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 [...]
I have always resisted the word meditation. Much about it seemed suspect to me. However, I have always practiced my own forms of meditation without calling them that, or without having learned them. For me, meditation includes: a) contemplation, i.e., sinking into a thought [...]
Many films feature grand hotels that are centrally located and serve as meeting places for the political, intellectual, and economic elite. I have always perceived this as something very elitist, colonial, and power-hungry. What I missed in the films, and what was probably rarely discussed there, is the networking that takes place in such locations. […]
There was a time in Europe when people spoke of universal geniuses. In Germany, that would be Alexander von Humboldt or Goethe, in France an Enlightenment thinker, in Italy the Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci. In antiquity, Aristotle. Certainly, there are wise people in many cultures and eras that history tells of, they […]
The Kena Upanishad describes how the self as such does not exist. Who sees in seeing, who hears in hearing? This cannot be answered. In the Christian tradition, a self has been constructed for this purpose. I see, I hear, cogito ergo sum, imago ergo sum.... What is this cogito (I think), the imago [...]?