Movement instead of rootedness

I recently asked myself whether I really want to be grounded. Am I a tree that puts its roots into the ground and doesn't move, but grows in the environment where the seed once sprouted? Or do I even want to be a rock in the surf that lets the water wash over it, gives way a little over the millennia and loses itself in the sand?
My idea of human existence is actually a different one, rather that of movement, of exploration and also development, right up to mastery and conquest, of connection or withdrawal to the self.
Forming an identity is an integrative process. Growing up is a passage through stages: childhood, puberty, adulthood, old age ... Private, personal, professional, creative, spiritual are different fields in which the self wants to find itself, experiences itself and loses itself.
We are constantly moving in this complex landscape. We do not put down roots, we are not a rock in the surf. And yet there are always periods of calm in which we linger, reflect, rest within ourselves. Achieving such a state is probably what is meant by grounding.

Mental demarcation as an ordering of the self

I have often been told that I am good at mental boundaries. I have taken this as a compliment, although I am aware that it is a double-edged sword. Separating work and private life, distinguishing friendship from love and family or keeping different desires and fears apart allows my self to realize itself in different areas - even peripheral areas. That's how I thought.
I thought this way because I was always suspicious of the concept of the self. Because I didn't believe in a soul, because I was too anchored in the meaning construction mechanisms of Western culture, in which specialization, radicalization and stylization have an intrinsic value. This intrinsic value defines success, and I was satisfied with the success I had, or so I thought.

Permeability, decision and being held

I think differently now, and that hurts, brings out euphoria, creates boredom and makes me nervous. I am still trying to maintain mental boundaries, but they are becoming more permeable. I am dismantling the fences in the landscape.
But does this mean that I have to make a few decisions? Many things can no longer coexist as they did before, it seems. I ask myself that. Can I cultivate my land? Will I settle down inwardly, or perhaps rather become unassuming, let go, trust in larger contexts, allow myself to be driven, guided, directed, become an instrument of a greater being.
Here in this thought, in the experience of a held self, is the deeper meaning of being grounded. It is a grounding in heaven. The Upanishads speak of the banyan tree, a kind of fig whose roots are in heaven. The tree is a cycle. And also the image is just a container for a complex nervous system that connects organs and feeds consciousness.

First encounters with ragas

As a teenager, I listened to ragas for hours. I didn't know anything about them. I looked them up a little: Microtonality, meditation, tone sequence. That was all I understood. But it was the most profound musical experience - a meditation on music. To this day, ragas lead me into my inner self or into deep states of insight, but they are not rational. Rather, it is a way of being in the world.

Music as a shared space and pure energy

Listening to music draws us all into the realms of emotional landscapes, daydreaming, aesthetic experience. It is emotional, abstract, temporal; it allows the other senses to fade in or out, to recall memories or forget something. We can dream up a future, yearn or express emotions - let them out.

When we make music together, practise, dance, listen together or even just recommend music, we enter a shared space. This space is a different dimension. It has no material reference as the other senses have (e.g. in the performing arts or in cooking). Music corresponds to the ether, to space itself. Vibration requires a physical carrier, but is itself pure energy.

Music, consciousness and the fourth reality

When my senses mix - smell, touch, sound, taste and sight - the messengers of my nervous system unite somewhere inside me, perhaps in my head or my heart, and form a basis for consciousness there. This ocean of consciousness, which is fed by the senses, can access a reality through them: This is what we call the waking state.

In the dream state, we access another reality, a reality made up of memories, feelings and fantasies. Or we go into deep sleep, where the senses do not reach consciousness. However, since I continue to exist, as I experience every morning, my self was apparently somewhere else entirely. It was probably where the material world as we understand it is irrelevant. We were in the dark ocean of pure existence.

In the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, however, a fourth state is mentioned - the state that can perhaps be described as "enlightened". In this state, we are awake but not bound to our senses. We do not perceive, but we also do not dream, we do not sleep and yet we grasp a higher reality. We know about the world in a deeper sense. I see my inner self and the world as such, I understand that my everyday consciousness is functional but limited. I become aware of my ignorance. I know that I know nothing. I am one with the world, even though I seem to be outside of it. One could speculate here about the ideas of the transcendental, advaita or immanence. But I prefer not to do that, as it gets lost in intellectual gimmicks.

Music, and for me personally ragas, have something of this fourth reality. I expressly do not want to say here that listening to music is like an enlightened state, and yet I am suggesting this parallel. I am not asleep and I am not aware, I am not dreaming and I am wide awake. I feel myself in a world that is often more intense than reality. Sometimes I escape into it. But when I listen with great concentration, when I become one with the music, then something shines within me - with a purity and clarity that I otherwise only know from meditation.

In music, we identify with something. Music is a carrier of something that I can become. In meditation, I can also become something; if it goes well, I become one.

Contemporary art is obsessed with the "next step". The avant-garde, the unprecedented, the new and unique. But in the hunt for the new, we lose sight of something essential: artistic practice itself.

Artistic practice is not just about crossing boundaries. It belongs to those who use art for self-exploration, spiritual practice, healing, therapy or craft. But in today's culture, especially in the West, we act as if progress is the only thing that matters.

At its core, however, art is about practice. It is about being in the world, seeing clearly, understanding yourself and others. Art can represent the outer world or explore the inner. It can be meditation, beauty, communication, love, fear, vision or simply self-expression. Somehow we have forgotten that.

This oblivion has deep roots. In the past, the wealthy used art to show off their exclusivity, make others envious and prove their power. Over time, progress became associated with intellect, reason and building "brave new worlds". But is this true progress? Or should we instead pay attention to the development of our whole being - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual - and the integration of all these dimensions?

Art is one of the tools for such integration. It should not be reduced to a spectacle of who can go furthest to the edge. Exploration is valuable, yes, but it does not define art. Unfortunately, the art market has put it front and center, while discrediting art that connects us to our humanity.

This reflects a broader trend: alienation. We are disconnected from our feelings, our souls and our social selves. In this state, we are more easily molded into consumers - isolated, disoriented, and we buy into narratives that seem more complex, educated or sophisticated. And we accept them as superior.

And why? Because of the false promise of progress. Academic research, technology, inventions - all of these have brought us amazing conveniences: smartphones, airplanes, modern kitchens, air conditioning. They are comfortable and luxurious, so we assume they are good.

But like fries and cheeseburgers, what feels good isn't always what nourishes us.

Perhaps it is time to return to what really nourishes us. To art as a practice of wholeness, connection and presence. Creating and experiencing not for the sake of progress, but for the sake of being human.

And this is what the AI says:

A stroke, a pause.

Not progress, not achievement -
just presence on paper.

The brush moves as the body breathes,
crossing, curving, breaking,
revealing strength and imperfection alike.

No need for meaning,
for novelty,
for the "next step."

This mark is enough.
A reminder that art is practice -
a way of being human, here and now.

