CADALfest took place from December 16 to 20, 2022, at Adishakti. I had not planned to go there, but I was very surprised by the four days of round-table discussions, poetry readings and film screenings, concerts and theater performances by a fascinating group of artists, activists and academics. I picked out a few things and went on Saturday to the “Adivasi Round Table discussion with Vandna Tete, Ganga Sahay Meena, Seral Murmu & Ashwini Kumar Pankaj, moderated by Gopika Jadeja”…
Yesterday I followed something in my mind that I find difficult to describe. In everyday language, I might say I followed my intuition. But it is a little more complex. I drove to Tiruvannamalai again. It was the last day of the Karthigai Deepam Brahmotsavam Festival. So on December 6, 2022, a fire was created on this mountain, as it has been for 2500 years. Of course there is a story from prehistoric times about this. Brahman, the universal Self,…
Yesterday I fell asleep expecting to get up early and meditate. I set the alarm for 6 o’clock. In the evening, a French yoga teacher and mountain guide tells me about the early morning hours in India, that they are the best for meditation—I already knew that they were good for Ryas. She also spoke about the morning chants in the towns; I remembered the mantra chants in the temples. I woke at 5:30; temple chants could be heard in…
I still lack the words. The past few days have been shaped by thoughts about the Vedic scriptures. A fellow traveler from another life took me to Nishtha Muller, an Aurovilian who has devoted his life to the Vedic scriptures. For almost two hours, in his very modest dwelling in the forest he planted himself, he told us about Sanskrit, its roots, grammar, pronunciation, the deep spiritual force of the mantras, the cultural history and historical dimension. What stayed with…
I recently met a young Indian man here. He comes from Delhi, and for him South India is also a foreign world, though not as foreign as it is for me. He does not speak Tamil and is also somewhat more composed, or enlightened, in his spirituality, as one might perhaps say. I met him again on the street, and we went to the afternoon school Thamarai on the edge of Auroville, which offers an afternoon program in a village…
What should I take to India? I want to live a different life, in a different society, with different ideas and goals. It is warm there; life will be simple. Apart from the basics, such as a few clothes, I need my technical devices: laptop, phone, camera. And what else? A good flashlight, because the dirt roads there are not lit. And books… There will be a number of libraries there too. I have not read for ‘pleasure’ for a…
For some time I have been waiting. Actually, I like waiting. Waiting is a space and a time in which there is nothing else to do but wait for time to pass. Usually, you cannot do much else except read or talk, or think. Waiting times are therefore always free spaces for me. I especially like waiting in citizens’ service centers, for example; here, all people are equal. Together with others, I am in a space where there is nothing…
Autobahns have always been special places for me. Most of the time, I was not under time pressure; rarely did I have to get from A to B within a certain time. Rather, autobahns are travel routes. There, I find myself in in-between states, a kind of no-man’s-land with infinitely many possibilities. This opens up spaces for thought. Often they are simply empty. The brain is occupied with moving safely through traffic. It is a pleasant kind of occupation; consciousness…
