New Spirits - Reading Deleuze in India
Consciousness only exists in connection with other consciousness
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. […]
My perception changes when I arrive in India. The smell, the sounds, the slowness, the intuition, the acceptance, hope are wonderful things that I see. Others may see stench, noise, inefficiency, irrationality, and resignation, despair. I think it's this other perspective that allows me to feel comfortable in India. So I have completely [...]
Auroville was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa. The architect Roger Anger developed the city plan for it. It is modeled on a cosmic spiral nebula. The land made available to Auroville was a dry plateau. A forest has been planted since the early years. There is a beautiful, slow documentary about it (Ever Slow Green (2020) – S.O.S. […]
On a boulevard in Paris, a cafe and bad music, sun and many people. So many people want to be seen. They present themselves as busy, sexy, cool, knowledgeable, adventurous, athletic, educated, cultured, or indifferent. Many want others to notice them. They see this as who they want to be. Perhaps they live their lives in a certain [...]
Yesterday, after many years, I finally went to the village 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 [...]
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 simple. 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 [...]
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 […]
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