Gizeh (Cairo), Egypt and Teotihuacan, Mexico

Reading books about history and mystics, I was always intrigued by the pyramids.
I visited Gizeh in 1977 and Teotihuacan in 1983. Just 21 years old, since they told me if you visit both, you will be part of a Golden and Heavenly triangle..))
Will put pictures of Gizeh, Asam (Egypt) and Sudan later here. And will ask a German photographer to allow me to use his beautiful pictures taken in Mexico on this blog.
I have still some nice stories about Mexico to tell.

The Last Stalinist: read and Judge.

Mismanagement

While Erdoğan is often accused of mismanaging the presidential election process, the total fiasco of Baykal is just ignored.

By Yusuf KANLI

It must be peculiar to Turkey. Is there a similar situation anywhere else?
Sure, in a democracy people may oppose certain policies of the leader of their party. They may have a very strong position about certain practices undertaken by their leader. But I do not think there is such a widespread “Voting for my party despite my leader” feeling anywhere else. With this huge success, perennial opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal must have earned a distinguished place for himself in the Guinness Book of Records. If he was not given a place in that book, he has all the right to complain of being subjected to a gross injustice.
The Turkish electorate sent a very strong message to the CHP back in 1999 by keeping it out of Parliament for the first time in the history of the founding party of the modern Turkish republic. It received only 8.7 percent of the votes. The message was loud and clear: Change and get rid of the antagonistic mentality, conservatism, and live up to the heritage of your and the republic's founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk by converting yourself into a progressive force. Another message was that members and supporters of the CHP wanted a rejuvenation of the party. They were against their party becoming a Jurassic park of geriatric dinosaurs.
Read more here.

My first trip to Mexico - 2

Detailed view of Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, Mexico. It is 70 meters high and is the third largest pyramid of the world! More later...

Yazidis and G.I. Gurdjieff

Yazidis are members of a small religious group. Their religion is little known to outsiders, but contains elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and also includes the veneration of Peacock Angel, as shown above.
They were attacked yesterday, Wednesday August the 15t by Al-Qaida, and probably the most violent attack after the fall of Saddam Hussein.



As they believe in a Supreme God, they don't believe in hell, sin or the devil.
The Yazidis' cultural practices are observably Kurdish, and almost all speak Kurmanjî (Northern Kurdish), with the exception of the villages of Bashiqa and Bahazane in Northern Iraq, where Arabic is spoken. Kurmanjî is the language of almost all the orally transmitted religious traditions of the Yazidis. Thus, religious origins are somewhat complex.

The Yazidis, perhaps because of their secrecy, also have a place in modern occultism. G. I. Gurdjieff wrote about his encounters with the Yazidis several times in his book Meetings with Remarkable Men, mentioning that they are considered to be "devil worshippers" by other ethnicities in the region.

G.I. Gurdjieff is a Greek Armenian thinker who spent some time in Istanbul in the beginning of the 20th century.
And he is most notable for introducing the Fourth Way, while he is also recognized for introducing other concepts, such as the Enneagram.
His mystic teaching influenced management theories in the last decade of the 20th century.

Gurdjieff's teaching mainly addresses the question of people's place in the Universe and their possibilities for inner development. He also emphasized that some people live their lives in a form of waking sleep, and that higher levels of consciousness, higher bodies, and various inner abilities are possible.
Gurdjieff taught people how to increase and focus their attention and energy in various ways, and to minimize daydreaming and absentmindedness. According to his teaching, this inner development in oneself is the beginning of a possible further process of change, whose aim is to transform a man into what Gurdjieff believed he ought to be.

It's sad that Yazidis, although known about the stoning of Du’a Khalil Aswad in April of this year, were victims of this brutal attack.

That French thing...

We came back from France last Thursday evening only after 10 days of touring around. I will write more about our tour in my blog, but here I want to report my first observations.

- The cities on the French Riviera are not that special except for their esplanades.
- I didn't see many beautiful French women. Are they all hiding up in Paris, or their beauty is hidden to the eye? :-P
- I don't want to hear anybody complaining about the way we Turks and/or Italians drive any more after seeing how the French are driving. They are crazy. They drive fast on highways, in the cities and, worst of all, inside the parking houses. They do not obey most of the traffic rules and if you point out their mistake they get angry and they always have a finger ready to show you where the sky is. I don't even want to comment on how the women are driving and behaving in traffic...
- If you have a SUV, stay far away from the parking houses in France, because they are made for tiny little cars. On many occasions we were afraid to enter these houses with our car since the max height was most of the time 1.80 meters (and in two of them even 1.70 meters)! Once we parked our car in a parking house but were not able to open the trunk because if we did, it would have touched the ceiling!
- You eat very well in France but you also pay quite much for what you eat. And those crepes... How much we ate.. We even looked for an open crepe shop (most of them were closed for vacation) for over an hour under rain in Lyon, waited for the girl to prepare our crepes for about 20 minutes and ate them again under the rain.. with no umbrella.
- It was very strange to find more than 90% of the churches closed. We love going inside churches, studying their architecture (not that we know anything about architecture, but it is fun) and trying to find some elements, symbols that hint the presence/influence of the Templar knights, Freemasons, Mary Magdalene etc. Do not miss out the cathedral in St. Maximin if you also like that kind of stuff.
- What is it with the French and their love for lingerie? I have never seen so many lingerie shops on one single street in my life.
- I have been stopped by people that were asking for directions many times. They thought I was French. I am not sure whether this is good or bad... that I look 'French', I mean... :-)
- All in all France is a beautiful country definitely worth many other visits. But beware: it is not a cheap touristic destination.
Now I have to pack, again, since me and by sweety are off to Austria this Saturday. We will be relaxing on the mountain in a spa hotel for a week.