believe that in the western world, what we mostly lament is our own loss and not so much the fate of the deceased. In other societies, death is an occasion for celebration - I have seen this myself in Bali.

     There they know, even in times of mourning, that the universe’s timing of people’s arrival and departure on this planet should not be questioned - everything is in perfect order, even painful experiences.

     Is the loss of a loved one different from losing worldly possessions?

     Yes, definitely. Once gone, family members cannot be replaced … ever. But they live on in our memories, whilst the loss of a house, money or a job should be forgotten as soon as possible and stimulate us to move on to even better things.

     The basic underlying challenge here is change, and whether we think we can cope with it. I know that my father is where he is supposed to be right now, and I accept his schedule - I just have to learn to live without him.

     Have you got a minute?

     Of course you do - the end of the world week has arrived, relax.

     Yes, I’m writing this in English for a change, just a quickie - if you want the gist of it in German, go to my article ‘African Horizons’ that I wrote in November : today is all about inspirational quotes again.

     Why? Because you told me that you love them just as much as I do - and earlier this week Mac Anderson of ‘Simple Truths’ sent me a link to his little movie ‘Great Quotes from Great Leaders’ in his newletter.

     It’s really very nice, I’d like you to watch it here and no : I am not one of his affiliates trying to sell you something. Maybe I should.

     But Mac Anderson reminded me that I have my very own collection of favourite inspirational quotes with even better photos - its a PowerPoint Show called ‘African Horizons’, you can watch it online here and even download it to your computer safely. 

     I am sure you have a minute - just click, sit back and relax.

     And if you then click on ‘Emal this’ below you can pass this article on to someone else who reads English and wants to relax this weekend - try, it’s fun!

     When was the last time you couldn’t believe your eyes?

     For me that was Tuesday 11 September 2001, six years ago today, when I saw airplanes crashing into the World Trade Centre in New York on TV, collapsing the twin towers within two hours.

     This simply cannot be happening, I thought. Is this a movie? It was just too outrageous to be real - and yet, as the tragedy unfolded before our very eyes live on TV, I had to accept it as true - seeing is believing, isn’t it?

     As incredible as the 9/11 events were at the time, they are part of our reality today and we see the world with different eyes - life as we know it has changed, not only in the USA.

     Although I haven’t been visiting New York myself since then, it never occurred to me that 9/11 might be a gigantic, cruel show. Of course is wasn’t. However, we can believably show anything on screen these days with special effects technology.

     After all, in 1997 a movie called ‘Wag the Dog’ with Dustin Hoffman and Robert de Niro won two Oscars : a clever Hollywood producer and an American politician fabricate a war in Albania for TV, only to divert the public’s attention from a sex-scandal which threatens the re-election of the country’s president. Is it ironic that this whole scenario is very believable these days?

     Film producers and politicians know that perception, not reality, is paramount to influence people. We tend to believe what we see with our own eyes, and yet our eyes betray us all the time : the long lines in the first picture here for example are parallel, but the clever positioning of the short lines creates the illusion that they are not.

     The second, rather famous image on the left here illustrates that what you see depends on you, not the picture - do you see the young woman or the old woman? Change your focus and you can see them both - there are always at least two sides to every story.

     Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - what we believe is true for us. There is no objective reality because we all see the world through different glasses. We can choose the pink or the dark variety at any time, even view life through the bottom of a wine-bottle if we find that appealing.

     We forget that we can choose though, only to take the same habitual viewpoints all the time, no matter what we observe - and miss a great opportunity to consciously create our own reality, to live in a world as we want it.

     Life is a subjective experience, a projection : you tailor-make it to your own individual specifications. Life is an illusion, like a movie or a play on stage, although it appears to be real at the time of viewing because you immerse in it to feel the excitement, drama and joy of the action.

     Why would you want to see a horror movie then?

     Because you also love the terror and suspense - it is exhilarating and makes you feel alive. In a cinema, you are conscious of the fact that you are watching an illusion, that you have a temporary experience and will leave the theatre to return to ‘real’ life afterwards.

     But life as a whole is the same way. Once we realise that we constantly create our pain as well as our happiness because we want or need to experience it, we’ll take responsibility for everything that happens to us and accept the power to change it.

     If we did it, we can undo it.

     There is nothing in your life that you have not created or attracted. You are the producer, director, scriptwriter and main character in this play. As long as you believe that there is someone else out there setting the stage, you dis-empower yourself to do anything about the performance.

