New Year

Yesterday I ended the year with a shared meditation. It was beautiful, calm, concentrated. And in a moment I want to go to the sea, swim a little; this seems a good start to me.

I let a little of how I have lived over the past years and decades pass before my inner eye. I have lived in different places in different countries. That was exciting: different customs and practices, languages, cultures, different sensory impressions, from nature and food to architecture, celebrating together, etc. I enjoyed many things, wondered at many things, let myself be inspired and told other people stories, changed perspectives. I thought I had had an interesting life.

Performance

I have participated in a world that strives for progress, feels committed to the Enlightenment. To partake in a particular form of prosperity, which each person negotiates individually according to their longings and possibilities, a price is demanded: performance. This technical word, which reminds me of physics lessons and the horsepower of cars, is the unit in which everything is calculated. For most people performance is tied to wages; for those who can afford it, or want to by adjusting their lifestyle, it can be recognition. In any case, these are very external criteria; very few people consistently orient their lives toward their own ideals. Yet even this inner compulsion to be true to oneself still follows the principle of performance.

I now truly wonder whether this organization of society really has no alternative.

Karma Yoga Is Not Capitalism

The Auroville experiment, which I am taking part in here, is trying to develop an alternative. And yes, to concede the critics’ point straightaway: It does not add up. But it would be a misunderstanding to focus on this perspective. Karma-Yoga is not capitalism.

I also have to—and want to—admit that I am in a privileged position, able to afford moving between different lifeworlds. But having lived in so many countries, I also have to say that changing one’s lifeworld is much easier than most people think. It also means renunciation.

Only now I am asking myself, very seriously indeed, whether I even still want the luxury of flexibility.