Today two weeks ago, Jannes suddenly passed over. I was deeply touched when I read the e-mail of his parents informing that he had left – a thrombosis in the brain. The doctors could not figure out any cause. His 33rd birthday would have been three days ago.
When I sent out the information via the mailing lists to the groups of the WTT, there were many reaction. Many people in different parts of the world knew Jannes. He had grown up in Berlin in a family deeply related to the WTT, and so he had participated in various group lives with Master Kumar, where I had met him early.
In 2006, I spent a week with my family in their home in Berlin. Jannes was 17, my boys 15 and 13. Jannes already had a pilot’s license for gliders since the age of 15. And he even had earned some money and got a glider of his own, a 2-seater. It was stationed on a glider airfield in Brandenburg, an old military airport from GDR times, not far from Berlin. He spent all his free time there, in the aero-club. And he invited us for a flight. It was a great adventure for all of us.
I did the first tour. Shortly after starting, we reached an updraft and in small spirals we zoomed up like in an elevator, up to 1200m. Then we went to a tour over the country for 45 minutes. The next flights were my sons and my wife. The next days we went to different places in Berlin together with the Berlin group, and Jannes.
I met him several times in India. He was always very help-oriented, and so I asked him to take care of organising things for the group, which he did very willingly. I always tried to integrate young people in goodwill activities, for which it needs time, willingness to selflessly commit themselves, skills and the readiness to work in a team network. And endurance to carry out, under a certain supervision. Few were willing or able to do so. Jannes was.
In 2012 already, I had asked him to help preparing the German pages for the relaunch of the WTT website – quite a lot of work, and he was the only one working on this, carefully. In 2016, when we dared to bring a major part of the WTT website into Portuguese language, with the help of an American lady, a retired translator living in Sao Paulo, he also did it single-handedly.
At the same time, and besides his studies, he had to earn his living. Jannes worked in an organisation trying to sell magazine subscriptions – a touch job. They went for a week or two to a certain area in Germany and there went from house to house, according to a plan, trying to get subscription contracts. From there, he received the money.
From a distance, I witnessed different crises he was going through, crises of relations which broke, crises in his studies, in the search to find his path. It was a rigorous training by life. From time to time we exchanged about it.
Jannes’ great dream was to become a Lufthansa pilot. He had to overcome a number of difficulties, and it was a challenging formation in Europe and in the US, but he succeeded. In parallel, he studied economy and later physics – he did not want to rely on being a pilot only. He did a bachelor and was about to do a Master degree. When he got his pilot licence, Lufthansa had stopped employing new pilots, so he went for a while to German Wings. But finally, he got his job with Lufthansa – but not for long. A little virus made its tour over the globe, and with the pandemia breakdown of international flights Lufthansa could not run flights. Jannes decided to bury his dream and resigned. He wanted to focus on his Master degree and find another job in this direction.
The last time we met was in 2019 at Mount Shasta in California, during the May Call seminar with Master Kumar, his last international tour.
The last direct contact I had with Jannes was beginning of this year, when I asked him if he could help in the digital archives project, and he said yes. But the stage where he could be of help had not yet come. He passed over on Leo full moon. Thursday before his passing, Master Kumar had written:
“Jannes is very dear to me and to all of us. We let him go today himself as moon is ascending towards Full moon by Sunday. He finds his way into freer and lighter world. We join forces for his peaceful and later joyful journey. Om Santhi.”
