I come by way of the roads of Western thought. Since Roman times they have been well paved; they connect centers of power and have established a logic of knowledge exchange all their own. They connect points. Their nodes are central, while the path itself is bothersome, laborious. On these roads, a culture of monuments developed; they led to accumulations of knowledge and power. Division of labor led to specialization and progress. A society emerges in which the individual is…
Movement Instead of Rootedness Recently I asked myself whether I really want to be grounded at all. Am I a tree that drives its roots into the earth and does not move, but grows in the surroundings where the seed once sprouted? Or do I perhaps want to be a rock in the surf, washed over by water, yielding a little over millennia and losing itself in the sand?My image of human existence is actually a different one: rather that…
In Zen, the task is to find the true Self. But it does not exist, and that is the mystery of our existence. In a world of representations, cognitive dissonances, and alternative facts, it feels good to sink into the essence of existence, into non-dual being. Thinking helps only in a very limited way, because thinking is, in fact, always a thinking-of-something, a thinking-about-something. Thinking is an activity that relates to something, that concerns itself with representations of the world.…
Connection Over the past two years I have immersed myself quite deeply in the Upanishads, practiced some yoga, and engaged a little with the system of yoga. I have immersed myself in my own body, my own senses, my own consciousness. Have seen that there are a great many levels, and that there is no reason at all to assume that still more levels do not exist. Just two years ago I simply denied most of what I am experiencing…
Sometimes meditation is quite simple and natural. I sit down, enter my body, become aware of my sensory apparatus and of how my consciousness and intellect engage with it, bring everything to rest, and higher consciousness shows itself, another kind of knowledge, space and time, another world of experience … Sometimes, though, it is difficult, and then I learn how meditation really works. I sit down; a chaos of thoughts and feelings spreads out. It takes a long time before…
Slowly, and at long intervals, I keep reading Sri Aurobindo. Why not read a lot and quickly, soak everything up and finally bring order to my world of thought, which wants to break out of the consequences of a rational monotheism? Why do I not give my intellect the freedom, concentration, quiet and strength to embark on one of life’s greatest adventures? As a student, I once went swimming in the Rhine, very naively, somewhere before Basel, where the water,…
In Auroville there is the International Zone, which wants to give different cultures and nations a place to express themselves and interact. Learn more about Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy and his anchoring of consciousness in a global spirituality.
