GI have just returned from a devotional meditation. It is the anniversary of Sri Aurobindo. He left his body 72 years ago, as they say here. I have been thinking and talking a lot about his commentaries on the Kena Upanishad for the last few days. I came across the word 'intermiscence'. It is almost only used by Aurobindo. [...]
Diagrams - philosophical
II am 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 reflections and the explanations on the psychology of the gods open up access to these 'sacred' texts. I remember my Latin studies, the Indo-Germanic roots, the sounds that [...]
What to do?
Dhe last time I seriously asked myself what I should do was during my studies. I studied philosophy and I was often asked what I wanted to do with it. What a stupid question, I always thought. It's an inner urge, almost a compulsion that you can't resist. Every such [...]
Elements - Fire
II remember always staring into the fire since I was a child. I think a lot of people do that. There is something fascinating about fire. In the Vedas, Agni is the god of fire, one of the five elements alongside water, air, earth and ether. The Greeks also have these elements. I didn't realize this for a very long time [...]
Immanence
GYesterday I saw two millipedes mating. It was pretty much the most fascinating thing I've seen in a very long time. The creatures intertwined, rubbed and entwined, there was rhythm, devotion, engulfment. The two met by chance and after a few minutes moved on in different directions. A [...]
Read
Se have been reading in India for three weeks now: Deleuze, Upanishads, Sri Aurobindo. Sometimes I meditate in between. The rest is still a remnant of everyday life from the New World. Reading the news, consuming entertainment media, organizing things that don't really have any meaning here but need continuity so that they don't break in old Europe and the New [...].
Context
Schopenhauer, who was a great admirer of the Upanishads, wrote a small book "Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde" (1847). He identifies 4 forms of causality, e.g. small cause - large effect, or large cause - small effect etc... I was fascinated by this because it offers a broader understanding than the purely [...]
Flusser
Goday, after many years, I finally drove to the center of Roubion. Vilém Flusser lived here for many years. I quoted his books a lot in my seminars and used them as a basis for discussion. Especially his philosophy of photography. Flusser is a wild theorist. He has written a lot about images, media, language, technology, signs, history... It seems to me that [...]
Packing
What should I take with me to India? I want to live a different life, in a different society, with different ideas and goals. It's warm there, life will be easy. Apart from the basics like a few items of clothing, I'll need my technical devices such as my laptop, cell phone and camera. And what else? A good flashlight, because the field paths there [...]
Knowledge
Ehere was a time in Europe when it was said that there were universal scholars. In Germany this would be Alexander von Humboldt or Goethe, in France an Enlightenment philosopher, in Italy the Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci. In antiquity, Aristotle, there are certainly wise people in many cultures and epochs, of whom history tells us that they [...]
Protected: Soulmate
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Getting out is a question of perspective
Doday life is so complex and there are so many different ways of living. There is no right or wrong way to live. Life is a gift. But what do you say about the negative energies, the destruction and aggression, the greed and resentment? That's all part of it. There is only acceptance. But acceptance means [...]
Kinematograf - Images of thought
While meditating, I often watch my thoughts come and go and try to slow them down. Thoughts come and go, and often I don't understand where they come from and why they are replaced at some point by a completely different thought. What chain of associations is at work here? These chains of thought seem to [...]
Plato's cave
In Plato's allegory of the cave, people sit in front of a wall on which the shadows of real objects in the world can be seen. As they have only seen the shadows in their entire lives, they think that these are reality. The philosopher's task is to explain to the people that they should turn around in order to [...]
Forest
Dhe forest is a wonderful habitat. I recently heard a little story about a man who whistled a tune whenever he entered the forest. The animals recognized him after a while and accepted his presence. They no longer ran away and sometimes even greeted him. We usually don't see the forest as it is, [...]
It takes a village
Im sitting in a café in France. There's a lot of chatter around me. This morning I was 'on the Internet'. How different these experiences are. It's hard to compare pears with apples, and yet we often do. Working in the office and working from home, for example, are similar, searching for community on social networks or on the [...]
Marx
I have been thinking about Marx for so many years. Who hasn't? The idea of an equal and solidary community, free of ideological superstructures or irrational will-o'-the-wisps. A world that knows only matter and sees in it a scientific, progressive movement. Their goal? A world in which humanity is perfect, i.e. harmonious, [...]
Farewell
VSome time ago, I was talking to a friend about the fact that I was saying goodbye to many ideas. I told her that I - quite unscientifically - visit my memories and think about why I no longer find certain ideas interesting, that these are often ideas that I dealt with in my studies. Great ideas! [...]
Possible worlds
Dhe best of all possible worlds? When I was studying philosophy in Heidelberg, I read about the logic of possible worlds. Everything possible is also real, just not accessible to me at the moment. This was an answer to a basic problem of propositional logic, namely that an 'if ..., then' sentence - with a false premise and a true [...]
Reading Deleuze in India
Mnemosyne Atlas This is a personal blog. However, it is also about a transformation of consciousness. Consciousness does not exist singularly within people. It only exists in connection with other consciousness. Consciousness is communicative. A journey into consciousness is therefore always more than just a personal journey. It is a manifestation. 2016 traveled [...]