During the Chola Empire, the layout of Shiva temples was formalized to a great degree. Based on the Agamas and Shastras, the temple was fully developed into a place in space, time, and consciousness where the microcosm and macrocosm mirror each other. When a temple is built, a site will be chosen, and it has [...]
1st lecture: Apples and Mangoes
The snake in paradise seduced Eve to eat a fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge that holds the distinction between good and evil. Why was the tree of knowledge a forbidden tree? Why did the snake seduce Eve? What did the fruit taste like? When I asked myself why I want to talk about [...]
Play and Blunder
Spiel - misstep In the West, I used to think that playing had to do with games and games had to do with rules. To play a game is to enter a space that is constrained by rules, and the player can develop strategies within those parameters to act according to the rules, with the goal of [...]
Understand
What does it mean to understand another person? It's easy to understand a counterpart when you agree, because then you simply agree with yourself, perhaps even enjoy seeing your own thinking reflected in the other, enriched by a slightly different perspective, more colorful, more lively, more energetic, because both are happy to have found someone [...].
Full moon
Et is full moon in India. Time for self-reflection, meditation and inner reflection. I have never really thought about death. It has always been a boundary for me, the thing that defines our existence in a negative way. Finitude throws us back on ourselves, or so I thought. I somewhat agreed with Heidegger here. Something [...]
Structure and process
Dhe traditional music of India, the raga, is melodic in relation to a keynote. Occidental music is harmonic, i.e. simultaneous and complex. In the Occident, much is thought in terms of structures; for a while there was much talk of structuralist and post-structuralist thinking. Complex systems can be found everywhere: in philosophy, in canonical texts and pictorial systems, in technology [...]
Enlightenment
AEnlightenment - enlightenment: the paradox of enlightenment Enlightenment is one of those things. Someone recently asked me if I was looking for enlightenment. I was a little taken aback. But because I held this person in particularly high esteem, I tried to be honest - yes, no, um, I don't really know, actually I do, if I [...]
Psychic Being
II broke off my night meditation a little earlier to switch to writing meditation. A few things suddenly seemed clear to me. The need to align my own body in meditation, to find the right position, which for me means following the movements, the tensions and relaxations of the muscles, the skeleton, the spine. Then the breath [...]