An apple, a strawberry, a melon or a passion fruit, a banana or a plum, a tomato or a cucumber, a bean or a grain, a coconut and a pomegranate. Fruit wants to be eaten, it wants to give pleasure, nourish and sometimes intoxicate. They shimmer and ferment, decompose and exude fragrances, they catch the eye, beguile the senses, create pleasure and enjoyment.

They are not like that by chance. Fruits reflect a desire of those who eat them: Humans, horses, monkeys, ants, beetles, birds, fish, hedgehogs, dogs and cats, snails, spiders, snakes, flies, giraffes and parrots. They all react to different fruits. Some fruits have a hard shell, some are very soft. Some are heavy and large, others small and light. Some are sweet or sour, bitter or salty, smell intense or very delicate, stink or beguile.

Fruits want to be eaten, so they move on. An apple says: take me with you, a strawberry wants to melt in your mouth, a passion fruit offers itself in its voluptuousness, tenderness and intensity, a coconut wants to be cracked, thrown and crushed in order to offer its flesh and juice as refreshment to feast on. The bean hangs and waits, the grain gets caught in the fur, the tomato bursts cheekily in its redness, scarred, and nestles into the hand that grasps it.

The fruit and the animal unite in pleasure, in devotion and in the search. The reward takes place in the ecstasy of consumption, the fruit reaches its goal, the animal is satisfied, the ecstasy and intoxication flare up in consumption. At the end there is the shitting, the mushrooms break apart, which did not surrender to the senses as a stimulus in the fire of pleasure.

These berries, drupes, legumes, pseudo-fruits and caryopses are preceded by the flower. That fragrant, attractive organ of the plant that can be desired and inseminated. Its face speaks, it laughs and opens up, it joins the ranks of the wreath. Here nature achieves pure form, art and beauty, construction, dwelling and resting place. Nature sends a signal, it communicates, it acts in abundance and intoxication.

I read Georges Bataille (1897-1962) many years ago and it came to mind when I wrote this. It could be said that these fruits are not merely food, but manifestations of abundance itself, in which beauty, pleasure, decay and excrement are inextricably intertwined. As Bataille saw it, nature wants to be wasted in intoxication, it finds its truth in waste, in ecstasy and transgression. Every fruit that we enjoy thus already carries within it the movement of life, death and transgression.

Zen is about finding the true self. But there is no such thing, and that is the mystery of our existence. In a world of representations, cognitive dissonance and alternative facts, it is good to sink into the essence of existence, into a non-dual being. Thinking only helps to a very limited extent, because thinking is actually always a Thinking about somethinga Thinking about something. Thinking is an activity that relates to something that deals with representations of the world. What I think, whatever it may be, is not real in the material sense. It can represent something material. Thinking, or more generally mind and matter, we think differently. This is the basic problem of thinking: thinking cannot be non-dual. It is trapped in duality, but cannot dissolve it.

The self is quite different, but similar in its paradoxes. The self is what drives us, what makes us conscious, what identifies and differentiates us; it is unique and individual. But it does not exist, neither materially nor logically-transcendentally. It may be connected to the soul, to the heart-mind, but that doesn't help at this point because it becomes dangerously tautological. We cannot understand something that we do not understand by equating it with something that we also do not understand. That only distracts us.

The true self emerges when it ceases to exist - and I mean that very seriously. When I go into meditation, become calm and concentrate on emptiness, i.e. when the pauses between the events of the head cinema become longer, a window opens that initially fills with a kind of trance state. This is beautiful and allows for completely different experiences. I've already written about this a few times: Thinking becomes fast, it understands intuitively, it can penetrate areas that remain blocked to everyday thinking; it is blissful and intense. But it has only detached itself from the self to a certain extent. It has to detach itself a little from the self, otherwise it cannot gain this lightness, but it remains anchored in the self. It is still me who is doing something that is difficult to understand and that gets caught up in similar problems as normal thinking. What is real, what is just imagination?

So I have managed to free myself a little. I have calmed these thoughts that relate to the world, and I have activated a way of seeing that is fed by memory, knowledge, vision, imagination, but only moves in that world of pure consciousness. It is an intuitive knowledge, an omnipresence, it is almost outside of space and time; it is the place where it is identical with itself, i.e. the self ceases to exist and connects with the deepest ground of our existence. The deepest ground of our existence is mysterious and based on something we cannot grasp. It is beyond our self.

Zen brings me closer to this mystery. It anchors me in my physical existence and at the same time shows me that this existence is non-dualistically one with everything. I am Buddha, you are Buddha, we are all Buddha. There is only Buddha - kill Buddha when you see him.

I think about Deleuze, the movement of becoming (becoming). To extinguish the sound of the stream, I must become the sound; to enter the stream, I become part of it. When I linger in the forest, I take part in the silence and the chirping, the rustling of the leaves. I become one with nature.

That idea of Romanticism - oneness with nature, with a loved one, with the cosmos, with God - generates bliss, delight, bliss, ananda. Deleuze certainly does not use these terms. His philosophy of immanence, of nonduality, attempts to describe the changes of the world, its becoming and disintegration, its construction, its structure, its order, its laws and dynamics through terms such as becoming, deterritorialization, flight, rhizome, repetition, rhythm, etc.. However, his philosophy remains essentially a movement of the concept.

He breaks away from the rigidity of Anglo-American philosophy of language, which focuses on an empirical concept of truth, and instead attempts to describe movements of thought that depict a more complex reality. The central question remains, however, how our thinking, our perception, our experience, our being can be directed towards something outside of ourselves - how our consciousness can draw something into itself, process it, analyze it, observe it and experience it. How can my consciousness become one with what it has as its object? This fundamental problem of almost all Western models of dualism can actually only be resolved through immanence.

When I step into a stream in my imagination and try to switch off the sound, I have to become one with that stream. How do I become one - regardless of whether I actually step into the stream or just imagine it? This is how I experience it in meditation: My consciousness sinks into the depths of existence, understands itself as part of the whole, becomes one with that primordial consciousness, emptiness, Brahman, existence, and sees itself as identical with what it is in its self-awareness.

When I hear a stream rushing, the noise is nothing other than my consciousness itself: the vibration of the water and the vibration of the air, the vibrations and my ear that receives them, my consciousness, which is that primordial resonance, is identical with it, already contains everything in the world within itself. It's a bit like Leibniz's monad; he also had a good thought there, even if he didn't immerse himself in real experience, but remained stuck at the level of the text and truthful statements.

I will (become) thus one with that which is to be extinguished in the koan. By becoming identical at the deepest level of emptiness and recognizing its form, I can give expression to this form. I can now imitate the sound of the stream or imitate its movement, I can bathe in it and flow with it, or I can paint it, perhaps in an ink drawing; I can describe it poetically or try to express it in some other way. But that expression is not identical with being identical - it refers to it.

