New Spirits - Reading Deleuze in India
Consciousness only exists in connection with other consciousness
I didn't take much with me to India, just a backpack full, mostly clothes, books, and electronics. However, I did pack good headphones and recently bought an external Hi-Fi sound card from Tempotec for my USB-C port. It wasn't cheap, but it's excellent. I was really happy when it arrived today, and of course, I tried it out immediately. What a mixed experience. The music immediately brought back memories; I remembered listening to it in...
Weiterlesen
Last year, I participated in a Zen meditation circle. Less because I consider myself a Zen Buddhist, and more because I was seeking the quiet community to pursue my practice. During dokusan, I engaged with actively sensing my questions. I let go and left behind a lot. That was surprisingly easy. The ‚teacher‘ pointed out to me that the homelessness I am actively initiating is also a spiritual state. That was liberating. Instead of dedicating one's self to an identity...
Weiterlesen
The Kena Upanishad describes how the Self as such does not exist. Who sees in seeing, who hears in hearing? This is unanswerable. In the Christian tradition, a Self has been constructed for this. I see, I hear, cogito ergo sum, imago ergo sum... What is this cogito (I think), this imago (I imagine)? That Self which establishes identity, possesses responsibility, acts, and interacts. That thinking, when it becomes aware of itself, ...
Weiterlesen
When the internet became publicly accessible, meaning in the mid-90s, there was the phenomenon of people putting their deepest secrets online. The anonymity, the simplicity, and the speed were alluring. The confession was quickly made, anonymity largely preserved, and perhaps there was even that little thrill that someone one knows might be reading the secrets without knowing who was behind them. These tele-confessions were cathartic. Today, it has reversed: everyone is supposed to see what you're doing, without noticing...
Weiterlesen
Today I dreamed that I was setting boundaries. I changed something in my life because I could no longer bear it. My dream provided me with an image for it that I could easily understand. Dreams have always fascinated me. I dream a lot, vividly, entire
Weiterlesen
Today I heard a quote from Sri Aurobindo. He said, in essence, that each of us has multiple selves. That was clear to me. For decades, that has been my experience, that the different aspects of a personality are many and the idea of a subjective identity is a construct. I always saw the principles of construction as ideological, serving the logic of passports, individual responsibility and jurisdiction, but also of guilt and atonement, the idea of a soul in the Christian context, etc. My reaction...
Weiterlesen
A while ago, I was talking to a friend about letting go of many ideas. I told her that, unscientifically, I visit my memories and think about why certain ideas are no longer interesting to me, that these are often ideas I engaged with during my studies. Big ideas! From Kant and Hegel, etc. She was quite taken with my story and asked if I would write it down. I said, "Why? I'm saying goodbye, after all…"
Weiterlesen
When I was a teenager, I lost my heart to someone who lived in Rome. I traveled to the Eternal City with no money, no plan – it was supposed to be a surprise. That went somewhat awry. We shared a pizza, but otherwise, I had a lot of time to myself. On one of the hills, I spent many hours looking at the sky. I thought about Einstein. What else. Everything else seemed too trivial. There, for the first time, I had…
Weiterlesen
German German 
English
French