We only live in the moment. This often sounds like an accusation. You shouldn't just live in the moment; think about the future, be aware of your responsibilities. Living in the moment is seen as daydreaming, as unproductive and escapist in many modern societies. For those who have time beyond mere survival in a capitalist, socialist, or any other kind of economy and can spare some time for themselves, the great driving force seems to be to leave something behind:...
The contrast could hardly be greater: Auroville is flat, hot on the coast, and it wants to be a city, based on the teachings of Mirra Alfassa and Sri Aurobindo. At their core, their visions are based on the idea of bringing divine consciousness to Earth, a „download“ of the Supramental. Some seem to be able to claim access to it. And sometimes I feel like I understand what they're talking about. The experience of deep spirituality in meditation, in work, in being...
I am back in Europe for a short time and I see a busyness, an energy of constant doing. Working, discussing, cleaning up, running errands, attending to obligations, organizing, optimizing, presenting, questioning, exchanging. Something is constantly being done. Having something to do seems important, doing nothing seems unproductive and requires justification. However, not being productive has many important qualities, so inaction is sometimes a form of resistance, or quiet contemplation can be understood as inner work, a work,...
Sometimes I react strangely. Someone does something unexpected, an uncertainty within me is awakened. How do I process that and how do I react to it, and what does "react" even mean here? So it's about expectation, a being in the world that anticipates. The future is considered predictable and is also seen as such. If I do this or that, someone might react in one way or another. But sometimes it happens that the other person's reaction is different. I...
First Encounters with Ragas As a teenager, I listened to ragas for hours. I knew nothing about them. I looked things up a bit: microtonality, meditation, melodic progression. I didn't understand anything else. But they were the deepest musical experiences – a meditation through music. To this day, ragas lead me inward or into deep states of realization, which are not rational, however. It's more of a way of being in the world. Music as a Shared Space and Pure Energy Listening to music draws…
Zen is about finding your true self. But it doesn't exist, and that's the mystery of our existence. In a world of representations, cognitive dissonance, and alternative facts, it's good to immerse yourself in the essence of existence, in a non-dual being. Thinking helps very little here, because thinking is actually always thinking about something, reflecting on something. Thinking is an activity that refers to something, that deals with representations of the world. That which...
So, a koan. I'd heard of them before, those mysterious Zen riddles meant to lead the mind out of the purely rational and open up new forms of insight. I decided not to read much about them or ask others about them. I wanted to get one from a Zen master. While Doksan was asking me a few things about myself. We closed our eyes, he smiled, and told me to imagine a forest with a small stream flowing through it. When...
I am in a sesshin, a 2.5-day short form of intensive Zen meditation. Thoughts and images about the artificial general intelligence (AGI) that we are currently creating keep coming to me. More and more people from the fields of humanities, psychology, or team organization are showing themselves to be impressed, surprised, or anxious regarding AGI's capabilities. It seems the Turing test was passed some time ago, and we are now watching an intelligence develop that seems superior to us. This intelligence...
German 
English 
French