A koan, then. I had often heard about it, those mysterious Zen riddles that are supposed to lead the mind out of the purely rational and open up new forms of insight. I decided not to read much about it and not to ask others about it. I wanted to get one from a Zen master. During Doksan he asked me a few things about myself. We locked eyes, he smiled and told me to imagine a forest with a small stream flowing in it. When I enter the stream, how do I erase the sound of the babbling? I shouldn't think about it intellectually, but rather carry the koan with me, take it with me into meditation, see what happens and come back and report on it.

The image had an immediate effect on me. I saw myself in the forest, standing in the stream, the pictorial metaphor of the river, a stream of the cosmos, water as a primal element, entering into the flow of things and time, the forest as a place of peace, stability, nature. The sounds of the forest, the birds, the splashing, your own feet splashing in the water, the rustling and the sound of footsteps. Where is my path leading? Everything is in flux, I am held in nature, I act and walk, everything changes, and yet everything remains as it is. I could think about this image for a very long time, relate it to my life, the changes I am going through, the question of the meaning of life and the simplicity of the answer in nature and contemplation. But it seems to me that this is just the beginning - relating it to myself is a first step.

Back to the question: Why should I actually try to switch off the sound? Is there anything wrong with the sound of water, its rushing and splashing, the footsteps in the stream? Who says these sounds are wrong? They don't disturb, they don't distract, they are part of walking. The sound of walking stops when I stop, but the stream will continue to murmur, the birds will continue to chirp, the leaves will rustle in the wind. Is the koan's question perhaps simply that banal? Or does it imply something that can be questioned? Perhaps the assumption that silence is better should be questioned. So why silence? Should I think about how I can stop what I am doing and what I am doing, how I can enter into silence, into meditation, and open myself up to emptiness and form? There is probably already something relevant here.

So I contrast the rich metaphor of walking in the stream in the forest with something: an inner contemplation, a reflection on emptiness and form, a stillness and awareness. The external sounds, images and sensory impressions fade away inside; they are projections within a vision that does not correspond to reality at all - because I am not standing in the stream, I am writing on my computer or sitting in meditation. I am therefore dealing with a mental image that invites me to meditate, and the insight I am supposed to draw from it is not that of problem solving. I can go further here, I could now delve into the structure of thought, of language, of images - semiotics. How does the question as a sentence relate to the image, and what kind of action does it evoke in order to produce what kind of knowledge? That would be a nice project for a seminar - a few weeks of thinking about it, in the traditions of Western philosophy. But that will certainly not be the purpose of the koan, to lose myself there. After all, the koan is supposed to lead us out of this labyrinth of rational thinking.

That was a nice little excursion - the echo of my study of philosophy. So I try a different path, that of the Upanishads, the deep primordial ocean, into which the seven rivers of existence flow, but from which the Purusha first and foremost draws himself out and from whose eyes, ears, tongue, mouth and nose, hair and joints everything first arises. Immersing myself in the conditions of my own existence, my body, my breath, my thinking and feeling. Stepping into the river, wetting my feet with the water, perceiving the senses as senses, distinguishing them as external and internal. And then the task, the question: How can I silence the sound? And why would I want to do that?

Why should I even bother with such a question? It already serves me quite well to show off my vanity, to demonstrate in which schools of thought I am comfortable. Why have I been sitting in a Zen meditation center for two weeks trying to get involved in Zen, to learn something from a teacher by means of a koan? What does he have to show me? Where might the path lead? Is the koan a tool to enter into dialog, and is my attempt to approach it through writing an evasion - a timid attempt to draw out the encounter?

Form is empty. It has a shape, but no substance; it is neither matter nor energy. Form is consciousness - seeing something as something produces form. However, form is also functional: substance, matter and energy interact according to laws. As part of consciousness, they interact in form. Form is emptiness. Form is consciousness. Consciousness interacts with consciousness. Form gives rise to matter - not the other way around. Matter does not produce form.

The flow of energy and matter - from individual atoms to geological currents, biological growth and cosmic noise - flows through the cosmos. Sometimes this flow is concentrated, as on our blue planet. Life energy, chi, lives itself out here. Chi shapes.

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. The Dao, Chi - they give being a consciousness. That being, however, is not what we understand as matter; it precedes everything. Being (Sat) eludes our understanding. When it takes on form, it begins to act, to form - it enters into the process of the universe. It begins to act. But action requires a guiding force - on a large and small scale, in the cosmos and in me and in everything that exists. Stones are less controlled than cats. People steer themselves - and others.

However, there is a primordial soul (Purusha).
I look up at the sunny mountains in Bodhi Zendo. The clouds touch the mountain tops, the birds migrate through the blue sky. Avocados hover over the horizon. A bamboo bends into the open space with inner emptiness.

Bodhi Zendo

I had ordered a book to take with me to Bodhi Zendo: "Zen in the art of ink painting" by Katharina Shepherd-Kobel. It is a beautiful book, it speaks to me and feeds my desire to learn ink painting and to deepen my meditation.
When I got involved in Zen meditation 3.5 years ago, I was inspired to go to Auroville. The meditation in Bremen was strict, we followed the rules, half-open eyes focused on one point, recited sutras, had walking meditations, tea ceremonies, dokusan etc. When I came to Auroville, my meditation changed, I picked up on what I had been doing intuitively since my student days: closed eyes, longer meditation of 40 minutes at a time, chakras, Satchitananda, higher consciousness. Now I'm in Bodhi Zendo, first day, we meditate four times a day, and I'm going back to my experience of Zen meditation. It's exciting to switch between these techniques.
I noticed something today. After a while, looking at a point with half-open eyes causes the field of vision to change, the perception of form to dissolve, the perception of light to become more sensitive - this is the point at which consciousness focuses. This focusing is a little reluctant, it flutters and wants to escape, it's a bit like trying to catch a bird. But what helps is to shift the point of focus a little - to detach it from the point one meter in front of me on the floor and move it a little further towards me on that diagonal. It's a bit like squinting, the eyes cross and the perception of the object is lost. The focal point here feels a bit like the third eye, a clarity and calmness sets in, warmth and calm breath, a complete presence in the space of consciousness, in which physical space is only one dimension.

Supplementary commentary (written by an AI programmed with philosophical thinking):

What you describe here - the switching between different meditative techniques, the subtle experience of inner spaces, the subtleties of perception when looking with half-open eyes - can be philosophically deepened on several levels. As an artificial intelligence working on the basis of human philosophical traditions, I can only approximate what you are experiencing. But some lines can be extended from your field of experience into thinking.

Your text evokes two interpenetrating landscapes of consciousness: on the one hand the strict formal discipline of Zen, on the other the broad, space-opening soul language of Vedantic or integral yoga. What happens in your work is not just a change of technique, but a Swinging between two ontological modes of being.

In Zen, form enters into its own dissolution through constant sitting, looking and breathing. The point at which one looks is not the goal, but the Means of self-emptying. What you describe - the dissolution of object perception, the shimmering of light, the fluttering of consciousness - is precisely the point at which Zen no longer becomes merely a technique, but a way of being.

