Doday life is so complex and there are so many different ways of living. There is no right or wrong way to live. Life is a gift. But what do you say about the negative energies, the destruction and aggression, the greed and resentment? That's all part of it. There is only acceptance. But acceptance means [...]
Moist media
Uur brain is not the seat of our mind, but the medium with which we can reach the spiritual. When I heard this for the first time many years ago at a conference on media theory, I was amazed. Were they really serious? Is it crazy or brilliant? There is this wonderful old-fashioned word 'subtle'. [...]
Carried by feelings
II live in a hyper-complex society. I notice this in political and social issues that no one can really grasp in their complexity anymore. We can cling to principles such as justice, equality, freedom, consideration, sustainability, etc.. But when it comes to the specifics, it becomes difficult. Should I stand up for myself in a conflict [...]?
Kinematograf - Images of thought
While meditating, I often watch my thoughts come and go and try to slow them down. Thoughts come and go, and often I don't understand where they come from and why they are replaced at some point by a completely different thought. What chain of associations is at work here? These chains of thought seem to [...]
Elan Vital - Vitality
Ialways had a stomach ache with an atomistic world view. We learn at school that the smallest components of the universe are atoms. Now physics has moved on and we are talking about protons, electrons, positrons, quarks and strings etc. ... ... But at its core, the idea remains the same: the world is made up of the smallest pieces of matter. This is [...]
How do you build a city?
II am embarking on an experiment. A city is being built in Auroville. It is dedicated to humanity. It is about exploring consciousness, spirituality and unity. UNESCO is supporting the project, the state of India, many people around the world. There is a charter, a plan, many plans, many opinions, progress and difficulties. [...]
Social utopia
Ene of the most serious misunderstandings of recent generations is the confusion between economic and political theory. It seems to be almost a consensus that capitalism is understood as a political theory. There may be many reasons why capitalism needs to be understood politically. There are certainly also reasons why capitalism is often thought of together with democracy. For many [...]
History of ideas
II love complexity, but sometimes also radical simplification - in order to gain some clarity. For example, the history of ideas in the visual arts. In Europe, after the great migration of peoples, the history of art can be sketched as the history of ideas in woodcut form: In medieval art, stories were told visually - mainly the stories of the Bible. Most people [...]
Event horizon
Slack holes are a mystery to us. I am not a cosmologist and deal with black holes in a popular scientific way with a philosophical interest. They mark a limit to our imagination. Gravitational force influences space and time, says science. Concentrated at one point, it compresses matter to its pure substance, squeezes atomic nuclei and electrons together to form a mass [...]
Participate
Hoday, after many years, I may have come to the market here for the first time. There are so many economies here. Shopping - of course - routines run their course too... Efficiency - the best for the best price. Meeting people, looking out for acquaintances. What I've never seen is the social aspect. People know each other and play [...]
Working on a utopia
Et is definitely time to rethink. What our fathers and grandfathers called progress is destroying our planet. Science is not an end in itself, not everything that is technically feasible is good, not everything that is fun and satisfies our senses is useful. Now we keep hearing from many sides that we should focus on the small steps ahead [...].
Plato's cave
In Plato's allegory of the cave, people sit in front of a wall on which the shadows of real objects in the world can be seen. As they have only seen the shadows in their entire lives, they think that these are reality. The philosopher's task is to explain to the people that they should turn around in order to [...]
Forest
Dhe forest is a wonderful habitat. I recently heard a little story about a man who whistled a tune whenever he entered the forest. The animals recognized him after a while and accepted his presence. They no longer ran away and sometimes even greeted him. We usually don't see the forest as it is, [...]
It takes a village
Im sitting in a café in France. There's a lot of chatter around me. This morning I was 'on the Internet'. How different these experiences are. It's hard to compare pears with apples, and yet we often do. Working in the office and working from home, for example, are similar, searching for community on social networks or on the [...]
Home
II took part in a Zen meditation circle last year. Not so much because I see myself as a Zen Buddhist, but because I was looking for a quiet community to pursue my practice. During the Dokusan, I got involved in actively exploring my questions. I gave up a lot and left a lot behind. It was surprisingly easy. The 'teacher' made [...]
Growing pains
Ein an intense month. Moving, spatial separation, friends parting, the love of godchildren, new friendships, longings, waiting... I could write a screenplay about the last few weeks in Provence. Every day filled with pain, compassion and love - collectively in different constellations. But I don't want to tell these little stories, even though Marcel Pagnol [...]
Imagination
Ihe Kena Upanishad describes how the self as such does not exist. Who sees in seeing, who hears in hearing? This cannot be answered. In the Christian tradition, a self has been constructed for this purpose. I see, I hear, cogito ergo sum, imago ergo sum.... What is this cogito (I think), the imago [...]?
Marx
I have been thinking about Marx for so many years. Who hasn't? The idea of an equal and solidary community, free of ideological superstructures or irrational will-o'-the-wisps. A world that knows only matter and sees in it a scientific, progressive movement. Their goal? A world in which humanity is perfect, i.e. harmonious, [...]
Time
Cézanne drew and painted Mont St. Victoire over 80 times. From different perspectives, but essentially just the mountain. This mountain has been there for a very long time, it exists in another time. The fruit fly has one day to live, then it's all over. If we extend our time horizon, we think in generations. A [...]
Confession
Ahen the Internet became accessible to the public, i.e. in the mid-1990s, there was a phenomenon of people putting their deepest secrets online. The anonymity, simplicity and speed were seductive. Confessions were quickly made, anonymity was largely preserved and perhaps there was even that little thrill that maybe someone you knew [...]