CADALfest took place from December 16 to 20, 2022, at Adishakti. I had not planned to go there, but I was very surprised by the four days of round-table discussions, poetry readings and film screenings, concerts and theater performances by a fascinating group of artists, activists and academics. I picked out a few things and went on Saturday to the “Adivasi Round Table discussion with Vandna Tete, Ganga Sahay Meena, Seral Murmu & Ashwini Kumar Pankaj, moderated by Gopika Jadeja”…
Yesterday I followed something in my mind that I find difficult to describe. In everyday language, I might say I followed my intuition. But it is a little more complex. I drove to Tiruvannamalai again. It was the last day of the Karthigai Deepam Brahmotsavam Festival. So on December 6, 2022, a fire was created on this mountain, as it has been for 2500 years. Of course there is a story from prehistoric times about this. Brahman, the universal Self,…
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…
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…
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…
I have always resisted the word meditation. Much about it was suspect to me. Yet at the same time I have always practiced my own forms of meditation, without calling them that, or without having learned them. For me, the realm of meditation includes: a) contemplation, that is, sinking into a thought and deliberately tracing impulses of thought on a subject, circling until the mental image becomes clearer and appears before the inner eye. b) Paying attention to one’s own…
In 2017 we were in Varanasi. Varanasi is the spiritual center of Hinduism. Whoever is cremated here in the fires that Shiva lit 2,500 years ago and that have been burning ever since is freed from the cycle of suffering.
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,…
