Recently, in Auroville, a play by the landlords of Bharat Nivas was removed from the program. The reason given was that some in the community took offense to it even before it was performed. This raises questions. What is art allowed to do, when is a ban justified? Coupled with this, of course, is the question of what the task of art is, what art should therefore do. The question invites reflection on the role of art in general, here in India and...
Learn more about the artists and their inspiring practices in Pondycherry. Discover the visual language and spiritual depth of the art landscape around Auroville. Immerse yourself in the world of art beyond representational conception and discover the vibration of the senses. Experience how Deleuze's thinking and the Kena Upanishads are interwoven. Be inspired by the question of the body without organs and discover the limits of the physical body.
For 3,000 years, the books of the Vedas have been preserved in memory in India. The Rigveda (10,552 verses), Samaveda (1549 verses), Yajurveda (4001 verses), and Atharvaveda (5977 verses), as well as the Upanishads (approx. 1800 verses), have been passed down from generation to generation. The grammar of Sanskrit has not fundamentally changed, and the pronunciation has been meticulously conveyed through precise phonetic descriptions. Thus, these texts sound the same today as they did 3,000 years ago. They are written in the form of mantras, that is, in verse form and...
Recently, a friend asked me about the relationship between Eastern and Western culture. This is, of course, an enormous question that I also ponder and that, naturally, no one can truly answer. However, I want to formulate a few thoughts: The distance from an imagined center. The ‚Western‘ world, based on classical antiquity, Christianity, the Enlightenment, and materialism, is contrasted with the Occidental world of the Assyrians and Persians, Islam, and the idea of a divinely guided commonwealth. This...
Discover the importance of the five senses and learn how proprioception as a possible sixth sense represents a revolution. Immerse yourself in the world of perception and consciousness. #Philosophy
I'm just back from devotions and meditation. It's the anniversary of Sri Aurobindo. He left his body 72 years ago, as they say here. I've spent the last few days reflecting and talking a lot about his commentaries on the Kena Upanishad. I came across the word ‚intermiscence‘ there. It's used almost exclusively by Aurobindo. I asked everyone I met what the word meant. A friend here found a translation into German: ‚ineinanderfließen‘ (it describes in German...
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...