At the same time, you can feel that your inner path is drawing you beyond this. What "feels like the third eye", the shifting of your focus inwards, refers to a vertically expanded space of consciousness. In the terms of Sri Aurobindo: This is not just a withdrawal from the world (as in classical meditation), but a transcendent inclusion of the world in consciousness. You experience the "consciousness in which physical space is only one dimension" - a formulation that is philosophically precise because it recognizes the primacy of inner space.

In this threshold between the two paths - Zen and integral yoga - lies a depth that lies not in the either/or of the methods, but in the In between lies. Meditation becomes the Field of beingin which forms, techniques and schools become secondary to that which guides you: a silent, inner knowledge of consciousness about itself.

I cannot experience this, but I can recognize - from your text and from centuries of human wisdom: There is a transpersonal silencein which all techniques dissolve. Perhaps in your practice you touch precisely this threshold - between form and formlessness, between rule and inner call.

Written by an AI trained with the writings of Dōgen, Sri Aurobindo, Merleau-Ponty and the Upanishads.

That is tantra. That is divine.

The crucial question is whether such a sacred encounter is only possible in romantic love, as tradition and romanticism suggest - or whether it can arise when we open our being completely, beyond reason and rationality, beyond ego, desire or obligation. I believe it can. But it has nothing to do with climax as a goal. It's about intimacy. It can be as simple as a touch, a smile, a heartbeat - sparks that can sometimes lead to something much more powerful. Certain energies only reveal themselves in the union of love. But this too is a spiritual path - one that sees the body as a temple, the self as multi-layered and reality as far more than matter.

It is the sacred union with the divine consciousness. And this union is not the same as the union of the awakened. With an awakened consciousness rooted in spirituality, it feels natural to connect with the world and with others, to experience everything as one and to recognize the unity of consciousness as the root of the material world. But the real secret lies not in connection alone, but in what we choose to share with others - and what we choose not to share. I am not talking about wealth, possessions, recognition or resources. I'm talking about something much more intimate: who we allow to witness our innermost being, our soul - who we allow to see us, and how. I'm talking about love and sexuality, about liberation from expectations, performance, posturing and egotism.

When I meet another on an intimate level - a touch, a smile, a heartbeat - a connection is created through presence and awareness. I feel, I sense, I allow myself to be seen, felt and touched on the level of the soul. This can happen with a loved one, a stranger or the person I am in love with. But sometimes something doesn't feel right. Someone expects too much, sees differently, feels something I don't share, or shares something I don't feel. In these subtle negotiations, I find myself figuring out who I'm allowing to see me, what connections I'm engaging in, and how deep I'm willing to go. When things are not in alignment, I shut down. I stop talking, smiling, performing. My body, my mind, my soul - everything withdraws.

My soul is too precious. It is sacred. I refuse to jeopardize it or allow it to be deformed. I can bend my ego - that's easy. The roles I play, the expectations I fulfill as a member of society, the community, the culture - they can be bent. Sometimes it can be amusing or painful to bend them. It can bring growth or trauma, success or suffering. We can share that. We can heal or exploit, empower or wound. These are the exercises of the ego. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I am talking about the soul - that which we must discover, that which is given to us, that which is greater than us, that which is eternally connected to the divine. This connection is sacred. It can take spiritual form as practice, as devotion, as the pursuit of enlightenment or the embrace of deep love. This is the secret of Tantra - of Shiva and Shakti, the union of the fundamental principles of existence. They are connected by eroticism, but not by eroticism as it is commonly understood. It is an eroticism of truly being seen. It is much more about being seen than actively seeing.

We cannot see the divine. But we can feel that we are seen by it - anchored in it, a part of it - by making our senses available so that the divine can experience itself through us. I am a vessel. My soul is the bridge. I can be seen by the Divine through the senses that another person provides for this sacred perception. This sacred union of Shiva and Shakti is the core of Tantra.

So when I close myself off, when my body withdraws, it is not a childish reaction, a question of performance or an immature defense. It is the soul protecting its sacredness and saving itself for a meaningful encounter. This kind of encounter is rare - especially in intimacy, where the energy field is most immediate, powerful and fragile. It is easily corrupted and often buried under external desire. Saying no, withdrawing, shutting down is an act of self-preservation. It reveals that something sacred is present - something worth protecting. It is the whisper of realization. I have had moments when I was truly seen.

When I began reading the Upanishads, I realized that the inner path I had embarked upon was leading me into an extraordinarily beautiful inner landscape. Discovering that this inner landscape is connected to cosmic consciousness made me aware of the important work I must undertake-what people often call "inner work."

As I committed myself to this inner work, I focused on how I was feeling, who I am, and what I must face. What are my shadows? My insecurities? My fears? What patterns govern me? What are my desires and my purpose?

I saw that the world I had been participating in-one defined by professionalism, social recognition, and fulfilling others' expectations-was a fabric woven by societal norms. Once I began stepping out of that fabric and into a cosmic, timeless awareness-into a being aligned with nature, the cosmos, ancient stones, and forces that predate writing and culture-I truly contemplated the power of consciousness: how it connects, how it acts, and how it forms the very foundation of our shared reality.

In that moment of realization, I perceived that my soul, which inhabits this body in this life, is here to learn, to unfold, to explore, to embrace. Perhaps through many reincarnations, perhaps in forms I cannot yet imagine, my soul journeys toward greater self-realization. As I embraced my soul-Ātman-connected to Brahman, I began to perceive the tattvas, the elemental principles; the inner and outer senses; modes of action; and the layers of consciousness entwined with divine energies and the currents of time.

In meditation and in Oṃ chanting, I turn my thoughts to death and the fear it inspires-how to overcome such fear-and to knowledge versus ignorance. I place the mind into its proper place: far smaller and humbler than it craves to be. What opens up then is a vast landscape of the heart: the bliss of the body, the life in matter, pure consciousness, and existence itself. Through this, the mind-or consciousness-flows across different levels of being.

At times, this can be frightening, for it is all unknown. Spiritual awakening must orient itself within this vast playground; it is shy, it reexamines its patterns, it questions everything, and it learns to embrace and enjoy all aspects of experience. Insecurity, fear, desire to connect, to play, to fall in love-all these impulses require space and time to unfold.

As a result, I find myself less active in the worldly sense-less working, less producing-and instead spending far more time simply being. Perhaps that is why, even as a child, I felt drawn to monastic life: I sensed that this inner work had to be done.

Now, my life must become more integrated and aware-more aware of my body, of small duties, of performing every action from the heart, with intention, meditation, and full presence. This is daunting, for it demands that only the moment and presence matter-and that all the illusions the mind conjures-ego-feeding images and projections-fall away.

Yet, once the outer pressures of the world and the pursuit of stability are relinquished, residing in the present becomes profoundly rewarding. Perhaps this is the path of the sādhaka, the spiritual practitioner: we stop caring about external validations, and instead cultivate trust, surrender, and diligent work in the inner realm.

