As a teenager, still at school, I began meditating; I still vaguely remember my first meditations from that time. Strength and quiet, concentration—mostly at night. They were very special moments. I did not do it often. As a student I continued meditating very irregularly. I remember some of these meditations, mostly lasting 1–2 hours, as though they had just happened. I always lacked the words (when I forced myself to name it, I reluctantly said transcendental); I also had no…
Yesterday I fell asleep expecting to get up early and meditate. I set the alarm for 6 o’clock. In the evening, a French yoga teacher and mountain guide tells me about the early morning hours in India, that they are the best for meditation—I already knew that they were good for Ryas. She also spoke about the morning chants in the towns; I remembered the mantra chants in the temples. I woke at 5:30; temple chants could be heard in…
They were four magical days. The Auroville Film Institute organized a residency with Ustad Bahauddin Dagar from November 7 to 10, 2022. It took place in Bhumika Hall, Bharat Nivas Auroville. Dhrupad – the film (1983) Ustad Bahauddin Dagar is a Rudraveena player. His family has played the instrument for 20 generations! His father and uncle (Zia Mohiyuddin Dagar and Fariduddin Dagar) were true masters. There is a wonderful film about this, Dhrupad, by the Indian director Mani Kaul. Among…
The Solitude Farm in Auroville is a ‘food forest’. This is one of the few English terms that is difficult to express in German through a compound word (Esswald?). We do not have such a thing, and find it difficult to think about it too. An orchard that we would allow to grow wild with other edible annual plants and shorter-lived plants until we had a dense jungle consisting entirely of edible plants… I am looking for a word for…
Curry! Every morning there are wonderful, mildly spiced Indian dishes. They are light and complex; there seem to be 1,001 spices in them. At midday, Solarkitchen, the community canteen: simple, vegetarian, good. The principle is healthy food for everyone; everyone can afford it. In the evening, these wonderful dishes again. What there is not: alcohol, meat or fish, sugar. Eggs are a luxury. In Germany I ate a lot of chocolate; now it is much too sweet for me. I…
Today I went to a choir session. What happened there was a very intense shared experience. I will try to describe it as objectively as possible. We (about sixty participants) began with breathing exercises, ‘warmed up’ the vocal cords, sounded four-part chords and moved through pitches. The choir director pointed out that we were not here by chance. We were in Auroville because something had drawn us here. I think most people in the room understood what he meant; for…
I recently met a young Indian man here. He comes from Delhi, and for him South India is also a foreign world, though not as foreign as it is for me. He does not speak Tamil and is also somewhat more composed, or enlightened, in his spirituality, as one might perhaps say. I met him again on the street, and we went to the afternoon school Thamarai on the edge of Auroville, which offers an afternoon program in a village…
