Grace of Wisdom: 6 Books to Inspire German Seekers

A fundraiser to publish six German editions of lifechanging books from the Himalayan Tradition.

Current goal: please help us reach the milestone of 16,000 € asap ...

Milestones reached until Mid-July 2024: ~11,000 € of which ...

Für den deutschen Text hier klicken.

Dear friends and fellow seekers of truth within,

my name is Michael Nickel and I am a scientist, a spiritual seeker, a yoga and meditation teacher and last but not least the founder of the German independent small-scale publishing house 'Agni Verlag' (which translates to 'Agni Press') which specializes in German editions of the profound books written by some of the Masters of the Himalayan Tradition.

Please support "The Grace of Wisdom" project - a light that shines for German seekers in dark times.

Today I am seeking your financial support for the endeavour to make the invaluable stream of wisdom of the Himalayan masters available to seekers in German-speaking countries. More precisely I am looking for funds to produce and print German editions of six truly inspiring books by Swami Rama and Pandit Rajmani Tigunait. I call such books from our wisdom tradition "The Grace of Wisdom".

The full info video (9 minutes) below will give you all the background, rationale, aims and visions of "The Grace of Wisdom" fundraiser in detail. You may also read the texts below which will give you even more insight. Should that leave you with open questions, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Thank you for taking the time to explore "The Grace of Wisdom" 2023 crowdfunding campaign.

Warmly,

Michael

The Grace of Wisdom 2023 - A fundraiser to empower a true mission of the heart

While the world at large and especially Europe faces an existential crisis, humans all over the planet are in dire need for knowledge and experiential wisdom which shines a bright light in our dark times and provides hope as well as a clear path towards inner as well as outer freedom and fulfilment in a seemingly topsy-turvy world full of despair, suffering and dissolution. Thus The Grace of Wisdom is highly needed - and we all can make a difference together.

Why this fundraiser is urgently needed - some backgrounds and where we stand

From the foundation of Agni Press in 2018 shining the light of the Himalayan Wisdom Tradition in Germany has been its core mission. For myself it has been - and still is - a true calling of the heart, so I went in full force and published the German translations of ten books by Swami Rama and Pandit Rajmani Tigunait within the first 15 months (see list of all published German edition at the end).

The reason why I chose to found a new publishing company for this endeavour is a simple one, jet it has karmic consequences today under current world wide economic conditions. The simple reason was that I wanted to make sure the German editions of these books which I call "The Grace of Wisdom" will be available for years and years to come. In fact, the license agreements all run for a minimum of a decade with automatic renewals, so the projected availability for each book. Would I have offered my German translations to a established publishing house, the average lifetime of each German edition on the marked would have been around five years. Thus, founding my own publishing house allows for serving this invaluable wisdom and the community of wisdom seekers in Germany on a long-term basis.

Right after this splendid start in 2018/2019 which resulted a highly positive reception within the community of seekers, the pandemic hit and changed everything: throughout Germany book sales of all genres massively dropped due to a several overlapping effects. For a variety of reasons the market for self-help and self-transformation books has been hit especially hard and only started recovering by the end of 2021 to beginning of 2022. Then in February 2022 the war in Europe unfolded just at the doorsteps of Europe and paralysed collective consciousness. Book sales dropped in an unprecedented way from one day to the other: as it seems, utter collective paralysis had hit the general German mindset with suddenly exploding energy prices and costs of living at all time highs resulting in inflation rates that have not been seen for a long time in Germany.

All this transpired into major hurdles to continue this much needed mission. At the same time, I got more and more positive feedback from grateful seekers for whom the books made a difference in their life - effects that will ripple through to their families, communities and thus into the whole of society. Thus my intuition clearly told me, it is time to increase the efforts to let the magic of "The Grace of Wisdom" do its work, despite all economic odds, rather than wait for book sales and thus cash flow to return to the 2019 level.

The time to let "The Grace of Wisdom" unfold its magic amongst German seekers is now! - If you have the economic shakti, please support this magic unfolding!

A mission of the heart, a labour of love and a love offering to the ever flowing wisdom

Agni Press as a small-scale independent publication house with it's clear niche has been designed from the beginning to be self-sustained and very robust after my initial investments into the first books. Cash flow from book sales allowed me to fund the next German editions while I dedicated myself almost full-time to the cause (besides being a freelancer scientist) without paying myself any salary for my work as translator, publisher, chief of production and head of the company. For me, this is a labour of love, a calling by heart, a love offer to the infinite stream of Wisdom of the Himalyan Tradition.

The challenge of book publication in the current dark times

For now the existential crisis in Europe has lead to a drastically reduced cash-flow and heavily increasing paper and printing costs, resulting in a pile of fully or partly translated book projects which got stuck in production face. For the last three years I have tried hard to find find the means to keep up with the initial momentum of Agni Verlag (see books published so far down at the end).