     But still, all sensations portrayed in the show are temporary and we can choose to either label them as painful or enjoyable - nothing is painful, unless you think it is. Let’s not forget that there are people who are jubilant about what happened on 9/11 in New York.

     Six years down the line, have we learnt anything? Let’s just say that what I see today only confirms my resolve to stay out of politics and create my own world.

     And some people still need their eyes tested, I think.

     Would you like to know what activities work out best for you on certain days of the week?

     Surely you have noticed that on some days of the week, certain endeavours seem to work out better than on other days. You probably never told anyone about your suspicions, but this is not weird at all - in fact this phenomenon has been known for thousands of years.

I call it “The Quality of Time”

     Most of us have largely forgotten about it - we know the other aspect, the “Quantity of Time” much better, mainly because we think that we never have enough of it. It would go too far to explain the whole background here, but I wrote a chapter about it in my eBook “The REAL Facts of Life”.

     What I am telling you is that each day of the week definitely has a certain unique quality to it, and the days are even named for this quality, although we don’t always see the correlation in modern-day English or German. In astrology, the Greeks and ancient Romans assigned the same characteristics to the planets of our solar system which represent the same qualities.

How does this knowledge benefit us in the 21st century?

     Simply, some days are more conducive to certain activities than others - find out below why you should schedule important meetings for Wednesdays if you can, be careful at parties on Thursdays and why things often don’t go your way on Saturdays.

     I have consciously applied this “Quality of the Day” - system for a long time. The days of the week are marked accordingly on my calendar in the computer and I plan conducive activities whenever I can. Here we go : 

Monday : Emotion
     Monday is easily recognizable as Moon-day. As the ruler of the tides, the moon represents our emotions which have long been portrayed in terms of the sea. Do still waters run deep? Are you making waves? Mood-swings, instinct, how we feel about things and the way our feelings affect others are all highlighted on Mondays. They also help us see intuitively what we wish for in life. We are up and down, naughty or nice, laugh or cry - moods change as swiftly as the moon circles our planet.

Tuesday : Action
     Tuesday is ‘Mardi’ in French - Mars was the Roman god of war, and the Red Planet can be fiery and violent, daring and fearless. This energy wants the powerful and confident expression of the individual. Passion, determination, ambition, competition, achievement, courage, honour, stamina, accidents - Tuesdays forcefully command you to stand up, be noticed and get things done in an either constructive or destructive way.

Wednesday : Communication
     Wednesday is ‘Mercredi’ in French. Mercury was the Roman god of trade, commerce and profit - and the winged messenger from the gods. Whether the news was good or bad, he needed a quick wit, think logically on the run and weigh possibilities after hearing opinions and reasons. Rationalize and communicate, perceive, speak up, negotiate and get answers - our intellect, awareness and logic is needed here. Move from one thing to the next in short trips - Wednesdays prompt us to express ourselves often and well. Visiting neighbours, the workday commute and a weekend getaway are all in Mercury’s realm, as well as writing, books, eMail and learning.

Thursday : Growth
     In German mythology, Thor was the red-haired and bearded god of thunder, much like Jupiter in Roman times. His lightning bolts remind us of his supreme power, but besides being judge and jury he was mostly a kind and benevolent helper to keep mankind on the right path. Thursdays lord over ideology and philosophy and compel us to assess our ethical and moral values. Everything about Jupiter is larger than life. Grand ideas, luck and great fortune are associated with Thursdays who want us to grow and flourish. Optimism, success, accomplishments and prosperity symbolize this magnanimous energy - but we easily tend to overdo things on Thursdays : work too long, party too much, even spend too much time on going the extra mile.

Friday : Pleasure
     Venus, or Freya, is the symbol of beauty, love, romance, harmony and pleasure for us. Socializing and relating to others in friendship, marriage and business partnership is important today. Fridays invite us to indulge our senses in aesthetic circumstances like the arts and seek the beauty of our world, teaching us to appreciate others and the things we possess. We take an interest in luxuries, good food and drink, a beautiful home and generally in spreading happiness through refinement, culture, charm and grace. A good day to be attractive and attract others by rewarding them, and yourself.

Saturday : Discipline
     Saturn was the god of time, and he didn’t make things easy. The big teacher demands discipline and responsibility in learning life’s lessons and wants us to work hard at managing them. Limitations, delays and restrictions play a big role on Saturdays - is there enough time to do everything we want to do? The majesty of older age also brings with it a sense of tradition, conventionality and wisdom - it challenges habits that have stood the test of time. Structure, experience and authority are important concerns on Saturdays, and perseverance is applauded.