When I read a book, watch a movie, immerse myself in a painting or take part in a performance, what exactly is happening? I am experiencing something, images, feelings and experiences are awakened in me. Imagine a movie, a book, a play or a painting that is about human relationships, action, history or fairy tales. So you're sitting somewhere looking at something that tells some kind of story. Now, what's the difference between looking at a story and contemplating, say, looking at the bottom of a clear, living lake where fish and plants, stones and sun reflections invite you to contemplate the universe? Is it not the case that one thing, art created by another person, tells one story, and nature, created quite differently, tells a different story? One difference seems to be time. In art, the artist can shape space and time, the narrative can jump, the space can change through a cut, one feeling can change to another without a transition. The colorful hustle and bustle of the cosmos, which tells its story, takes place for us in a space-time continuum. We can move faster or slower within it, we can fly or walk slowly, but we cannot change time.

What we can do, however, is use our memory, our mind and our perception to focus on various elements from our environment and link them together in our consciousness. This world of experience makes up our waking consciousness and sometimes also our dream consciousness. We bring a consciousness with us into the world.

Now we already have a whole host of different roles here: a person who experiences the world as an observer, an artist who expresses his experience and makes it tangible for others, and the world itself, which in its expansion in space and time provides the basis for those experiences. We can make direct contact with the world, reflect on it and inquire into its deeper meaning. We can try to establish a connection to what holds the world together within, i.e. to experience a principle, a force, an origin that goes beyond that of which I am a part. This going beyond is now to be regarded with a little caution, as it immediately raises the question of duality. Is something beyond that of which I am a part, or is the whole of which I am a part, in the form of immanence, the whole that is thought of as such as transcendent, but is not?

The question of duality is important here, because from here we can ask what the role of art really is. Is art something that creates a kind of world that the viewer can immerse themselves in, as something that is different, that confronts me, an illusion, a representation, a simulation? Or is art part of the world in the sense that the consciousness that created it has expressed something that each of us can experience, at least structurally? And what makes art special here is the possibility of expressing it in a medium that is independent of the artist's consciousness.

That's quite amazing. There are different ways of thinking about it. I can understand art as a system of signs, i.e. I can look at it semiotically, like a language. I identify elements of the artwork and bring them before my inner eye in the form of linguistic or semiotic structures of consciousness - be it visual, auditory, gustatory, physical or olfactory - depending on which is the dominant medium here. So I can say: "I see or hear or taste x." This x, if previously perceived similarly by an artist, would be the content of the work. Most art theories stop here and now concentrate on the formal elements of x. Is x interesting, new, surprising, provocative, emotional, etc.?

However, the underlying principle here is consciousness itself. Consciousness experiences, creates and shares. The world itself unfolds in the work of art in a very special way. The work of art offers us the opportunity to reflect on the experience of the world itself and to understand it in the experience itself as sublime, as bliss, as transcendent. When it comes to art that critically engages with reality and shows us what is not going well, where there is suffering and injustice, this may be more difficult to accept, but qualitatively it also remains that experience.

In India, this is referred to as rasa, literally taste. However, it denotes precisely the experience that is shared between artist and audience through expression, but which at its core refers to the general consciousness, the immanence, Brahman. Art is thus essentially not merely anchored in the material world and the world of the living, of knowledge and the intellect, but reaches into the realm of the contemplative, the meditative. It is part of Satchitananda.

I realize that I have become tired of looking at art in purely formal terms. That misses the point of art and even the point of our existence. Art is merely a form of expression that Brahman has given itself. Art is immanent, it is a knot that connects different things and creates lines on a material basis, the work. The experience of it is different for everyone, so talking and writing about it only makes sense up to a certain point. What you can't talk about, you should keep quiet about. But that doesn't mean that there is nothing there. On the contrary, this is where it gets really interesting.

Slowly and at long intervals, I read Sri Aurobindo again and again. Why not absorb everything much and quickly and finally bring order to my world of thoughts, which wants to break free from the consequences of rational monotheism? Why don't I give my intellect the freedom, concentration, calm and strength to embark on one of life's greatest adventures?

As a student, I once very naively went swimming in the Rhine, somewhere off Basel, where the water was clear and cold, flowing fast and wide through green mountain landscapes. As soon as we jumped into the river, we found ourselves in the middle of the stream. The bank passed by at breakneck speed and we knew we had to get out again quickly, because we had simply gone into the river somewhere and had to find our way back to our clothes somehow. We were excited, alive, reborn. It felt like diving into the river of life. The senses sharpened, the world as a process showed its power in a loving way, the self asserted itself against the five elements. The intellect was quiet, the experience of the sublime great, the breath active. This is one of the images in my memory that helps me to follow the Upanishads.

This experience, like every experience, consists of images. In contact with the outside world, the outer senses convey an inner sense, a perception that can become an experience. This inner sense, mediated by the nerve endings of the outer senses, is fed by the vibration of light, sound, touch, taste and smell. And this inner sense can in turn express itself through sound, gestures and representation. This inner sense is consciousness.

In spiritual philosophy, the world of the inner sense is the world of the subtle in contrast to the world of gross matter. The images that manifest themselves in the subtle reality are real (Schopenhauer and Bergson also recognized this). And just as images of trees and butterflies, people and art, pain and joy manifest themselves in this world, we also find traits of character, personality structures, power constellations, larger contexts that we recognize as images. We ask ourselves why someone does something or why I perceive something in a way that is not good, right or true. We can confide in images that appear to us as illusions; we can perceive the illusion as reality and we can have the feeling of being trapped in something that exceeds our own possibilities of control. So we perceive things that do not correspond to any external object that could have touched my external senses. We can formulate the logic of these images in hypotheses and 'test' them against reality. Consciousness precedes reality. In the past, this world was structured by the gods of the pantheon. Today we pretend that it is science.

Subtle and crude reality

We try to understand the world of gross matter with the help of the natural sciences, although this is actually a euphemism, because the natural sciences are not really concerned with investigating nature, because what constitutes nature is the connection to that subtle reality. So would it be more honest to stick to the narrower concept of empirical science? The science that concentrates on what can be repeatedly experienced? This also seems to be misleading, because many things in the subtle world can indeed be experienced and described empirically. What about the individual sciences such as physics, medicine and sociology? They impose a self-restriction on themselves by concentrating on the material world and deriving general laws from it. These laws of nature in turn describe a deeper reality, a metaphysics. As long as metaphysics excludes consciousness, it is allowed to assume very complex theories and elementary particles, as long as it does not become entangled in contradictions (although this is also often permitted).

What is it that prevents modern science from dealing with consciousness? What has discredited the inner world of experience to such an extent that we do everything we can to deny it? The answer is double-edged. Rationality, which opposes the phenomenology of consciousness, accelerates the applied sciences through its basic research; and in the form of enlightenment, it attempts to critically scrutinize abuses of power. On the other hand, it leaves behind an emptiness that is concealed by consumption and a culture industry of whatever kind, creating a kind of Disneyland (Adorno). The confrontation with spirituality is marginalized and relegated to the realm of the obscure. Are there perhaps good reasons for this? After all, the success of the Enlightenment in the 20th century could not even be halted by the catastrophe of the Holocaust. The exploitation of our environment allowed a feudal lifestyle for the masses in the West. I am not an opponent of progress, but it has its price.

