New Spirits – Reading Deleuze in India
Consciousness exists only in connection with other consciousness
This is Tantra. This is divine. The decisive question is whether such a sacred encounter is possible only in romantic love, as tradition and Romanticism suggest — or whether it can arise when we open our being completely, beyond intellect and reason, beyond ego, desire, or obligation. I believe it can. But it has nothing to do with climax as a goal. It is about intimacy. It can be as simple as a touch, a smile, a heartbeat — sparks…
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What does it mean to understand another person? It is easy to understand someone facing us when we are of the same opinion, because then we are simply agreeing with ourselves. We may even enjoy seeing our own thinking mirrored in the other, enriched by a slightly different perspective, more colorful, more alive, more energetic, because both are pleased to have found someone on the same wavelength. This mirroring, the mirror neurons, gives us a feeling of appreciation, of being…
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Recently I stumbled upon David Hume again. I remember how intensive the study of his writings in Heidelberg was. We went very deeply into the text, very meticulously and systematically. It was the opposite of those Anglo-American lectures on the history of ideas. So I stumbled upon the concept of taste in Hume, as the core of his “aesthetic” theory. I thought of rasa and began a conversation with AI. Larger connections became clear to me, lines I had never…
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This text clarifies the misunderstanding that art is supposed to be a representation. Art is not communication but a unique experience.
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Yesterday I saw two millipedes mating. It was pretty much the most fascinating thing I have seen in a very long time. The creatures entwined themselves in one another, rubbed and courted one another; there was rhythm, devotion, engulfing. The two had met by chance, and after a few minutes moved on in different directions. An encounter. They were two forms of life that had united to beget further life. A Life – A Life Today I then reread Deleuze’s…
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Today I was at a place for village children with special needs (Deepam). Someone from the guesthouse here had invited me to accompany her. It was a kind of ceremony as part of Navarathri in honor of the goddess Saraswathi—she stands for education, prosperity and success. In India today, the objects needed for work were cleaned and consecrated as a kind of thanks. Offerings were brought to them, and there was singing. At the therapy center, alongside figures, books and…
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Many films feature good hotels in central locations where the political, intellectual, and economic elite meet. I always perceived this as something very elitist, colonial, and power-hungry. What escaped me in the films, and probably was rarely their subject either, is the networking that takes place in such places. Now, the Center Guesthouse in Auroville can hardly be compared to a luxury hotel in a metropolis, although it is a very beautiful place, welcoming, friendly, and making life easy. Rather,…
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My perception changes when I arrive in India. The smell, the sounds, the slowness, the intuition, the acceptance, hope are wonderful things I see. Others may see stench, noise, inefficiency, irrationality and resignation to fate, despair. I think it is this other gaze that allows me to feel at ease in India. So I have had quite wonderful experiences. I have learned that different people have different views of the same things. I learned by going from A to B…
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