Sunday : Your-Self 
     The sun is the centre of our world, its energy is forceful and gives us light and life. Everything revolves around it and therefore it represents the Self, as well as our personality, ego, spirit and everything that makes us unique as individuals. Our true identity and our face to the world both speak of creativity, the will to manifest our ideas and the strength to successfully meet our challenges in life. Our sense of health and well-being is closest to us on Sundays, so do what you really feel like doing.

     Try it out, you’ll be surprised how well it works!

“Life is not about finding yourself,
it is about creating yourself.”

     Did you know that? George Bernhard Shaw said this, and many other great philosophers know it, too. You and I, we create all the time - but most of it is unconscious : we literally don’t know what we are doing.

     The irony is that most of us think we do know how to create what we want : we set goals, work hard towards them and sometimes achieve them. Not always, but sometimes. We think we can get what we want if we are lucky, born with certain talents or have a lot of money.

     What we believe is that our circumstances dictate our actions and feelings, whilst in reality we create our circumstances with our thoughts. Your environment is a mirror image of yourself, says the Universal Law of Correspondences - I also wrote a chapter about it in my essay “The REAL Facts of Life”.

     This principle of correspondences is also called the Law of Attraction these days, and there is a lot of discussion about it on the Internet at the moment.

     The Law of Attraction is probably the single most important principle for every human being to understand in this day and age. The Law of Attraction simply says that you attract into your life whatever you think about. Your dominant thoughts will find a way to manifest - in Steve Pavlina’s words.

     I have introduced Steve Pavlina to you in June last year and the best I can do to bring the Law of Attraction closer to you is direct you to some of his articles on his Blog - they have substance and are brilliantly written.

     The first one you should read is The Law of Attraction which answers some tough questions around how this principle works, and when.

     Very closely related to this topic is his article Creative Observation if you want to know why the manifestation of intentions sometimes does not seem to work at first.

     Excellent background information on manifesting can be found in How Intentions Manifest.

     And then there is his article Cause-Effect versus Intention-Manifestation - essential reading because you need to know what the first crucial step is for creating what you want that most people forget, and because you have to recognise how you sabotage yourself once you are working your way towards the achievement of your goals.

     There is of course much more to learn about the way life works, but the Law of Attraction is the core without which all the rest doesn’t make much sense.

     When you have read Steve Pavlina’s articles above, and some more you’ll find in the process, go to a good bookstore over the weekend and get “Ask and It Is Given” - ‘Learning To Manifest Your Desires’ by Esther Hicks, the book on which the film ‘The Secret’ is based - Steve reviews the film here.

     Yes, all this is quite an eyefull of reading, but I assume that subscribers to KOMPASS are serious about improving themselves and their lives. I am absolutely convinced that once you understand the material offered in this single eMail alone and start practicing the principles suggested, you can fundamentally turn your life around, if that is your intention.

     I was sitting at one of our gorgeous beaches in Cape Town’s False Bay with a friend when we saw a school of dolphins in the bay.

     Not far away, they were swimming close to the surface, leaping forward half way out of the water and heading towards an unknown destination in their peculiar determined way, like they often do.

     One thing was different this time, though : the leading dolphin and a few others behind him in the group were jumping far out of the water, straight up, doing summersaults backwards and forwards in all sorts of twisted ways.

     It was absolutely spectacular! Other people had noticed their unusual behaviour as well and stopped whatever they were doing to watch.

     I always thought that dolphins collectively chase a shoal of fish when they swim in a group close to the surface, but they were clearly jumping for pure joy here! What’s more, this exuberant display of fun and happiness was contagious, since more and more dolphins started to breach and all the spectators had a big smile on their faces, too.

     Dolphins are well known for their playful behaviour, and this reminded me that joy is an essential part of our life as human beings.

     Most of us have buried it under layers of boredom, frustration and responsibility, though - when have you last felt the urge to jump for joy? I enjoy life most when I allow myself to be free of all that, to hold on to nothing and to have no restrictions.

     I am free when I look at the sea from my office window, when I forget my own self-importance and the pressure to perform, when I am no longer offended by the actions of others, nor in need of their approval.

     My best creative work is done when I can be myself, often by myself, not distracted from the source of human inspiration and uninterrupted by daily chores or phonecalls. Freedom and joy are inseparable - they are a state of mind, I think, most easily found in children uninhibited by the burdens of our competitive lifestyle, lost in play with no intent to do harm.