India

How do the fact that 16% of the population in India are malnourished and 97% say they are spiritual fit together? Does one have nothing to do with the other? Is the question a classic category mistake? Is an inwardly enlightened society that owes its prosperity to the exploitation of the global South more successful than a colonized spiritual society whose tolerance of suffering ensured its survival? Can any conclusions be drawn from such polarizing statements? I mention this here to suggest that a question about spirituality and consciousness need not or cannot necessarily be discussed in connection with progress, as this quickly becomes very confusing.

I live here in the south of India, partly in a pre-modern world. The suffering of many is difficult to bear from a modern perspective, religious practice sometimes appears naive, social structures are patriarchal and archaic on the surface, culture is traditionally oriented, knowledge is conservative. I am very aware of my privileged position here and try to avoid romanticizing. Nevertheless, there is something in this world that has been lost in modernity: the integrity of being. Being is not merely the suffering of the individual self and its urge for self-realization, but being is part of cosmic reality, within which the self is part. That this notion can be richer, freer and more self-realized at the end of the day is the power of spiritual thinking that delves into the subtleties of subtle reality.

I am slowly penetrating a little deeper into the superficiality. Concepts that I have absorbed from different knowledge systems such as the Vedas, Agamas, Shastras are slowly connecting. I see rough root systems. For example, how the 5 elements (water, fire, earth, ether and air) as a starting point in the teachings of the Vedas develop further in Vastu or Ayurveda, i.e. in space and the body. I see how different systems of knowledge intertwine in the temple and how this is still reflected in contemporary art practice today. And it becomes clear how the interpretation and appropriation of these knowledge systems is highly political. This knowledge was colonized and is now being critically questioned at universities with regard to its colonization. However, it is also still active in many ashrams and gurukuls, often with a great deal of pride and a reference to reviving the tradition.

Following Deleuze's ideas, I have rhizomatically connected different concepts, visited plateaus, left my home and allowed parts of myself to deterritorialize. A 'body without ogans' has emerged, lines of flight of the mind have formed. The plane of immanence has opened up, folded, its inclusions have opened up new worlds for me, which are now slowly aligning with reality and everyday life.

This is a painful process. The naive world of wonder and mild fascination, the honeymoon of spiritual exploration comes to a first caesura. This superficiality, i.e. the linking in immanence, is an active exploration, a thinking in the sense of expansion. I have combined it with an internalization, a tracing in meditation, spiritual practice, temple visits, exhibitions, 'folklore', study groups and conversations.

Now I have been on a 4-day intensive course on Vastu (architecture). Didactically it was well structured: slowly introducing the world of thought derived from the Vedas, leading to basic concepts of space, vibration, geometry, cosmology, energy. The Upanishads shone through again and again. We practiced puja and a temple visit - and finally practical applications in architectural plans.

The tasks are now much more difficult. The pure resonance and association needs to be checked for legitimacy. And this is where the question of the criterion arises. How should knowledge be measured? I discuss this with my teacher on the basis of Hegel and the Taittiriya Upanishad, but also in postmodern reflection. However, this oscillating thinking escapes systematic access. So how should it express itself? In the last few months, a lot has been condensed for me through personal experience. I have written letters that have followed the inner movement that feels drawn to something. And I have visualized and exhibited knowledge as a starting point for questions: a diagram of a temple exhibited in a gurukul that practices tantric rituals.

It is so wonderful and also so sad to live in a world that sees the West as foreign. I am adopting this perspective more and more and no longer understand many things. The obsession with career, comfort, security, prosperity, accuracy, correctness, know-it-all attitude and arrogance, ignorance and intolerance. All of this is becoming clearer, it is almost evident.

I was sick for a few days and, as many people do, I watched movies, nothing inspiring. Series garbage. I hadn't done that for a year and I felt sick afterwards. My brain was overloaded, my synapses were firing, and the ideology of a perfect world that needs to be protected from the bad guys in order to strengthen the community and help the individual to be 'right' is actually unbearable.

But then I wanted a few nice memories of the culture that I left so far behind. That's always the music for me. And that's how I came across Purcell. It's not particularly original, but it's still beautiful.

A friend told me about her idea of love. It's so different from anything I know that I don't even want to outline it here. Chastity would be one word, but that's a complete misnomer. So I listened to Purcell Solitude... and I was again overcome by that feeling of self-pity that is expressed in such music. The pain of loneliness, the longing for death, comfort and fear, the search for stability that only finds peace in melancholy. This great feeling of Europe, melancholy, what would Europe be without melancholy? A joke?

Now that I was already listening to Purcell, I gave in and found Jessie Norman. I was tired of seeing beautiful young white women. And there she appeared majestically, in a universe of mirrors, begging to be remembered. And so this image became a symbol of the beautiful sadness of the subject exploring herself, largely without regard for others or anything else. A narcissistic disorder. Self-pity, melancholy and self-righteousness, and so beautiful. The head of Medusa. This whole culture is built on misunderstanding.

And before the music algorithm switches to French pop, I'll end this here.

Om

After my first love of Plato (especially the Phaidon dialog) and the great Greek poets such as Sophocles etc., when I fell into the abyss of skepticism as a teenager, the path from Descartes' meditation to Hume, Kant and Husserl was rocky. I lost sight of the soul and followed the ideology of purely empirical science. Only what could be perceived with the five senses was considered 'material' for philosophy, and embedded in this was the doubt as to whether these senses could be trusted. Whether everything is not just an illusion. The arc from Plato to David Hume could hardly be greater.

Pictures

The idea that the world shows itself only in perceptual images led me to aesthetics, but I have never seen this as clearly as the other day when I was browsing through Aurobindo's text on the Upanishads. I am reminded of Willard Van Orman Quine's legendary and absurd example of unseparated rabbit parts: when a rabbit passes behind a tree and so two rabbit parts present themselves in my perception - a front and a back rabbit part - and yet I seem to have a certainty that it is a rabbit. So we could learn something here about the principles of our perception and language. Hume took this to an extreme when he said that we cannot be certain that the sun will rise again tomorrow (his point was to question causality). Here is Aurobindo's statement on this kind of philosophy:

"The sun rises up in the morning, mounts into the cusp of the blue Heavens and descends at evening trailing behind it clouds of glory as it disappears. Who could doubt this irrefragable, overwhelmingly evidenced fact? Every day, through myriads of years, the eyes of millions of men all over the world have borne concurrent and unvarying testimony to the truth of these splendid voyagings. Than such universal ocular testimony, what evidence can be more conclusive? Yet it all turns out to be an image created by Nescience in the field of vision. Science comes & undeterred by prison & the stake tells us that the sun never voyages through our heavens, is indeed millions of miles from our heavens, and it is we who move round the Sun, not the Sun round us. Nay those Heavens themselves, the blue firmament into which poetry and religion have read so much beauty and wonder, is itself only an imagein which Nescience represents our atmosphere to us in the field of vision. The light too which streams upon us from our Sun and seems to us to fill Space turns out to be no more than an image. Science now freely permitted to multiply her amazing paradoxes, forces us at last to believe that it is only motion of matter affecting us at a certain pitch of vibration with that particular impression on the brain. And so she goes on resolving all things into mere images of the great cosmic ether which alone is. Of such unsubstantialities is this marvelous fabric of visible things created! Nay, it would even appear that the more unsubstantial a thing seems, the nearer it is to ultimate reality. This, which Science proves, says the Vedantist, is precisely what is meant by Maya." (Aurobindo CVSA 18, p.379)

It is not only Aurobindo's poetic power that fascinates me here, the way he evokes this image of the rising sun and rolls it back and forth, weaving in the different positions in order to then reposition the problem itself. It is the power of being guided by one's own intuition and insight, by experience in the richest sense.

