New Spirits - Reading Deleuze in India
Consciousness only exists in connection with other consciousness
Texts on Upanishads, Meditation, Yoga, Mantras, Brahman, Aurobindo, and Spiritual Practice in India.
As a teenager and student, I started meditating, and I still have vague memories of my first meditations from that time. Strength and calm, concentration – mostly at night. These were very special moments. I didn't do it often. As a student, I continued to meditate very irregularly. I remember some of these mostly 1-2 hour meditations as if they just happened. I always lacked the words (when I forced myself to name it, I reluctantly said transcendental), I…
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“the eye thinks even more than it listens” (Deleuze) Ich erinnere mich nun, dass ich, bevor ich anfing, Deleuze zu lesen, mich an einer Prozessästhetik abgearbeitet hatte. Ich habe ein 100-Seiten-Manuskript gebastelt, mit Notizen, Zitaten, Strukturskizzen. Ich wollte weg von der Idee, dass Kunst aus Objekten besteht, die in einer besonderen Form wahrgenommen werden, denn daraus ergeben sich zwei wesentliche Stränge von Überlegungen: 1.) Was macht ein Objekt aus, das wir als Kunst bezeichnen, und 2.) wieso ist die Wahrnehmung…
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I'm slowly approaching Sanskrit. On Thursdays, Nishtha holds a seminar on the Rigveda. The joint recitation in Sanskrit, the detailed analysis of the translation, Nishtha's philological considerations, and the explanations of the psychology of the gods open up access to these ‚sacred‘ texts. I remember my Latin studies, the Indo-European roots, the sounds that echo in the Ragas, phonetics as an expression of existence, language as sound and vibration, communication as rhythm. The breath of life, yoga, vitality, thinking in...
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Das letzte Mal, dass ich mich ernsthaft gefragt habe, was ich tun soll, war während meines Studiums. Ich habe Philosophie studiert und ich wurde oft gefragt, was ich damit tun möchte. Was für eine bescheuerte Frage, dachte ich immer. Es ist ein innerer Drang, fast ein Zwang, dem man sich nicht entgegenstellen kann. Jeder solcher Versuch muss scheitern, es gibt nur ein Vorwärtsdenken. Es war also gar nicht wirklich die Frage, was ich tun soll, oder was zu tun sei,…
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Yesterday I fell asleep with the expectation of waking up early to meditate. I set my alarm for 6 AM. In the evening, a French yoga instructor and mountain guide told me that the early morning hours in India are the best for meditation – I already knew they were good for *ryas*. She also spoke of the morning chants in the cities; I remembered the mantra chants in the temples. I woke up at 5:30 AM. Temple chants were...
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I remember I've always stared into the fireplace since I was a child. Many people do that, I think. Fire is fascinating. In the Vedas, Agni is the god of fire, one of the 5 elements alongside water, air, earth, and ether. The Greeks also have these elements. I didn't understand this for a very long time and found it ‚unscientific‘. I thought of elements in terms of physics and chemistry, and there it only makes limited sense. Mythology Within the...
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For many years I've known I wanted to practice ‚yoga‘ but never got around to it. Similar to meditation, I didn't feel ready for it, or I was put off by Western esoteric forms that ultimately view both meditation and yoga as self-optimization. Meditation and yoga are philosophical, spiritual, and ultimately transcendent practices; overcoming one's self, opening oneself to a greater consciousness. All of this seems so clear now. My ‚study‘ of Indian philosophy is slowly taking shape...
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For many years now, my mind has been filled with emptiness most of the time. My memory isn't good either, and I often repeat words or sentences in my mind without knowing why. Often, it's simply experiences in a word in an endless loop, so to speak, like a mantra. This worried me for a long time. I tried to find excuses and justifications for it. For example, that I've done a lot of mental work and my mind is simply exhausted, down to...
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