     If we agree that feelings of hatred, violence and envy make joy impossible, we have found a way to uncover it - yet our culture does not always facilitate this notion.

     “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way”, Eykis says in Wayne Dyer’s book “Gifts from Eykis” : allow yourself to be free of doubt, gloom, bitterness and fear as often as you can, every day. This freedom will allow joy to breach the surface and give you new ideas to do more productive work, be a better husband, mother or writer and help you pass it on to anyone who is ready to accept it.

     Happiness must be the default state of being for anything that lives - the only thing that can prevent joy from ruling our lives is the human mind interfering with it.

     That means that we don’t have to create joy for ourselves, we just have to allow it to happen - isn’t it ironic that we find that difficult to do? After all, I have never met anyone who doesn’t want to enjoy himself, and yet so few do - even here in the careless Cape of Good Hope.

     Where else do we see more of the glorious guidance of nature around us? Make up your mind to do something wonderfully joyous at least once a day, whatever tickles your fancy : play with your cat, eat a cookie, tell a joke - or do summersaults like the dolphins.

     ‘Long ago, in the faraway land of ancient Greece, there was a golden age of powerful gods and extraordinary heroes. And the greatest and strongest of all these heroes was the mighty Hercules. But what is the measure of a true hero? Ah, that is what our story is… ‘

     Fables are fashionable, no doubt about it. On film, the world in the 21st century is saved by super-heroes a few times a day because they have either futuristic technology or astonishing powers.

     For me, however, Disney’s ‘Hercules’ is the best movie in this genre ever made : it is their only film based on Greek mythology - these timeless tales about a world of complex interrelations between gods and humans explored the mysteries of life on earth, conveying important lessons to struggling mortals.

     The conduct of the royal society on Mount Olympus in those days seems to have been as fallible as today’s jet set and in the absence of TV, the stories about their lives and adventures, weaknesses and misdemeanours in ancient Greece apparently were the talk of the town.

     A modern ancient tale

     As an animated movie first released in 1997, the ancient characters in Walt Disney’s ‘Hercules’ speak a very modern language - Charlton Heston (Narrator), Rip Torn (Zeus, leader of the gods), James Woods (Hades, ruler of the underworld) and Danny DeVito (Phil the Satyr) amongst others have given their voices to a fast-paced, wildly funny and very entertaining film for kids and adults alike.

     What is often overlooked though is that the story of Hercules is also a brilliant parable about the human cycle of life on earth - for me, that is he most interesting aspect of the movie.

Continue Reading »

     Is there a favourite routine that you look forward to on Sunday mornings? I have two : watching the sun rise with a cup of tea in my hand here at the tip of Africa, and reading Philip Humbert’s eNewsletter TIPS a bit later.

     Philip lives in Oregon/USA and is a a speaker, author and personal success coach. That means he helps people to achieve their goals, build their businesses, live their dreams and have fun - and he really enjoys doing that. I can tell, because in all these years I have never read a single word from him that is not inspirational.

     Today I realise that he has been a role model for me and the similarities in our lifestyles are astonishing, down to his cat keeping him company when he works at home. He says that he has never “worked” in his life, though, because he’s got a job that he loves - I know exactly what he means, having raced in the corporate world until recently.

     Nevertheless, he has been very successful in extending his reach earlier this year by teaming up with Jim Rohn, Bob Proctor, Michael Angier, Vic Johnson and others for a series of one-day seminars called “Claim Your Power Now!” all over the USA.

     Philip Humbert knows that every individual deserves and has the power to live a great life. Nobody stands in your way, except yourself ! That’s why, every year in May, he also organises his own three-day “World Class Life” conference in Wisconsin.

     It is designed to help each participant break through his own barriers, see new possibilities and develop elegant and effective strategies to create the life they truly want. Isn’t this anyone’s top priority? It certainly is mine, and to attend his conference next year is very high up on my list of personal goals.

     In the meantime, though, I can only recommend that you go to his website and also subscribe to his weekly eNewsletter TIPS. Just look at his TIPS-archive : going back to July 2002, you’ll find plenty of his really helpful articles on any imaginable subject for personal growth and success.

     From there it is easy to explore his pages for tapes and eBooks, a bookstore, and especially his own “Top 10″ - lists : great stuff for an organised approach to overcome almost any obstacle hampering your progress in life and business.

     A bit of introspection and food for thought helps any day, not just on Sundays. I wouldn’t be surprised if Philip Humbert’s contributions to personal and professional self development also became your favourites very soon.