Packing
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. Besides the basics like a few pieces of clothing, I need my tech gadgets like a laptop, phone, and camera. And what else? A good flashlight, because the dirt roads there are not lit. And books... There will be a number of libraries there too. I haven't had any ‚fun‘ for a very long time...
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Knowledge
There was a time in Europe when people spoke of polymaths. 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, in many cultures and eras, there have been wise people whom history tells us knew everything that could have been known at the time. This is nonsense, of course. But this narrative serves a longing. We want to know everything, but we have...
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Encounter
I've been waiting for a while. I actually enjoy waiting. Waiting is a space and a time in which there's nothing else to do but wait for time to pass. Usually, you can't do much else besides read or talk, or think. For me, waiting times are therefore always free spaces. I most enjoy waiting in community centers, for example; here, all people are equal. Together with others, I'm in a room where there's nothing...
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Freeway
Highways have always been special places for me. Most of the time, I wasn't under time pressure; I rarely had to get from A to B by a certain time. Rather, highways are travel routes. I find myself in transitional states there, a kind of no-man's-land with endless possibilities. That opens up room for thought. Often, these rooms are simply empty. The brain is busy navigating safely in traffic. It's a pleasant form of occupation; consciousness is occupied and alert, a mistake would be fatal. When I...
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Protected: Soulmate
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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Getting out is a question of perspective
Life is so complex, and there are so many different ways to live. There is no right or wrong way to live. Life is a gift. But what do you say about the negative energies, destruction and aggression, greed and envy? All of that is part of it. There is only acceptance. But acceptance doesn't mean approving of everything, nor does it mean tolerating everything. If a community decides to establish rules and penalize the violation of those rules, then…
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Moist media
Our brain is not the seat of our mind, but the medium through which we can reach the spiritual. When I first heard this many years ago at a conference on media theory, I was astonished. Did they really mean it? Is that crazy or brilliant? There is this beautiful old-fashioned word, ‚subtle.‘ Our body is a medium through which we can reach this. Our media theories are generally conceived in a technological way. There is...
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Carried by feelings
I live in a hypercomplex society. I notice this in political and social issues, which nobody can truly grasp in their complexity anymore. We can hold onto principles, for example, justice, equality, freedom, consideration, sustainability, etc. But when it comes to concrete actions, it gets difficult. Should I take one side or the other in a conflict, or is there a third way? Which of my own actions should I change, and how radical should I be…
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Kinematograf - Images of thought
During meditation, I often observe my thinking, letting thoughts come and go, and try to slow down the thinking process. Thoughts come and go, and I often don't understand where they come from, or why they are eventually replaced by a completely different thought. What chain of association is at work there? These chains of thought seem random, triggered by experiences that are still resonating and being processed. This reminds me of a philosophical idea. It begins with an observation by Henri Bergson…
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Elan Vital - Vitality
I've always had stomachaches with an atomistic worldview. We learn in school that the smallest building blocks of the universe are atoms. Now, physics has advanced, and we talk about protons, electrons, positrons, quarks, and strings, etc. ... At its core, the idea remains the same: the world is composed of the smallest parts of matter. This is such a widespread idea that few people doubt it, meaning they doubt the exclusivity of this worldview. I explicitly do not want to [cover] physics, chemistry, or...
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How do you build a city?
I'm embarking on an experiment. A city is being built in Auroville. It is dedicated to humanity. It's about exploring consciousness, spirituality, and unity. UNESCO supports the project, the Indian state, many people around the world. There is a charter, a plan, many plans, many opinions, progress, and difficulties. Nobody is perfect... I'm going there to help, and therefore I don't want to comment before my arrival. That would be completely presumptuous. I...
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Social utopia
One of the most consequential misunderstandings of recent generations is the confusion of economic and political theory. It seems almost a consensus that capitalism is understood as a political theory. There may be many reasons why capitalism must be understood politically. Certainly, there are also reasons why capitalism is often thought of together with democracy. For many people, that is the same thing anyway. Democracy without capitalism or capitalism without democracy seems unimaginable to many. It sounds synonymous. That is dangerous because it suggests...
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