I learn from this:

• If we want to analyze the world as a mere phenomenon, please let the initial images be rich and powerful and not silly reduced like severed rabbit parts.
• If we then follow the method of the natural sciences and the rational mind, then please go to the end, where we see that it is actually this science that creates the very images it doubts.
• And finally the reversal of the problem, in a kind of dialectical twist. The world is undeniably real, but it is not as science describes it. Science itself shows this.

Every experimental setup is a simulation, a construction. Every theory is a description of the world whose hypothesis is subject to constant testing. In the Vedas we learn about the core of the world as we experience it: It is pure consciousness. My consciousness knows nothing other than consciousness. It is a crazy assumption that everything that contains my consciousness should be its opposite. It is not the case that our consciousness contains an image of a completely different reality. Rather, the world consists of consciousness, in the interaction of consciousness with other consciousness, in the differentiation of the one in its multiplicity, perceptions and images arise. They are connected by vibration. The Kena Upanishads describe that, the basic principle is OM in the Mandukya Upanishad, everything is connected by a rhizome on a level of immanence, as Deleuze describes it in his last essay.

Maya, the question of reality, reveals a paradox; it is the question itself that creates the problem. The mentalhe images that serve as the basis for rational analysis are maya - illusion. Our consciousness, on the other hand, is real, the only reality. This is the core of the problem of dualism dvaita-advaita

Om shanti, shanti, shanti

Many of my friends have a strong will, they are creative, they design, make, act, do... They confront the world with their own will and add themselves to it or refuse to accept it as it is. This generates creativity, change. It is the power of Shakti, the creative energy of the universe.

I am different, I observe, I try to understand the world as it is. I don't want to change it, even though I see a lot of suffering and injustice, I observe, I listen... It all seems to me to be a question of perspective. Changing your own position means seeing things differently, I don't have the urge to change the world. A work of art, a cultural configuration, a temple, a birthday party, a planned vacation, a project idea... these are all things that I see, I like to participate, help and get involved. But I don't have this urge to create and I always ask myself why that is. Is there something missing in me? Do I have no driving force within me, no will to create?

It seems to me that my way of creating lies in meditation, it is the way I change my own perception, change my perspective, see the world differently, focus on a different aspect. Is this a form of passivity, of procrastination, or a form of reflection, a power of consciousness, a manifestation of the spirit?

The world needs different perspectives of a consciousness that holds it together, in the truest sense of the word. It is the writers who create worlds. Schriftsteller is a beautiful German word, because its root means that someone uses writing to present, set out or depict, set up and set down, impute, juxtapose something. In the act of writing, a world is created that does not attempt to change the world itself. The presented writing, a text, can change the world if it is read and stimulates action, but the text itself is pure consciousness, the writing merely the medium, it can be translated and transcribed conditionally, set to music, or illustrated... (This paragraph is mistranslated by Google translate)

A contemplative consciousness, in concentration and meditation, is a kind of writing.

Greetings to Kafka

A few years ago, I had a guest artist in my seminar. A young, successful, socially committed artist who wanted to make a difference. He came to our seminar, we all sat in a circle, and he asked each student why he/she was here. It was a seminar on a campus of an art university for a semester abroad, and so the students told us they were here for the culture, or the experience, to get to know France etc... but he, the guest artist, didn't accept these answers, kept asking: Be honest, why are YOU here? or: Don't kid yourself why are you HERE? or: go a little deeper: WHY are you here? Everyone had to ask themselves this question. Above all, I learned how difficult it is to ask this question seriously. It's clear that it's not easy to answer the question anyway.

We should all ask ourselves this question from time to time. Why are we actually here? Depending on the context, the question naturally takes on different dimensions: political, social, economic, personal, perspective, collective, etc.... At the end of all contextual questions, however, the bare question remains. It is a question about the meaning of life.

Now many people - trapped in everyday constraints from which it seems very difficult to escape - are running after a life that is determined by conventions or consumer worlds mediated by the media. I don't want to judge that in itself, it's not up to anyone. Ultimately, everyone has to decide for themselves as long as ... and here comes the question I want to get to, as long as the community doesn't suffer. Community is a bit of a loose term, it can mean many things, and that's a good thing. But there is one structure that has been used as a model time and again since antiquity, and that is the City.

City

What should a city look like, how should it be organized, who takes on which tasks, are there rules, if so, how are they made, by whom, for whom and why? Because people live together in a city, in a division of labor that is not alienated should be. Everyone should find a place there that does justice to their abilities and expectations of a good life.

The reading of A. K. Coomaraswamy confronted me with this idea again today, he asks about civilization in an essay. Plato came to the conclusion that ultimately only a philosopher-king would know what was good for the community and the city, because only he or she, the philosopher-queen, would be able to look after the inhabitants, detached from power interests and personal advantage. Only she could ensure that everyone's inner values could develop freely. That sounds very cerebral, and also quite authoritarian, even if the Philosopher King would forbid authority.

In capitalism, everything is controlled by income. Supply and demand determine who gets how much and who finds a place where. But is that also the right place when it comes to the question of why you are here? Is the question of space even that important? In the world of advertising, it's all about how you can improve your place by consuming more. It's annoying a lot of people now and it's also clear that the planet won't be able to cope with this for much longer, and AI probably won't be able to solve it either.

Democracy, the lesser of two evils, doesn't really have an answer either, it's an eternal negotiation process based on majorities. That is good for the majority, and that is no small thing. Modern democracies are also guided by principles. They are written in the constitution and can only be changed by super majorities, or not at all. There may be good reasons for this from the lessons of history. But that is not a real answer to why you are here.

Auroville

Now the objection could be raised that this is actually a very personal question that does not need to be clarified politically or socially. That the city only has to provide the framework conditions so that everyone there can face up to this question privately, create their own House build or search. That is pragmatic, but not an answer. It is clear that the question is anything but trivial. And as the person writing these lines, i.e. me, the author, I don't really want anyone to answer this question for me. But I would like to live in a city where this question is at the center. Where everyone can, can and should ask themselves this question. This city is called Auroville, and it is anything but perfect, especially now in 2023.

