New Spirits – Reading Deleuze in India
Consciousness exists only in connection with other consciousness
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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Recently I listened to a podcast about dreams and was once again very surprised. The director of the sleep laboratory in Mannheim says that anyone can train themselves to remember dreams. I, at any rate, can do that, so that is true. What still surprises me greatly, however, is the reduction of dreams to the subconscious. Dreams supposedly only make use of stronger images to draw our attention to working on something we neglect in waking consciousness. A pity and…
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Today I was in the Matrimandir for the first time. Six years ago I took a guided tour; that is a prerequisite for going there alone later. It also makes sense to have a rough orientation as to what kind of place it is, how to behave there, what would disturb others. During my Monday meditations in the Zen circle in Bremen, I was often carried here. It was a place of peace and strength. Sometimes it seemed as though…
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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…
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Last year I took part in a Zen meditation circle. Less because I understand myself as a Zen Buddhist than because I sought the quiet community in which to pursue my practice. During Dokusan, I allowed myself to actively trace my questions. I gave up much and left it behind. That was surprisingly easy. The ‘teacher’ drew my attention to the fact that the homelessness I am actively setting in motion in practical terms is also a spiritual state. That…
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In the Kena Upanischade it is described 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 was constructed for this. I see, I hear, cogito ergo sum, imago ergo sum… What is that supposed to be, this cogito (I think), this imago (I imagine)? That I which establishes identity, bears responsibility, acts and interacts. It seems clear that thinking, when it is conscious…
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For so many years I have thought about Marx. Who has not? The idea of an equal and solidary community, free of ideological superstructure or irrational will-o’-the-wisps. A world that knows only matter and sees in it a scientific, progressive movement. Its goal? A world in which humanity is complete, that is, harmonious, without envy and ill will, solidary and equal in rights, without alienation and external determination, which alone makes possible the unfolding of the individual within a collective.…
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When the internet became accessible to the public, that is, in the mid-1990s, there was the phenomenon of people putting their deepest secrets on the internet. Anonymity, simplicity and speed were seductive. The confession quickly made, anonymity largely preserved, and perhaps there was even this little thrill that someone one knows might read the secrets without knowing who was behind them. These tele-confessions were cathartic. Today this has reversed: Everyone should see what one does without finding out what one…
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