However, here I stand today and have to face an ambiguous reality: whatever I was able to invest so far into this venture is at work in the most positive way: my love, my courage, my work power, my time, my creativity, my endurance as well as my economic input. Even though I am still more than able to commit myself completely with respect to the first six aspects or 'shaktis' just named above, the pandemic and the war related crisis have dried up my all my scientific consulting projects which formed the basis of my income - projects which in turn easily allowed me to give "financial infusions" for new book projects through Agni Press if need be. The truth is: without some additional "economic shakti" in the form of project funding, I can be as enthusiastic as I want - the book projects will be delayed indefinitely under the current conditions of stalled cash flow. Only your support will make a difference to unleash "The Grace of Wisdom" to shine the bright light of ancient wisdom of inner and outer peace and fulfilment in these dark times in Germany.

I know, many of you who read this have been touched by the transformational power of what I call The Grace of Wisdom. Thus my plea for your support: If you can, please contribute through a donation to the flow of this wisdom.

Here is what is needed - your donation put to work:

For the following six projects individual amounts of € 4.000 to € 6.000 (€ 1 equals $ 1.06) for each of the projects are urgently needed to cover production and printing costs (external services). At the same time, I will continue to provide my own working power in the same way as a love offering to the projects exactly like before. These German edition projects are in dire need of 'money shakti' infusion:

Thus, today I am seeking your support to collect a total sum of € 30,000 for this mission of heart, to continue to bring the gift of the message of the Himalayan Masters to the German community of seekers, which most of you know very well and are deeply steeped in.

Two of the books which are on the list of urgent projects.

No matter if the funding goal is met or not, all the donations will put to work in the same way - even if your donations exceed the funding goal. Ideally this fundraiser campaign will allow me to busy me and Agni Verlag during remaining 2023 and early 2024 with bringing out all the above mentioned titles. All donors who wish to be mentioned as patrons in one of the books will be offered this chance. If you have the possibility to sponsor a complete German edition (~ € 5,000) or a significant part of it, please consider it as a love offering the the flow of knowledge of our tradition. In this case please get in touch with me to clarify for which of the books you would like to sponsor the German edition, so that it will be properly mentioned in the book.

Birgit and Michael at Mount Kailash north face in 2019 with the latest editions at that time.

To make it clear: This money is NOT for my personal living! All donations collected from this crowd-funding campaign will completely go into the production of the books mentioned above. My wife Birgit wholeheartedly supports my vision and grants me the freedom to invest myself into this work of love. Her salary as a highschool teacher secures our daily needs and living. We're living a moderate life and due to the economic challenges on my consulting business, we had to reduced our much loved travelling. Despite all that, our mission "Grace of the Wisdom" continues. I am infinitely grateful to Birgit for her loving support, which is not only for me as a human being, but also for the whole of the Himalayan Wisdom Tradition and its masters.

About myself

I am currently 51 years old and ten years ago I have been initiated into the Tradition of the Himalayan Masters, a meditation-centered wisdom tradition which empowers humans to find inner freedom and happiness as well as self-fulfilment in life on all levels. The profound wisdom and techniques of this tradition literally saved my life when I had burned out myself at age 39 running after an academic career. After years of meditation practice and study of the life-affirming philosophy of the Himalayan sages as taught by Swami Rama and his disciple and successor Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, my heart started to call for action to make this invaluable wisdom available to the German community of seekers of truth within and without who were less fortunate than me.

I realized that language barriers kept most seekers in German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as in other European countries away from having access to the wast range of books written in English. Since I received so much from the Himalayan Tradition and its masters, it became clear to me, what my true mission in life is: helping to let this wisdom flow in German language.

In her own mysterious way divine providence has blessed me with all the tools and means necessary for being a publisher, starting with a natural feeling and joy for my German mother-tongue to a playful creativity and all kind of skills related to typesetting, book layout and publication work flow. All this in conjunction with my years of practicing asana, pranayama, relaxation and (mantra) meditation in combination with my deep exploration of yoga philosophy and the spiritual and natural science behind all my practices. Thus my translations of books by Swami Rama and Pandit Rajmani Tigunait have been received very well so far and praised for their ease of readability.

Books published so far by Agni Verlag

(chronological order, translated by myself, Michael Nickel, unless otherwise stated):

Agni Verlag is a climate positive company

From the beginning Agni Verlag has been designed to minimize negative environmental impacts. The company operates at a net-negative CO2 balance. That means we avoid CO2 emissions where possible and we overcompensate all emissions which are still unavoidable. In addition to that we adopt areas in a forest project in Germany which has been untouched for a long long time and thus is close to a primary forest community. Through our 50 year patronage of those areas we help to protect those mega-important old forests which have become so rare. The idea behind that is that whatever amount of wood is used and transformed into paper for the books, the same or more amount of living wood in the form of fully mature old trees is being protected on the longterm. Plus - of course - the paper used for the books originates from sustainably managed forests in Europe. For more information see www.agni-verlag.de/klimaschutz (in German, please use auto-translation, if needed).