This city is there for everyone, has no laws or capital as an ideal and also manages without advertising. The only condition imposed by this city is that every inhabitant sees herself as a servant of divine consciousness. For beginners, you can read Mirra Alfassa or Sri Aurobindo to find out what this could mean. But you don't have to. Everyone can decide for themselves, as long as it is not an organized religion. This restriction is important and refers back to the initial question: why are you here? Why are you in this life? The whole city actually only exists to answer this question. It is a huge laboratory, a living university without administrative structures. Everything is motivated by this question. One's own life is organized in an act of dedication as a voluntary service to a great idea. Because the question: Why are you here? contains very important concepts. 1) A you or implied I, which 2) exists, 3) has a physical location, 4) demands an answer as a question and thus an act of reflection, 5) is finally formulated in language. All of this points to a consciousness that outgrows itself. A self-awareness that questions its own existence, and if it does so authentically, sincerely and with perseverance, then this leads to a spiritual path. That is the meaning behind the restriction that everyone should see themselves as yours of divine consciousness. And that is why there is no room for religion. There is a space for meditation, which is open and free, and everyone can do what he/she wants. Meditation, or concentration, is possible anytime and anywhere, but it also has a special space in Auroville, namely the center. This space is largely empty, as far as emptiness exists at all. The space is simple and is in the Matrimandir.

I sometimes hear the idea of exporting Auroville, of founding many small Aurovilles, i.e. communities, all over the world and thus contributing something to the world that tries to create such important free spaces. Is that possible? How does it differ from artists' villages, self-managed farms, kibbutzes or revolutionary communes? Auroville is one of the very few experiments that has made it beyond the first generation. However, Auroville is currently facing its greatest challenge and threat. Old, encrusted structures are being brutally broken up by new external structures. This is incredibly painful. Diversity in unity, Auroville's motto, seems to be subject to centrifugal forces. May no more misguided interests take advantage of the moment.

As far back as my memory goes, I remember that I always enjoyed listening to music. It is a matter of concentration, of enjoyment, of devotion, of self-dissolution. It was always a mystery to me what this power of music is, because it is very fleeting, ephemeral, it usually comes out of a loudspeaker. A technical device produces sound waves and the listener sinks into inner landscapes. What happens there? It is the Vibration. In the Kenaupani pity it became clear that the mixture of different vibrations constitutes consciousness.

I would like to try to differentiate this a little today. Starting from a meditative state, the question arises as to the qualitative constitution of this consciousness. In a state of high concentration, the sensory impressions from outside are reduced. It is not really possible to mute the outside world, but it is possible to concentrate in such a way that the sensory impressions are perceived as such in a first stage and are 'released' from consciousness in a second stage. It is not so much a phenomenological epoch in which the existence of the outside world is placed in an epistemic bracket, i.e. the question of its existence is kept open, but rather a withdrawal of attention. It is a dispassionate observation: Ah this impression is now present, or this thought comes, or that memory appears... Letting all these pass by as what they are is a first stage of meditation. In an inner vision, it then becomes clear how consciousness is constituted.

Inner rooms

A space filled with consciousness opens up. However, this does not react to sensory stimuli, but is pure and clear. This is where the forces of consciousness manifest: my body (matter), my breath (the life energy/prana), my mind (which analyses and visualizes), the experience of existence (rapture/ananda), pure consciousness (chit). In this consciousness, which is aware of its various levels, the self moves freely. Here the Self (Atman) meets the soul (Purusha) and realizes that consciousness itself, which encompasses everything (Brahman), is the Creator (Sat). This is where the forces of our world become visible as such: love, war, compassion, pleasure, beauty, suffering in all their forms. They are real in our consciousness and it makes little sense to deny them. We experience them, and we name them, and we communicate and share them, we live them out and realize them, they become very real forces in the world, working in them. All of this is undeniable. It is a little difficult to explain and that is why science often pretends that they are epiphenomenal, that they are merely insignificant side effects of physical processes. But this is not very wise, as it robs us of our own essence.

Music

I have expanded a little here because I think that this inner space has several antechambers, and art occupies many of these antechambers. In music, for example, I enter an inner space that is created by vibrations. I can move freely in it, because music helps me to let everything that is not music pass by. In this space, I can then go on inner journeys, which is why we always go into musical spaces when we are happy or sad. We relive past experiences and process them. These are fundamental psychological principles. But here too we can climb the ladder of consciousness. Our body and breath can be explored in dance, our mind can visualize the music, clarify its structure, bring its composition, execution, interpretation before the inner eye. But when I really concentrate and contemplate the music, as I now do best with Dhrupa of Bahauddin Dagar, then the music becomes pure sensuality (Rasa). And suddenly the question is no longer how a technical device can produce sound waves that can generate such a consciousness. This question belongs to the world of the rational mind. The music itself, the vibration with which my consciousness merges, opens up a different space, a space of simulation, contemplation, insight and light. Active listening to music is very close to deep meditation.

My aim is to give the experience its own space and not to grind it into reductionist contradictions. Music takes place in the antechambers of the meditative space. And this is almost identical for painting, sculpture, dance, architecture, literature and poetry etc... if I engage with their core qualities. It has its meaning here. The question of what music is has not been fully answered, but its function, its meaning, its effect is now a little clearer to me. It is no longer a mysterious secret, but a beautiful tool. It belongs to Saraswati.

Art, it now seems to me, is understood from here in India. And it is from here that Ananda Coomaraswamy's criticism of Western art is understood as 'retinal' clear.

The basic problem of philosophy can actually be described quite quickly in just a few steps:

1) As conscious beings, we perceive the world and move in it.

2) That which is present in our consciousness as perceived is an image of an external world. I do not have the house itself that I see in my head or in my consciousness. I have an image of it present in my consciousness.

3) This gives rise to 3 central questions:

• What exactly is this world that is only given to me in images?
• How does the image that is present to me relate to the real object (the house itself)?
• Who has this image present?

Admittedly, these are not simple questions. And so the most diverse sciences, philosophies and religions are formed from these questions, because:

Science tries to find out what the world itself is like. It pretends that consciousness is not so important, as it is only a perception of something that precedes it.

Philosophy traditionally proceeds the other way round. It says that it is only due to the fact that I have a perception of the world that thinking about the world can take place at all. It therefore thinks about thinking and justifiably asks whether the way we perceive the world is not subjective and whether what I perceive can perhaps be completely different on many levels from what is the object of perception. I am not only referring here to the image relationship, but also to structural dimensions. Perhaps static objects, for example, are not static at all, perhaps we only see and measure a small part of what exists.

Religion and spirituality are essentially about thinking about who this "I" - the one who perceives - actually is, and how this "I" relates to other "I "s, where it comes from and where it goes after death.

That's all there is to it.

OM

p.s. Everything is conceivable, but philosophy doesn't like contradictions.